Rather than writhe in frustration which can only be slightly released by writing Pit Rants, why not just yell at the little brats when they exhibit such behaviour? What are they gonna do, throw you in Yelling Jail?
Well, the ones I’m thinking of have numbers and sometimes a size advantage, and a lot of peer pressure not to be ‘disrespected’ (never mind that is what they are doing to everyone else). It’s not in one’s best interest to pick such a fight.
Ummm, Bosda, children horsing around on public transit aren’t only a nuisance, they’re also dangerous.
I’ve ridden public transit in some very big cities, DC among them. Because of traffic, station arrivals, and other stuff, these sometimes have to stop on a dime. Children running around the train, bus or what have you, can fall, injuring themselves and other people, possibly severely. I’ve had kids fall on me. It doesn’t feel good, and I’m sure they didn’t feel good, either.
If the kid is eating, and the train stops suddenly, that child can choke. In any case, food on public transit makes a mess for the other passengers, which is why it’s not allowed in the first place.
It’s not about kids being kids, it’s about respect for the rules and respect for other people. If kids want to play, they can play when they get home. The time and place for playing is NOT on public transit.
Robin
Featherlou, you are right on target.
My sympathies, dantheman, and all the rest of you who are dependent on public transportation.
Thank God I can drive my own little car to work and not have to put up with other people’s obnoxious brats.
Yes, kids can be obnoxious. Yes, they ought to know better. Yes, most parents try their darnedest to drum some social sense into their kids, and yes, as soon as those kids are out of their sight, they can revert into Lord of the Flies wannabes.
What are you going to do?
Well, I’d suggest treating them like kids who are outside the lines of appropriate behavior: get their attention politely, tell them what the problem is, and ask them to change their behavior.
“Excuse me, young lady, that coffee looks wonderful and I’m sure you’re enjoying it, but you’re endangering the other passengers and there’s a good chance that if the train stops suddenly, you’ll spill it on yourself. I would hate to see you hurt or your cute blouse stained forever. At the next stop, please put your coffee in the trash and remember that it’s against the rules to bring it on the train.”
“Excuse me, young man, I know you and your friends are having a blast playing dodge ball between the other passengers, but there’s a good chance that one of us will get hurt. Please put your ball back into your backpack and wait until you exit the train to resume your game.”
Of course, in order for this to work, two things have to happen. The first is that you have to master The Voice and The Stare. The Voice is a tone that implies that you speak with authority, you are being totally reasonable, and you are respectful of them. The Stare, however, is pointed, unwavering, and must make the recipient uncomfortable.
Most people are very uncomfortable confronting others. If you want the kids’ behavior to stop, you have to get over that without getting nasty. The second thing that has to happen is that people other than yourself have to join in. Maybe Little Miss Starbucks would like to completely blow you off, and maybe she does, but if she has two or three people tell her that everytime she steps onto a train with a cup of coffee, it’ll start getting difficult.
It’s not the kids, Dan. The kids will - like most kids - try whatever they think they can reasonably get away with. If we don’t like their behavior, then we have to make sure that they don’t reasonably get away with it.
“I do not have “public transportation opinions”. I have the opinion that kids have a right to exist. That they have a right to access to restaurants, public libraries, public transportation, & theatres.”
I agree with you here and as a father of four I appreciate that I am allowed to take them into public places like restaurants, libraries, on the bus, and to the movies. Because I have been given the freedom to take my children out (instead of keeping them locked in the basement) I feel that it is my job as a parent to instill proper manners and educate them in the rules of proper social conduct. You can call me old fashioned if you want but children need to be taught manners at a very early age.
My two and a half year old daughter understands that she needs to behave when we are in public. She has excellent manners and I can take her anywhere and not be worried about her causing carnage. The other three children were taught this as well and they know that there are certain rules and expectations when they go out in public… OR THEY DON’T GO OUT. It’s simple. People tell us we have really well behaved children and when this happens we tell our children that their behaviour was appreciated.
I work with developmentally delayed adults who often come home complaining about the poor behaviour of the schoolkids on the bus. They understand what appropriate behaviour is because people have taught them what is appropriate. I’ve ridden on the transit with these little hellions and they seem to have not been given the education in proper manners. It makes for a very long ride and I also see those kids who are embarassed by their peers because they too, were taught some social graces.
You can’t put all the blame on the kids nor can you ban them all because of the actions of a few.
