LOL. I totally forgot you have to take the dog to the course
I don't thiink you can always tell for sure, even with your own child, whether it will sit still and quiet or not. With ours, we used to wear them out first. 10km walk to go and see a ballet - and it worked fine. But one of my grandchildren sat through Swan Lake at the age of 4 1/2 (without walking there ), she hardly moved during the performance and only whispered in her Mum's ear to ask the odd question. Mind you, her Mum had booked seats at the very end of the row at the side, so that she could have taken her out immediately had she become restless.
Yes, kids should be kids, and kids need to learn social behavior because it's not inbread. I have had my share of noisy kids at the movies, commenting every scene and just being a nuisance with parents sitting next to them not interfering; kids in cafes or restaurants running amok and screaming around, molesting every guest; kids stomping back and forth on train compartments again and again (one time it was the mother who made the suggestion they could do that if they were bored), and, and, and. By no means do I hate kids and I know they can be noisy, mine were toddlers once as well. But I told them that they are NOT the center of there world and there are OTHER people who need to be respected, not molested, and in certain situations you just have to be quiet and sit. E basta.
you're absolutely right there, of course. I probably tended to be overcareful and the few times I was really sure it would work (due to the various factors involved like kind of music, age, time of day, events preceding the concert) it actually did work
... but I must say that I myself would feel very tense (and ready to jump up and disappear with the disturbing kid any moment) if I weren't to a certain degree sure that they would be actually enjoying it at least a bit instead of just "tolerating" it.
I have too great respect of music and musicians for imposing a musical event on children (or any other persons, for that matter) who cannot appreciate it. I mean, it is not a duty or compulsory thing to go to a concert, is it?
And yet kids are banned from the cinema until they are 6 years old, despite most kids' films being suitable from a much younger age.
We went to a live performance yesterday and the kids were pretty much well behaved, OK, so you can't expect young kids to keep stock still and silent for an entire performance and there was a fair amount of shuffling and whispering around us.
My son is usually entranced by the whole theatre / concert / cinema experience to the point where we have been confident of smuggling him into the cinema from the age of 4 where he behaved better than some kids twice his age.
I'm pretty strict with him and, knowing he's an active child (are there any other types? ) we always go for a good run around on a playground before visiting a performance. That seems to knock any excess energy out of him and he's happy to settle and watch.
I'm still teaching him the Swiss way of turning round to noisy people, looking them up and down and giving an audible "tut" but we're not there yet...
Could be worse.
I'm known to be quite a authoritative dragon-like mum. And, to be fair, my son is a quiet boy, not the kind to go running and jumping everywhere. He'll plague you with never-ending questions, but that's another matter.
I've always taken him with me to restaurants and sometimes even work conferences, and he learned early to be quiet and play by himself. I'm strict, but then it means I can take him almost anywhere and he can behave.
A few months ago I tried going to a classical concert with my baby. I sat in an aisle, breastfed her through part of the performance, and simply went out when she started to be fidgety. It's a question of respect for the other spectators, and for the players.
But I must say, generally parents do behave like me and 'control' their kids. The behaviour Kamarate saw is not the norm here, but obviously it can happen. In my experience, American kids are much limitless than their Swiss counterparts, where kids are supposed to fit in.
Sideways thinking - I wonder if part of the reason behind lack of 'being quiet and paying attention or listening' is the 'repeat' which is, these days, almost always available. In 'olden times', concerts, sports events, speech, were 'live', and if you missed it, you'd missed it. No instant replay of the interesting bits of a sports event, scratchy, hissing grammophone records were no substitute for live music, there was no way of producing paper copies (if someone needed a copy of some text or other, you had to make sure you had carbon paper in your typewriter before you typed it). If someone else was speaking, you didn't talk, if music was playing, you listened, or at least were quiet so that other people could hear it. I don't think it was just a case of 'good manners' and 'strict upbringing' either. It was more a 'way of life'.
I know it's not the "be all and end all" but I'm sure some kids just have too much energy and no opportunity to burn it off so it emerges as naughtiness and an inability to settle.
