[Minnie]

If I'm already giving my kids the gears for misbehavior, and dealing with it, I don't think I need to hear from anyone else, whether they're related (obviously my husband is a different story), or whether they're a perfect stranger. My uncle used to start in on us in the middle of my parents disciplining us/having a discussion with us, and it drove me nuts. My parents would just let him wade in - and 9 times out of 10, he hadn't even been around to see/experience our misbehaviour, he just happened to wander into the picture at the disciplinary stage. I used to get in more trouble because I'd tell him to butt out, lol - I figured my parents were doing well enough on their own, why was he poking his nose in?

He tried it when my kids were little. I pretty much told him that I was their mother, I'd witnessed the misbehaviour and I was dealing with it and dealing with it appropriately. Since he was neither their parent, nor was he even around to be witness to what my kids were in trouble for, he could mind his own business and let me take care of disciplining my own kids. Also told him, if I'm not around, and he witnesses misbehaviour, then I had no issue with him getting after them, and letting them know they were out of line and needed to smarten the hell up. But if I was there and already dealing with it, it was really none of his business. He never married, never had kids, and his idea of discipline was to beat on a kid, so yeah, no thanks.

I think it really is dependent on the situation too. Is the situation destructive or dangerous, like you said? Is the parent clueless to what is going on/not around? How are you speaking to the kid? If you're name calling or using swear words, then yeah, I think the parent can be offended. It's fairly easy to tell a kid to knock it off without being a hosebag about it.

I've done it - two 11 year old boys tearing around Sobeys, no parent in sight, and they nearly knocked a couple of elderly ladies down, nearly ran me over, bumped into carts and displays (very lucky nothing came tumbling down). The next time they did a round by me, I just said loudly enough to get their attention "Hey! STOP!" and they ground to a halt a couple of feet away from me. I told them they needed to stop doing that, they were going to hurt someone or cause damage to the store - and the choice was theirs - either they knocked it off, or I would call the manager over to find them and their parent and they could deal with the store management.

They walked off calmly and then started ripping around the store again as soon as they rounded the corner. So I just went and spoke to a manager, who went to speak to the boys, by which time they'd just hooked back up with their mother, and the manager spoke to both of them. Mom made the boys apologize and boy was she pissed at them. The boys gave me the evils when they saw me, but frankly, I don't care. What they were doing was irresponsible, and they could have been hurt and they could have hurt someone else, which they very nearly did. In that instance, if mom was mad that I narc'd on the kids to management, I very much wouldn't have cared that she was pissed. Pissy mom versus store patron with broken bones? Mom might have just been spared a lawsuit.

I don't think there is a one size fits all answer to this. I really do think it depends on the situation, and how you are speaking to the kids, and whether or not the parents are already dealing with it. And I wouldn't ever dare even touch a kid, even to put a hand on their shoulder type thing. Not opening up that kettle of fish. If my kids were acting like ####s when my back was turned to get stuff off a shelf and I failed to see it, and what they were doing was incredibly destructive, then I don't have much of an issue if someone just utters a quick "Hey, knock that off kiddo."

I have spoken to a mom dealing with a fractious kid, who looks like she's just at the end of her rope and just quietly told her she was doing a good job. I feel bad for parents sometimes, in the public eye - there are times where it's like they can't win for losing. And sometimes, there's just so much more than meets the eye - some kids are special needs, and it brings up a whole other level of issues we can't possibly know about, and what would work for the rest of us with typically abled kids, in regards to discipline, isn't going to work the same way, or at all, with a SN child.

Anyway, I'll quit rambling now.