Perhaps the kids who break the rules should be banned for a period of time and since they won’t be able to access transit their parents will have to drive them to school. Maybe these parents could also take a refresher in parenting 101 while they’re at it.
I see this so often, kids who are out of control, constantly misbehaving, and basically little terrors. Quite often I can look to the parents and the reason for their behaviour becomes abundantly clear. Parenting is difficult work and some people just aren’t up to the task.
Phouka - I have to laugh a little… when my daughter doesn’t listen all I have to do is look at her and say, “Don’t make me use the voice”.
She will stop dead in her tracks and apologize.
The Stare of Doom[sub]tm[/sub] has to be used very cautiously as it has been known to make little girls cry uncontrollably and causes my boys to look away in sheer terror. Failure to respond positively to the Stare of Doom[sub]tm[/sub] is usually followed quickly by consequences of unimaginable horror… like the chair of “not listening”
You must be some kind of frickin’ child psychologist. :rolleyes:
Seriously, the only way this could be any less effective on misbehaving kids is if you spiced it up with some outdated “hip” lingo. Like this:
Let me preface this by stateing that I am a public high school teacher in a school of 1850 kids that pulls from both the richest and the poorest/most densely populated areas of a major metropolitan area. When you say “these children act like animals”, I believe you. I had two little girls pulling out each other’s earings and slaming each other against lockers on Thursday.
Let me also say that my husband, who is a cultured, intelligent, well-mannered man, would have been none of those things if he had been denied access to public transportation: he grew up in inner-city Chicago, and the L was his life line to mueseums, libraries, parks, etc.
Now then:
Featherlou :
[bolding mine]
Several posters have said very similar things to this, and my comments are addressed to all of them, not just Featherlou, who gets picked on for being concise and coherant.
Railing that these children’s parents should have taught them better is a totally pointless act. The fact is, in many of these cases, they didn’t.
A great many of these kids have never had a parent or family member say one word to them about their behavoir in public. Those who have had parental instruction in how to behave see thier parent’s claims about how the world works revealed to be lies every day when they see their peers act like wild animals with no consequences, and soon adopt the same behavoir. (This is like having your mother tell you everyday that girls really prefer to date boys who wear pocket protectors and coke-bottle glasses–when nothing in your experience backs her statement up, you are going to conclude she is deluded.)
Now then, even sidestepping the issue of whether or not it is justified to punish kids for things they don’t even understand are wrong, the fact remains that if we do not want these children to grow up into adults who behave in the exact same way (minus a certain hormone-driven edge), we have to acclimate them to the way the greater world works. The only way to do that is to let them out in it. I’m not saying their shouldn’t be consequences for their terrible behavoir–it is terrible–but they need to be consequences geared towards correcting the behavoir, not conviencing middle-class adults.
Furthermore, I, myself, and pretty well convinced that the only “consequence” that has any real effectiveness for controlling behavoir is wide-spread social censure. These kids don’t want to look stupid. Convincing them that they do is the quickest way to mold them.
Again, saying “but that’s the job of the parents” is as meaningful as striding out into a crosswalk in the face of oncoming traffic and saying “It’s the job of the motorist to stop.”
I’ve got kids and am very pro-kid and kid-friendly. But I think dantheman has a legitimate complaint.
But more than the behavior issue, I think about safety. How old are these kids? Frankly, I am surprised kids are using mass transit unsupervised. I mean, on a school bus you have at least one adult who can keep an eye on the kids (the driver) and pull over if there is a problem, like them doing something dumbassed, breaking rules, or beating on each other.
Why not add a car onto the trains, specify that it’s the School Transit car, and reserve it for kids who are going to-from school? Hire one adult (or volunteer) to be right there in the car during the times schoolchildren ride, and have them keep an eye on things and assist the kids when they need it?
One of my schools was at one end of town, and my home was at the other end of town. The only bus was an intercity coach on the milk run.
Some drivers were not willing to be subjected to the ill behaviour of a dozen or two children riding unattended. Some simply drove on past our stop without stopping, which in winter led to serious snowball assaults, and the infamous Mickey Bruce incident.
The bus drivers would stop in the middle of town to pick up parcels and grab a coffee, while leaving the bus running. One day Mickey took this opportunity to drive away with the bus.
After a couple of years of this sort of nonsense, I could not tolerate it any longer, so I ran to and from school.
