In Public With Loud Children-- Do You Say Anything?

[Jester]

I never say anything to anyone when their kid is screaming. If I am at a grocery store, I will go to the other side of the store. If I am in a restaurant, I will get up to go to the restroom, put in my headphones, go smoke a cigarette, or find some other excuse to get away from the table for a while. If I need to, I might ask to be moved to a different booth. If they ask why, I tell them the noise level is disturbing to me. That has never resulted in a conflict with the parents, as they usually seem to appreciate I haven't said anything rude to them.

I have opinions on whether or not a parent should have a child in particular places, but I also believe in freedom. They have the freedom to bring in their child. I have the freedom to either deal with it or move away. I do not have the right to tell them how to parent their children, no matter how rude their passiveness is. A confrontation would further fry my nerves, so I do what I can to isolate and bring myself back to the ground.

 

[ms spock]

I met a couple of kids on the bus with their mother a few days back. I said she must have been very good to get a bike from Santa Claus, and quite honestly and matter of factly she informed me that "No, I wasn't." The mother said there had been extenuating circumstances. The background was quite sad. Their father had been murdered. There was the media attention. There was a suicide, and a death of a baby. The little girl has a life threatening illness that means she is in hospital most of the time, and her wish was to have a bus ride. Her younger sister cried. It was only us on the bus. But imagine the impact of someone asking that parent to stop that small toddler from crying, on a family trying to make it's way through all of that.

 

[greenleaf]

This is a complicated issue, but overall I don't personally put any responsibility for my being triggered or whatever on another person unless they are actually abusive. I can definitely feel fear due to large, loud men near me, for instance; luckily these days it's not abusive large loud men, generally happy or just rowdy ones, but I can still react. I don't expect men to stop being large though. I generally put loud kids in this category; they are not trying to hurt me; they are trying to get whatever other need met. I personally value our species continuing, and this requires either kids or cloning in big tanks with virtual learning, although the Cylons have a good approach I think.

If I had to have regular health care in a situation where someone was (accidentally) triggering me regularly, or I had to work with them, I would certainly try to work on the situation out of self-preservation and would hope for disabilities laws to help if I needed them... Random strangers are different though, there is no real predictability.

That being said, I can think of a definite exception in my own experience... I was sitting reading in a mall at a table, and a little boy started jumping on the chair opposite me and running over my table, shaking all my stuff around and almost knocking things off. Then he did it again, staring at me. His adult was at a table nearby, just watching. So, I asked her to please get him to stop; her reponse... "you don't have kids, do you..." in a condescending tone. Jeez! I felt like this boy was being trained to be a complete (insert four-letter word here). Was it a gender thing? Hard to know. Kid was male, caregiver and I female. Whatever. That incident really bothered me.

So, I guess I now feel like, if the kid is seriously disruptive and the parents have the ability to do this, the parents need to communicate somehow that others around matter too... This might help the kid learn to value other people too. That kid was being given terrible messages by that caregiver about the value of other people, in my opinion as a completely inexperienced non-parent... So, I wonder what the kid thought, him almost physically harassing a random adult, who then complained at his caregiver, and then the caregiver blowing off that adult.... I wouldn't want anyone I liked to be near him in 10 years...

 

[Jester]

One reason I tend to avoid family-friendly places is because parents often don't know how to control their children, or they simply refuse to do so. You have a child, which means you signed up to handle life and all it has in addition to your child and all they have. Death in the family? Well, now you have a death in the family and diaper changes. Car accident? Car accident and kid that wants to put gum in his sister's hair. You don't get a special pass because you're having a stressful day.

That having been said, if your kid happens to be screaming his head off and it bothers me, I do have the option to move most of the time. As I said in my previous post, I can move to the other side of the store, ask to be re-seated at a restaurant, go out for a smoke, put in my headphones, or what have you. 99.9% of the time, that is my option. Where your freedom stops is when it infringes on my right to eat/shop/whatever in peace. More often than not, this happens at a restaurant. I'll be seated in my booth, and a family will sit down behind me. Then, the restless child gets up and starts pulling at my bags or my coat.

"Oh, let's not do that, okay? That doesn't belong to you." I'll say this in a way that's appropriate for the child's age. A smile and sing-song voice with a toddler. A more stern tone with a 5 or 6-year old.

By then, the parent should take over. If they don't and the child continues, then I will move my items away from the child and turn to the parent. "Excuse me, but (s)he's grabbing my things and disrupting me." Nine times out of ten, the parent will call them back. Usually they tell me the kid is small and can't be controlled. Oddly enough, I have yet to meet a parent of a child with special needs who won't keep tabs on their kids. It's the parents of normal but disruptive brats who are most often irresponsible.

"I can't control him."

"Well then, I'll have to." At that point I will turn back to the child and--in a more severe tone--point back to their family. "You need to sit down."

If that doesn't do anything or if the parent wants to jump on me for trying to do their job, then I'll get restaurant management involved. The waiter/waitress and manager don't want to deal with the kid and his family any more than I do, but they have the authority to tell the family to leave. If I'm told to leave, I will do so, and I will not be back. The family has no right to infringe upon my right to peace, and I will do everything within my ethics and the law to defend that.

Some parents complain that they can't control their children in such places. The solution, then, is to keep children out of those places. Hire a babysitter. Get a friend to babysit as a favor. If you can't afford a babysitter or can't find one, you get to stay home to deal with your kid. It's called responsibility. If your kid is disruptive, it is your responsibility to calm the kid down. Parents of children with special needs seem to understand this. I have several friends whose children are autistic and prone to outbursts. Before the kid has even gotten loud enough to be a disruption, the parent is handling it. Why parents of "normal" kids don't seem to always understand that, I don't know. There are certainly many, many parents who do; I'm not saying it's a problem with all of them.

 

[shimmerz]

Our triggers are our own responsibility to deal with.

I agree with this to an extent. However, if someone yells at me and it is a trigger and can't defend myself, I let those around me know and they don't yell. If they continue to do so and can't control themselves, I stay away from them regardless of their protestations. Their choice to yell, my choice to vacate. I find it the same with children. There is a line. Screaming endlessly is a concern of the parents. PTSD or not, nobody wants to hear a child ranting and raving and screaming. I did have small children (quite a few of them) and when they had a fit I felt it was my responsibility to remove them (as a lesson and to spare others).

As an example, as I was at the Y one day a parent came into the shower and their child was screaming at the top of her lungs. Not only was it irritating but it was also a trigger to me. Thus, what happened next. Because i was in the shower and the parent kept saying as the child was screaming 'shussh honey' in a very sweet tone of voice while I was crawling out of my skin and trapped in the shower, I too screamed at the top of my lungs. lol. I didn't think of it at the time that I screamed but I tell you that child was quiet as could be from that moment on. It worked and when I went walked dazed and confused out of the dressing room and told them what had happened I was upgraded due to health reasons to the adult only locker room.

 

[Chicago guy]

The kids around my part of Chicago seem extraordinarily entitled and loud.
We are having a blizzard so I made a midnight run to Walmart and these teens were bolting from aisle to aisle and almost knocked me down twice, I wanted to lecture them or worse.

 

[TonyG]

Wow,
Kids are little people everything is a game, Some scream and run around just being kids, my three nephews are ADHD and they run a muck every where they go, smacking them does nothing, nor does talking to them,
The one thing I see on here often is people that have been abused and mistreated as children, I am a parent With a boy and a girl and seeing them play together is a good memory I keep forever,
I remove myself from situations that trigger me and it's the easiest to deal with triggers,
I wish I had a answer for you but I dont.