Child cruelty or not you decide

[Megandllsmum]

Originally Posted by mike4scuba

Over the last couple of days on the parks it’s been 32+ degrees and ultra hot standing in line waiting for rides

The amount of small children 5 years and below and babies of around 6 months in these ques that have been crying or been upset because the parents choose to stand in ques for hours on end

Is this not child abuse/neglect

Maybe I am getting old

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I would say child abuse or neglect is a bit harsh, I can say confidently my daughter is covered head to toe in sun cream on holiday... each morning she looks like she's been dive bombed by pigeons , I can say I've dressed her in cool comfortable clothes and she has a sunhat on, plus she has so much fluid during day she practically has a hump. I'd like to think most parents do the same but no matter how prepared you and your kids are for the heat and humidity in Florida if they are gonna have a paddy they are going to have a paddy.
That said I would never stand for a considerable length of time for any ride , but we qualify for DAS with daughter, that and fastpass work a dream for us

[Guest]

You can't really judge a situation without knowing all the facts. In 2007, when youngest daughter was 2.5 yrs old, we were in the queue for safari at AK. Out of nowhere, she had the most horrendous tantrum ever - we were mortified and to this day, we have no idea what it was all about (and she didn't know after it happened either!). We'd only just arrived at the park and in the queue for less than 2 minutes when it started. It was November time so it wasn't particularly warm that early in the morning.

Sometimes kids have meltdowns and it's not always because they've been marched from pillar to post in extreme heat. She also had a humdinger of a one at age 5 on a cruise for 2 hours - again no trigger or reason why at the time she was doing it .

I'm pleased to say that apart from above mentioned 2 incidents, she's never reacted that way again in public again!

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Originally Posted by Sanddancer

You can't really judge a situation without knowing all the facts. In 2007, when youngest daughter was 2.5 yrs old, we were in the queue for safari at AK. Out of nowhere, she had the most horrendous tantrum ever - we were mortified and to this day, we have no idea what it was all about (and she didn't know after it happened either!). We'd only just arrived at the park and in the queue for less than 2 minutes when it started. It was November time so it wasn't particularly warm that early in the morning.

Sometimes kids have meltdowns and it's not always because they've been marched from pillar to post in extreme heat. She also had a humdinger of a one at age 5 on a cruise for 2 hours - again no trigger or reason why at the time she was doing it .

I'm pleased to say that apart from above mentioned 2 incidents, she's never reacted that way again in public again!

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Ha ha. Reminds me of last month when we gave our Granddaughter an ice cream dessert with M & M's in it. We got back to the room in SSR and she went loopy. She was whacking my Wife with a cuddly toy.

We weren't to know she has a reaction to blue colours.

Interesting 10 minutes I can tell you.

[Amiee89]

Kids don't do waiting very well. Well mine don't. We have queued and they have whinged a little but if it was alot of screaming and crying i would just leave the queue, if the kids aint having fun then its pointless. We barely waited long for queues having used fastpasses but if anything was over 20minutes we wouldnt queue for. 20minutes to a child feels like 20 hours 😂😂😂

Having said that you don't know why the child is screaming and reacting like that so abuse may be abit harsh.

X

[Guest]

Well, it livened up the holiday a bit for you Mr Morrow

It's not just little ones it can affect, my DD12 gorged on sweets one Boxing Day and went absolutely hyper! If I didn't know better, I'd have said she'd been at the sherry, it was incredible to watch (and a little bit funny too )

[duchy]

I think the OP either hasn't had children yet or has forgotten the joys of under 5's

A lot of "moments" in that age group are either very brief or caused by sensory or emotional overload andcrying is the healthy safety valve.

I don't think you can judge a situation unless you know the child. Sure we've all seen the parent in commando mode telling their kid "I've paid a lot of money for these passes you will enjoy yourselves" or felt the frustration when a child would rather stay in the pool than go to the parks but I've also seen parents who understand Disney can be overwhelming and sometimes a cry is needed. We ourselves had other issues with a son on the autistic spectrum who loved Disney but found it all too much at times. No doubt to a casual bystander he might have looked deeply unhappy in those moments and we were cruel parents !