I’ve tried on occasion to correct a misbehaving child (not my own). “Don’t run in the store, son, you might fall and hurt yourself.” Only to hear a voice from hell respond from behind, “You can’t tell my kid what to do!!” The message that kids learn is that they don’t have to listen to any adult other than mommy and daddy. Until the kid realizes that mommy and daddy are just like other adults, so they don’t have to listen to anybody. And then one day the kid becaomes an adult…
HAHAHAHAHA! I haven’t had such a laugh in years!
Let’s try this again in the real world…
BILLY IS CUTE! UH HUH! WHAT A FINE ASS HE HAS!
SO COME OVER TO MY HOUSE LATER AND WE’LL MAKE SOME PHONE CALLS TO BILLY AND…
**SHUT UP! SO ANYWAY, I SAYS TO BILLY, DAMN, MOTHERFUCKER, **
WHO THE FUCK YOU YELLIN’ AT? DON’T DISRESPECT ME! I’LL FUCK YOU UP!
Of course, I should be mindful that these precious little moppets are our future. God save us all.
tdn made me think.
Nobody, including the OP has asked these kids not to do it.
Nobody.
We’re all posting here, bulshitting, and we don’y know.
The OP assumed that these “evil children” would acy like invading Huns.
But dantheman didn’t even try.
He’s just sitting there, fuming.
And everybody is postulating imaginary responses.
So, try.
They might just say “OK”.
Kids want guidance. Try giving them some.
BTW----
Where are the Transit Employees, or Transit Cops?
Manda, these are not little children. There’s no reason to assume they have no idea whatsoever that their behavior is bad. Even if their parents had never taught them how to behave in public, how could they avoid seeing other people’s behavior? When you were a child, didn’t you assume that adults pretty much were behaving as they should in polite society? Why should these kids be any different? So if these kids see all of the adults behaving well, are you saying they (the kids) would then think, “Hm, I bet that’s the wrong thing to do. I’ll act differently”?
These kids probably have a damn good idea of what’s wrong and what’s right, and they’ve chosen to act badly. Please don’t absolve them of their responsibility to behave as human beings simply because you assume they may not have been taught otherwise. They are not three years old.
What’s still puzzling is that the rules for riding the Metro aren’t being enforced, although they were being enforced very rigidly last year (even before 9/11). For some reason, Metro’s become very lax. And yes, I’ve contacted them about it.
Of course, as I usually seem to do with you, I’m probably misinterpreting. My apologies if I am.
I want proof of this. NOW.
You continue to make assumptions with absolutely zero proof. Do you know what this makes you? It makes you a lunatic. Either back up your assertions, or shut up. Thanks.
Again, prove I assumed this. What, you can’t? You mean you’re talking out of your ass?
No shit. I for one will be glad when this whole Orthodox Jewish Breakdancing fad blows over.
**
I can live with that. 
That is an excellent point; recognizing what is wrong does nothing towards solving it. I think most of us (and this has been brought up in this thread already by The Green Feather) feel like are hands are tied in dealing with other people’s children. Plus, we live in a society that is very invested in an “It’s somebody else’s job to do that” mentality.
“are hands”. Hmm. Apparently, I’m typing phonetically today.
Dantheman
Dantheman, they have chosen to act badly because that seems like a good idea to them–because they don’t see any reason not to act badly. My whole point is that bitching about how it is their fault and their fault alone may be satisfying, but it is not effective. As a society, we have to live with these little monsters (and they are little monsters), and for totally selfish reasons I think we should pursue solutions that will help them change from monstors to human beings.
No, this isn’t our job as a society. Yes, this is something that their parents should do/have done. But they obviously didn’t, or these kids wouldn’t be acting this way. So we have to deal with the world as it is, not as it should be.
I don’t think you appriciate how isolated many kids are from “adult” culture. I work with these kids. A great many of them are living is situations that you and I cannot comprehend. You’d be shocked to find out how many of those kids have parents only 14-15 years older than themselves. You’d be shocked to find out how many of them have kids of thier own.
Again, they shouldn’t act this way. But I don’t think that taking away public transportation–which is the only way for some of these kids to ever get out of their world and see “adult” behavoir modeled–is the way to go. If my husband hadn’t had public transportation he’d have never been able to expose himself to all the things that helped lift him up above his own grim reality.
Featherlou
Oh, it’s a hell of a problem–I completely agree. I just hear very similair ranting day in and day out from my fellow teachers until I just want to scream–no, it’s not right how some people (often children) raise their kids. But just sitting around being astounded by it isn’t gonna change anything.