I attend a radio show every Monday, hosted by my local hockey team. It’s generally held in a bar/resturant - but most of the attendees of the show do not drink. A guy has been bringing his daughter-in-law and his granddaughter. The girl is maybe 6 or 7 and is a cute little girl but is very…“attention-seeking”.
She’s fine when the show isn’t on the air and there are adults paying attention to her. When the show is “on the air” and the adults are paying attention to the program, she tends to get…“unruly”. Or “loud”. Or “obnixious”.
How do we deal with this? I usually sit at the same table with the same people, and this child’s family wants to join us.
How do you tell someone the behavior of their child is making them a social outcast?
Unfortunately, it rarely pays to get involved with other people’s children. You just have to put up with them.
We have the same situation at the Baby Story Time I take my daughter to. An older sister, about four years old, thinks she’s god’s gift to storytime and sits right in front of the book, grabs the toys, demands the welcome song be sung for her and her teddy bear, and jumps up and down during music time–endangering all the tiny toes and fingers. Her mother sits passively watching, beaming at her little lovemuffin. Grrrrrr.
I have a long-term approach, which will probably take too long to make you happy, but has the best chance of working with the least amount of fuss to your group.
Establish a “regular spot” for your radio-show festivities. Make sure that it is a bar. Try for a smaller, family-run type of place.
After you have been going to the bar for a while, get an elderly female relative/friend to call the bar and inform them that it’s totally immoral and dangerous to have underage people in the bar, and that she just KNOWS that that rowdy sports group was letting that sweet little girl drink during their sports programs, and that she’s sure that if the bar doesn’t do something about it, the local police will.
Let the barkeep/owner inform stupid family that their daughter is no longer welcome in their establishment.
Put your big person pants on and politely inform the mother that her child, while adorable, seems to be unable to contain herself during the radio show and her behavior is consequently disturbing others’ enjoyment of it. It is a lot to ask a child of that age to pipe down and sit still for extended periods of time, so perhaps a radio show held in a bar for a bunch of adults is not the most sensible place to bring a six year old.
She probably won’t take it well, but what are you going to do? Your next option is to complain to the event organizers or the manager of the bar. After that, your option is to stay home or find something else to do. There are always going to be schmucks out there unfortunately. All you can do is deal and/or call them out on their schmucktitude.
Whoever is running this thing has to tell the guy that his grandchild is disruptive and if it continues she can’t attend anymore. He may not receive that well, but it has to be done at some point. It can be mentioned softly, but it’s not the kind of thing you can sugar coat and expect anything to change. In any event, don’t approach the DIL, she’s incredibly self-centered and will simply revel in the attention she is receiving.
How long is the show? If it is over a half hour, the kid just isn’t old enough to handle it and should be asked to leave (as politely as possible but it will still not go over well).
If it isn’t then the kids needs something to do while the taping is occurring. Colouring books and crayons are a go-to for that age group or a gameboy-type thing if they have one.
Either way, someone is going to have to talk to the parents/grandparents. Just hope you don’t draw the short straw on this one.
I’m going to see if I can get a friend of mine to talk to the grandfather. Thanks for the advice - pretty much what I thought. I have a feeling we’re gonna just have to suck it up.
Few kids that age would be able to sit quietly, with no attention, during a boring (to them) program, for that long. They’re not built for it and it’s not really fair to ask it of them. Time to let the family know that Little Girl doesn’t belong there.
I’d go with letting whoever runs the show handle it. For all you know, their listeners have written in to say that they love to hear the little one squealing in the background.
If they do join you, then it is okay to say “shh, honey, I want to hear the program.” A 7-year old is plenty old enough to not act up in public, assuming it isn’t a marathon program.