Bad kids

Sunday was a real eye opener. We went to a storytelling. There was one very expressive, inaginative teller and a cellist who played musical accompaniment sensitively and beautifully. Most of the children were sitting on cushions in the middle, on the floor. We were hardly two minutes in to the first story when gradually the started fidgeting with each other, play fighting, fiddling with toys, eating sweets, going back and forth to Mum and Dad who iinduged them with more sweets, whisperiing, giggling, interrupting the storyteller, piling the cushions up into towers, going in and out to the toilet. You name it. This was all such a distraction that it spoiled the enjoyment of the afternoon for most adults. I couldn't follow the stories or enjoy the music and I wasn't alone. One parent turned at the end and said "Sorry about the noise". Well "sorry" is one thing but what goes with it is what you are going to do about it.

I know I'm a bit anti kids but my view was supported by a lot of people.
I could not believe the parents just allowing all this to go on in front of a paying audience. The kids seemed to think they were the entertainment. I couldn't believe they weren't taken in hand and told to be quiet and sit still. People tell me that children of the age of about 7 can't keep attention for more than about 7 minutes. Since when was this? Somewhere in the recent past, someone in authority has said that children's attention span is only a few minutes and people have just nodded their heads in acceptance and now everyone who has anything to do with children is told this and all treat them accordingly so it has now been accepted and that is the way children are conditioned to behave. They would get a lot more enjoyment out of things that are organised for their pleasure and benefit if they were conditioned to be more disciplined and respectful.

In schools, do they not make any topic last more than 7 minutes? What will those children be like when they go to secondary school and university? It wasn't like that when we were in school. I'll be on the lookout. If we take on any trainee solicitors here in the future I'll be looking to see if they chuck their clients out after 7 minutes or start networking with their pals during client interviews.

And they were what you call nice kids. I don't like to typify if I can help it, but the sort of parent that takes a child to storytelling is going to be reasonably well educated and not, if I may say, "rough". Those people can be a bit liberal but so in my experience are the "rough", although in a less informed way.
A firend of mine got a mouthful from such a liberal parent of the educated kind when she complained that her little children were running up and down and rolling marbles around in an art exhibition.

So what an eye opener. What a waste of Sunday afternoon. I won't go to another storytelling unless it's in the evening and past their bedtime.