Venting - way OT & alittle wordy....

[snapdragen]

Personally, I think they should be nailed to the floor indoors.

No, I don't have kids - but I do have a hammer and nails........have I gone too far????

**snort**

just a bit.....

[SadieKate]

Not at all (to the hammer and nails)! Bring 'em outdoors also -- at least sometimes. Hubby and I stop for dinner after our evening rides and sit outside. For some reason, the parents seem to think that sitting outdoors gives their children free rein to charge in and out of the fenced area, play on the fountain, trample the landscaping and play chase. Last week, Bubba finally gave up and yelled at a kid who was walking though the carefully landscaped petunias to get to the water in a fountain on top of a raised bed. It gets tougher and tougher to have a nice civilized meal in public. Restaurants have become awash in kids who think the world is McDonald's play land or older girls' butt cracks and thongs. Sigh.

[slinkedog]

Okay, I am a mom of 4 kids, so I'm feeling the need to interject my opinion into a thread that seems to be dominated by non-parents.

I think someone else may have already made this point, but please realize that no one, no parent, no child is perfect. I understand the frustration with parents who don't mind their children. I get frustrated, too, sometimes. I hate it when my kids whine. They get reprimanded if they do it, and they usually don't, but since they lack the self-control skills of adults, sometimes they do whine.

I would dearly love to be able to leave the store when one of my kids decides to go postal in the produce section, but, most of the time, I have no recourse to take them home and come back and finish my shopping. Who will stay with them? What will we eat if I don't finish my grocery shopping? I imagine the same people who sneer at me as I try, while incredibly embarrassed, to get finished with upset children in tow, are the same ones who would sneer at me if I took those same kids to McDonald's in order to feed them because I couldn't finish my grocery shopping because of people sneering at me.

We all have to share this world, and teaching my children that other people are precious and important is an ongoing lesson in our house. We're trying. Please be patient. We're not all finished yet.

[Duck on Wheels]

First let me say that, however irritated I might become personally when kids go postal in my vicinity, I highly admire parents who steadfastly keep their cool, don't lash out, don't scream back, just calmly continue to say "No, you can't have a candy bar now" or whatever, and finish their shopping.

Second let me say that I do NOT have the same admiration for parents who let their kids do something truly dangerous, like playing in the street, without intervening.

Third, just to show how charming kids can be, here's the story my youngest (23) told when we came to his place for waffles this evening. As we arrived, he was putting away some gardening equipment -- mower, rake, and a wheelbarrow full of windfall apples. He said the neighborhood kids, on their way past, had asked him "Could we taste your apples?" Well, he's only renting, and had no intention of cooking up a tree-full of apples, so he said they could go ahead. They each took an apple or two, called out how tasty they were, and the littlest one trailing behind the others as they left said "Tusen takk for eplene!" (Thousand thanks for the apples). See how sweet kids can be?