Never having spent much time in a space with that many children since Tim and I were children ourselves, we were a bit unprepared for some of the displays we witnessed. I will say, for the most part, parents there were attentive and respectful and expected their children at the bare minimum to not swipe toys other small people were playing with, even if sharing per se was a bit too much to ask. I mean common courtesy people. The basic rules of kindergarten apply here, no toy stealing, no hitting, no biting, and easy on the running. Some parents on the other hand were less attentive to their small people, and obviously hadn't ever heard of simple ideas such as common courtesy. Take for example the child in the video below. Here Noah is trying to play nicely in the water table, I even went off to fetch him and little boat of his own so he wouldn't feel left out. Unfortunately before I could grab a toy, Noah became a victim of wee man assault.
** Added Editorial from the witnessing cameraman**
"Please take notice of how cute and sweet Noah looks. More curious than anything else. From the beginning, the other little boy was rude. If you listen close enough you can hear one cursory stop from the other boys parent, but it obviously did no good. Noah was fascinated by the metal thing in the water, and the other boy obviously took great affront to this. As Noah lost interest and turned to walk away, please take special note of the action the little boy took, and then notice the confused stare that Noah gave back. Frankly it made my blood boil, and the camera quickly turned off as I went to rescue the poor little dude." (Tim's comments on the matter!)
It's actually fortunate that I didn't witness this firsthand (as I said, I was off fetching a boat), cause I certainly would have gone up one side of that brat's mother and down the other...just as soon as I had finished giving the mini-perpetrator a little lecture on manners and keeping your hands to yourself. Some people just shock me with their apathy. How is this kid going to ever learn any manners if his mom is too busy having gossip sessions with god knows who on her cell phone while her son is off hoarding space and toys and smacking little boys half his size!
Overall though, I must say, this family was the outlier. All the other kids and parents alike were respectful and decent. And the wee dude seemed to really enjoy playing and checking out all of the new toys. He was walking all over the place and wouldn't you know, when it was time to go, he threw the mother of all (arching the back...no you aren't buckling me into this stroller-type) hissy fits. He wanted us to know that he was protesting our departure...it was well-timed though since he crashed hard for an hour and a half long nap as soon as we got home. Pepere L. got some good testing in with his shiny new camera, and here is the evidence of how much fun the little dude had.
1 comment:
OMG, HOW RUDE!!!!!! That mother should be embarrassed, as that little boy is certainly old enough to know to "keep your hands to yourself". My child would have been pulled away from there immediately for doing that. The children's museum does take some getting used to, first for getting an understanding that alot of the children are too young to have concept of sharing and your just hoping for them to display the basics of decent human behavior and then for the complete lack of oversight some parents show to their children when their there. Ok, so I may be a bit of a "hovering" mother when I'm there but I want her to learn how to play nice with others. I want to yell at that mother for you. As Katherine would say..."NOT NICE!"
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