Louis, no!!!

[davidgillon]

At Homebase, rolling slowly up the aisle, trying to find the nails I want, young couple on the other side with a 3-4yo. Suddenly "Louis, no!"

I turned round in the chair, rather than with the chair, which was just as well. At first I thought he'd grabbed the spreader bar across the back of the chair, and he probably did have one hand on it. But the other was wrapped around tyre and pushrim. If I'd spun in place there would have been tears (and probably blood).

Normally I'm quite relaxed about kids being curious about the chair, better to get them thinking of it as normal when they're young, but this was dangerous, so I let his mortified mum force him to say sorry. (She did a good job, telling him "those are his legs" and so on).

And off he ran down the aisle while we both turned back to what we were doing. I spotted the ones I wanted, but had to stand up to get them, at which point there's a shriek of 'Louis, no!!!!"

The little sod had come tearing up the aisle and dived into the chair from the back and across the wheel - just as well I'd been too lazy to slot the clothes guard on, he'd very likely have wrecked that. And just as well I hadn't flumped back into the chair as usual. Mum, now even more mortified, grabs him by the hand, yanks him round the corner "When I tell you don't touch..."

Drags him back around, makes him apologise to me again. Dad is all "And those treats, you needn't think you're getting those", while I'm trying to keep a straight face, because it was so utterly beyond the bounds of what you expect, but they genuinely needed to teach him not to do that for both his safety and any chair user's.

Mentioned this on FB a little while ago and have already had several wheelchair using friends report similar instances. Seriously, people?

Comments

[hilarita]

Glad the parents were sensible! Clearly they are raising one of those children with all the sense of danger of a lemming...

[slashmarks]

It seems like one of those situations where more learning would have occurred if the parents hadn't escalated into screaming. I'm not surprised the child has no sense if that's how they usually handle it.

[davidgillon]

They dealt with it really well,IMO. The one time voices got raised into a shout was when she was trying to stop him diving into the chair and he was out of her immediate reach. So that was using voice to try and prevent something she couldn't stop physically. Other than that it was parentally-assertive-voice, firm without yelling, explaining not only that it was wrong, but why it was wrong - which is where a lot of parental chastisement comes up short.

[slashmarks]

Eh. Punishment is detrimental to learning in general and compliance in praticular, with all children, but it's a particularly poor decisionn with a child that young.

A three year old can't be expected to understand responsible behavior yet. He behaved in a completely predictable way, exploring an unfamiliar object with similarities to ones he's probably used to being safe (chairs). Judging by your narrative I'd say his parents weren't paying enough attention either time to stop that, then were embarrassed by that and angry about it; the explanation you've recorded, plus threats to later plans, would definitely have come off as angry and threatening to a young child, and that results in poor learning.

ETA: Obviously it isn't pleasant to suddenly have a young child grabbing things that are dangerous for both of you, I'm just a little surprised that everyone is shocked by it. It's normal toddler behavior.

[redbird]

Oh dear.

[jesse_the_k]

I'm glad you're okay!

[lilysea]

!!!!

...

o.O

!!!!

[davidgillon]

That!

[sovay]

at which point there's a shriek of 'Louis, no!!!!"

I got nothing. I'm glad you're all right. See icon.

[rmc28]

I have an embarrassed feeling that this could so be my younger child - who likes to fling himself at *me* without warning, and not necessarily safely.