Parents and care givers that pester their children

[momof3heathens]

This has bothered me forever but today it took everything I had not to lay into a mom and her friend while waiting for a bus and then on the bus too.


Her little guy(probably no more than 2.5 years) was in the stroller and the mom kept poking at him from behind on either side of his face. He kept saying stop and she kept on pestering him> I gather she was attempting to play with him but he was practically raging he was so frustrated. After what felt like forever to me and most likely more so to him she asks him if he was hungry. For the next 10 minutes straight he kept howling "Mommy, I hungry!" and instead of placating him or distracting him she kept on saying things like "hungry boy" "hungry hungry" etc. Then she puts her fingers on the back handle of the stroller while on the bus and starts fiddling with the top of his head. He asks her to stop that over and over again while getting more and more upset and she keeps going and on saying "stop what?" and laughing.

Her friend didn't help either. she kept on mimicking the mom too.


On the same note I also can't stand when people bounce small children on the knee trying to distract an upset child. If it hasn't started working after a few moments try something else.

[francine1985]

On the same note I also can't stand when people bounce small children on the knee trying to distract an upset child. If it hasn't started working after a few moments try something else.

i'm guilty of doing this one. i will try bouncing ds2 on my knee while he chews on my thumb. usually its because a- hes tired and fighting sleep or b- hes hungry and while i have no problem whipping it out and nursing him i will not do it on the bus (in a moving vehicle) i will nurse him when we get home while dh get whatever we bought put away or ill take him to the nursing room as soon as we get to the mall.

i dont know how old the "small children" are that you are talking about but i find it more annoying when parents take their kids in those child carrier/car seats and just throw a blanket over top of them and ignore the crying completely...

i cant imagine poking at my kids and purposely annoying them though. they have enough crying fits or tantrums on their own. why would any parent want to purposely set them off.

[erin9mmm]

I would have been tempted to poke her cheeks and fiddle with the top of her head!

[r0c0upons]

wow you can almost glimpse into the future on this one, yikes!

[Ciel]

Attention deficit disorder or similar on the mom at the bus stop. Real jerk behaviour. I would have piped up and said do you like when people ignore you when you ask them to stop something annoying to you? Then told the little boy sometimes adults do not realize or care if they are being rude to little kids and it is not the kid's fault but the adults' fault. Because I would wonder if that kid had some coping thought for all the times he would encounter that same behaviour.

If I had a cellphone with video feature, I would have casually remarked that I had to share this moment on Youtube with friends so they can see that some people are clueless about themselves...bet "Mom" would find herself keeping her hands off her boy while I was there...

[screamy]

OMG.

I probably wouldn't have been able to keep myself from saying something. Why would anyone do that??

Never wake a sleeping baby (unless they've been hit on the head and could be concussed) is a really good rule...I can't see why a version of "don't intentionally antagonize an otherwise happy/calm kid if it's okay" wouldn't be a good rule too, as in "don't poke the bear".

Unbelievable.

[MrsSunshine]

just curious how having ADD would cause a mother to do that to her child.??. i have two boys(adult) with ADHD as well as having it myself and would never do that to my child. seriously..
lets hope this poor child gets a voice for himself real soon and lets his mom know exactly how he feels.

[abbasgirl]

Yeah, that doesn't sound anything like ADD. The part about being a jerk was totally correct though.

[couponmummy]

Was wondering if this is some kind of child abuse? If this is done in public, I can't imagine what's happening behind closed doors.

[momof3heathens]

I also would try this method however when it didn't work I would try something else rather than just keep on with what was clearly causing more problems than helping the slightest.

i'm guilty of doing this one. i will try bouncing ds2 on my knee while he chews on my thumb. usually its because a- hes tired and fighting sleep or b- hes hungry and while i have no problem whipping it out and nursing him i will not do it on the bus (in a moving vehicle) i will nurse him when we get home while dh get whatever we bought put away or ill take him to the nursing room as soon as we get to the mall.

i dont know how old the "small children" are that you are talking about but i find it more annoying when parents take their kids in those child carrier/car seats and just throw a blanket over top of them and ignore the crying completely...

i cant imagine poking at my kids and purposely annoying them though. they have enough crying fits or tantrums on their own. why would any parent want to purposely set them off.

[Giddymonkey]

I would consider this a form of bullying. He is obviously distressed by it yet she continues. If one child did the same thing to another we would call it bullying, so why would we consider it anything else just because it is his mom? Personally, I would have said something, but I'm pretty outspoken that way and I don't care if someone doesn't like it. Someone has to stand up for that poor boy; too bad the person who should be protecting him is the one he needs protecting from.

[momof3heathens]

Only reason I didn't say anything is I didn't want to further upset or scare the child if his mom became irate and argumentative.

[Ciel]

I mentioned ADD because the mother exhibited a narcissistic behaviour in that she kept doing something that clearly upset someone else, who is a minor in the situation presented.
Dr. Amen mentions a narcissistic factor as one of six (in his book on ADD) that relate to ADD in adults. Also, because my own father was a pest about taking photos during my youth-he wanted to keep having us stop along a walk to take pictures every couple of minutes or during a birthday (8th) when I was tired of the d*** camera and melted down crying (yes there is a photo of him sitting next to me in tears)-this mother is exhibiting the same lack of recognition that she is being a pain in the a** or not respecting boundaries/request to stop.

Good call on the bullying-that is what it is as well.

[MrsSunshine]

Dr. Amen mentions a narcissistic factor as one of six (in his book on ADD) that relate to ADD in adults---- WOW really??
Narcissitic- egotism, vanity, pride, selfishness.. hmm interesting. i'd sure love to meet this Dr. cause im BLOWN AWAY by this factor. personally I don't exhibit one of those behaviours AT ALL. but heh if he thinks he knows what he's talking about.. who am I to argue.

While I do agree, this mother has some issues. ok a few.. she needs helps. by the sounds of it so does her son. anyway just my two cents.. and now that those are going by the way side.. meh guess its not worth much.

[sweetmomma]

It sounds like the mother and her friend are immature and possibly lacking some parenting skills. Perhaps it's not her fault maybe her parents did it to her and it's a learned behavior and she doesn't realize how it's affecting the child.

My kids would not have put up with that if I was their mom. They would have been telling me straight! Haha!