4 y.o. niece is wonderful birth control. Tell sibling their kid is out of control?

[Anonymous]

Attended a funeral and our 4 y.o. niece was like a wild feral animal during the service. She was rolling all over the floor, crawling under the chairs, screaming during the service, and hitting people in the face who tried to hold her. Absolutely insane behavior and a 1000% advertisement for natural birth control.

The parents (sibling) pretty much did nothing to try to control her behavior the entire time and were simply looking away/hoping someone else would take care of her. We hazard to guess this kind of laissez faire attitude towards parenting has resulted in our horrifically undisciplined neice. I mean she is a real good case for why spanking needs a comeback and why millennials are awful parents. Is it time we speak loud and clear to them that their kid is an awful brat and that their approach towards parenting our neice is pretty much total garbage?

[Anonymous]

Who is the “we” who will do the speaking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who is the “we” who will do the speaking?

My self (sibling of the mom of the neice) and my spouse, and potentially other siblings in the family related to the mom. Everyone thinks our neice is absolutely out of control and even stated out of watching a bunch of small kids, our neice is handsdown, by far and away, the most unruly and undisciplined child they've ever come across.

[Anonymous]

Do you have kids? Four is a tough age, even if she didn't have her schedule disrupted by (possible travel and) an adult event. The parents should not have brought her, or should have left the room with her, but her antics do not in themselves mean she's a brat. Nor is it clear how spanking would help here.

[Anonymous]

Maybe she has special needs? I’d say something, but consider if that might be the case.

[Anonymous]

Or, discuss with them that the way to respond to behavior like that happening in the setting of a funeral (or any other public event or setting where other people are conforming their behavior to social norms) is to pick up the child and walk out. Let the child be feral outdoors or in the car, etc.

This is the biggest change from my own childhood in the 70s that doesn’t make sense to me. When did people decide it was okay to let their kids stay in public settings while acting out like this? It used to be the standard protocol that when a child in public misbehaved, one of the parents or guardians would remove the child until the child settled down. Missing dinner or whatever was the price you paid for supervising your kids in early childhood and respecting the rights of others to be free from screaming feral behavior.

The entitled attitude that children should be tolerated in all situations no matter their behavior is the biggest negative change in modern parenting and I simply cannot see how it benefits kids. I’ve worked with kids on and off for 41 years and I’ve also put kids in juvenile detention and eventually graduated them to adult prison, so I think I have some sense of how things shake out when kids don’t grow up with healthy boundaries and discipline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have kids? Four is a tough age, even if she didn't have her schedule disrupted by (possible travel and) an adult event. The parents should not have brought her, or should have left the room with her, but her antics do not in themselves mean she's a brat. Nor is it clear how spanking would help here.

Four is not a tough age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she has special needs? I’d say something, but consider if that might be the case.

If SN they should be more on top of poor behavior not less.

[Anonymous]

Special needs. Not normal at any age.

[Anonymous]

The kid is four. She should not have been asked to sit quietly through a funeral service that I guarantee she didn't understand. A sitter would be the obvious solution. Second obvious solution would be to take her out of the service and entertain her elsewhere, you don't have to be a parent to do that. I'm old and cranky af, but the child is not to blame here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have kids? Four is a tough age, even if she didn't have her schedule disrupted by (possible travel and) an adult event. The parents should not have brought her, or should have left the room with her, but her antics do not in themselves mean she's a brat. Nor is it clear how spanking would help here.

Four is not a tough age.

YMMV. Lucky you to have easy kids. Four was tough for my kid.

[Anonymous]

For sure your sister already knows that her kid is out of control. Can you offer to help?
Do you have any special knowledge about child development?
Don't just say that their kid is a nightmare, especially if you are not offering real assistance.
The parents obviously are clueless and likely really exhausted by the situation. The kid needs routines, boundaries, and a calm place to learn play and rest.
Can you offer any respite?

[Anonymous]

A lot of this is parenting. You cannot blame a child who is ignored and not parented. No, you say nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she has special needs? I’d say something, but consider if that might be the case.

If she has special needs, and her parents are aware, they would have been extra in tune to what she needed. If she wasn't handling being at the funeral well, one of them would have taken for her a walk. I don't know a single parent of a special needs child who is not on top of outside the norm behavior problems.

[Anonymous]

Do you know one out of control kid and you think all millennial parents are terrible? Stereotype, much?

My gen x brother had completely out of control twins. They got thrown out of restaurants, museums and stores. Luckily they are almost teenagers and have finally calmed down.