I was a cub scout leader in the UK and many of my kids came with their own parents' warning of "he's a bit of a handful". We had a very full programme at our meetings with loads of running around and our camps were filled with adventures in the forest, footy on the campsite and never ending chores of fetching wood for the fire, water, pot washing, etc.
It's amazing how many of those kids turned out to be a complete delight and NOT a handful after a weekend of that...
I take my kids to watch football in the English pub.
Any drama, I take them home - and I have done in the past.
I don't want the hassle and no one around me does either.
I would do the same in the cinema or a music concert.
Simple as that.
Totally out of order I agree. I am surprised though that the concert organisers didn't have a word with her and explain that sadly they had no choice but asking her to leave for a while until the child settled down
Just trying to imagine though - if somebody had quietly and in a nice manner told her to withdraw the child, with a smile, ad said mum had been an EF member, what we would now be discussing?
I have three opinions on this:
1. Ask the mother to take the child outside because of the disruption.
2. Attempt to bribe the child with an old, dirty sport mint suddenly found at the bottom of your bag.
3. Cry too because the concert is soooo bad.
Now if it's an Andrew Bond concert, crying children are allowed.
exactly, they wouldn't dare ask what everyone would wish for, for fear of overreactions and ultimately scaring people off...
and what about all those sick grown ups (not even elderly) who think it is perfectly acceptable to impose their coughing (or sniffling) concert upon audience and performers? I must say I have been disturbed more often by that than by screaming kids.
still - I've never witnessed anyone being kindly asked to go and cough somewhere else (apart from staff distributing throat pastilles before the concert, which I find a funny and discrete "warning" )
ok love your post, I just had a baby girl who is now 6 months, and also lived here 9 years, about parenting, I know many international swiss people who have diverse parenting skills where communication and quality time with their, has paid off, meaning situwations like this dont happened, because the child is already aware of where he or she is going, and the child is left with the gift of fun, because thats what you promised, the details of the event is up to you , if your child does not seem interested than, try to find something more soothing, painting, arts aand crafts even sport, with concerts its strange, each child is very different, and some kids cant staand loud sound, even more if the sounds are not soothing,, keep studying your child , they are your new university
Sounds like a Justin Bieber's concert.
Yeah, me and my French horn dominate.
It was a relatively informal wind band Christmas concert, but not so informal that people should just talk or scream over the music. It was a sort of sit and listen concert, not busking. You could see all the performers were getting really irritated. Grr!
You should have told us about the concert and we Neuch lot would have all turned up to support - and told her it was time to leave- lol.
Slightly OT, I wouldn't mind taking my boy to some kind of orchestral concert aimed at kids - something where the different instruments get introduced. Perhaps one of you music types can recommend something going on in ZH - or just Google it for me of course.
Cheers,
Nick
There are lots of orchestral music concerts aimed at parents/tots/kids. Very informal whereby the musicians have the expectation that kids are there and they might sometimes be louder than the musicians. Try the stadt musikschule/konservatorium schedules or your local gemeinde will have local concerts. There are some where we live if you dont mind making the trip down here.
I'll let you know for sure, the next time I come across one.
It's not just a Swiss problem, its universal. I've seen spineless lazy parenting in the UK on many occasions, I would take my daughter to a play centre where the mothers of older kids would sit, have a coffee all very cosily with their friends and completely ignore their kids who were tearing around terrorising other smaller children here.
More recently I take my daughter to a playground nearby (basel) and there is a tube slide, she loves it there but on many occasions some awful kids climb outside the tube, throw stones and block the slide for other, mostly younge,r users.
I get really peed off at this, however, one particular time while the parents were ignoring these offending children, my daughter was desperate to go down the slide but was too afraid of these older boys. So, I grabbed her hand, climbed up the slide with her, said in loud English "Oi, you little $hits, move......., they got the message, moved, and I got glares from their parents, but you know what, sod it.....my daughter was happy and got to go down the slide.