[Megandllsmum]

Originally Posted by duchy

I think the OP either hasn't had children yet or has forgotten the joys of under 5's

A lot of "moments" in that age group are either very brief or caused by sensory or emotional overload andcrying is the healthy safety valve.

I don't think you can judge a situation unless you know the child. Sure we've all seen the parent in commando mode telling their kid "I've paid a lot of money for these passes you will enjoy yourselves" or felt the frustration when a child would rather stay in the pool than go to the parks but I've also seen parents who understand Disney can be overwhelming and sometimes a cry is needed. We ourselves had other issues with a son on the autistic spectrum who loved Disney but found it all too much at times. No doubt to a casual bystander he might have looked deeply unhappy in those moments and we were cruel parents !

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My daughters the same with her autism, she builds her hopes up of getting on a ride, thinks of every possible scenario that can go wrong with overthinking and talks herself out of it, then punishes herself for not doing the ride. Brilliant cast members got us through a lot of the rides though talking her through it and showing her what was happening on their monitors inside the rides.
I've developed a thick skin over the years because at first comments by others often reduced me to tears as well as my daughter.

[novocastrian]

cruelty/child abuse !

kids dont like waiting in Q's whatever the situation, some so young they dont even have concept of why they need/have to wait or indeed what they are even waiting for

definatly a 1st world problem if forcing kids to Q up at disneyworld is classed as child abuse...

kids have meltdowns for 100's of reasons...

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by mike4scuba

The amount of small children 5 years and below and babies of around 6 months in these ques that have been crying or been upset because the parents choose to stand in ques for hours on end

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Kids cry all the time. Just because a child is crying and upset is no indication of child abuse. The child may be grumpy because of lack of sleep or because they wanted a huge ice cream and their parents said no. Heck, I saw a child crying her eyes out the other day because her mum wouldn't let her go into a pub across the road!

As long as the parents ensure the child is not getting sunburnt (either the kid is shaded, covered or smothered in suncream) then I don't see a problem.

The eardrums of everyone in the queue may disagree.

Originally Posted by duchy

I think the OP either hasn't had children yet or has forgotten the joys of under 5's

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^ This.

When she was 3 years old DD started screaming when she saw Goofy. But it's clearly not child abuse to take a child to see the Disney characters.

[alkel2730]

This thread has just reminded me of a situation we had early on in the holiday, I'd blanked it out but DH reminded me.

It was the day after we arrived and we decided to see how the kids would get on in the theme parks by a very short trip to MK. We were staying at the Poly so it was just a short monorail ride.

We let them sleep in until they wanted to and had a lazy morning in the room. Everyone was well rested when we went to MK. I didn't want to push them so we decided to do the people mover first. It was my son's first trip and I wasn't sure how he'd be with rides so we thought a walk on was best. He loved it and was giggling throughout.

We decided to try the carousel of progress next as it's obviously opposite, cool and again no queue. It was busy but we got a nice seat a few rows in. We took my daughter on this at the same age as my son was now and she loved it so we thought it was a safe bet. How wrong were we...

The show started and for a few scenes my son was ok but for some reason at one random point he found it scary and that was it. I did everything in my power to keep him calm, shielded his eyes, got his muslin, got his dummy, sung to him, anything I could but he was just scared. He didn't cry continuously it was intermittent but there was nothing I could do. I couldn't leave as it's moving and we were in a middle row. All I could do was 'shhhh' and comfort him until we could get out. And boy, did I want out of that theatre! My 3yr old daughter on the other hand sat there delightfully and watched it all without a peep.

The thing that really upset me though was you could see I was doing my best but the woman behind was clearly very annoyed. Tutting and sighing and making comments to her husband. I could understand she was upset but I was really stuck. My son had never given me any indication he was scared of the dark or loud noises or anything and I genuinely thought this was a good introductory show.
When it stopped I got up and turned round and apologised to her. I was relieved to see she had a child with her herself so thought she'd appreciate me explaining. I explained that it was his first show and I had no clue he'd be like that I was was deeply sorry he was crying. As I was explaining she walked away from me and then shouted "oh don't worry, I understand. He's just a little brat and you can't control him"
I was so upset, we had to leave the park.