I can't handle the sound of kids in supermarkets

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Ah yes. It's a shame you can't skewer them with a fork. In a perfect world...

Alas, if only the same thing could be done to some adults.

I don't like it when they scream. I just don't like loud noises. I feel pretty uncomfortable at the grocery store in general though. I just get really stiff and awkward, even when it's not that crowded.

Trying to get the world to force behavior on children is unlikely to be successful.

As a parent who once had young children, I found the judgments earlier in this thread both silly and annoying. Unless you are directly responsible for a child, you don't know. You don't know what happened before you got there or why things are the way they are, so it's silly to judge. Some of those kids just might be autistic and not enjoying the ambient chaos of the supermarket and they might not be able to stop.

Asking the world to change for your particular sensory needs is like wanting the sun to dim because you have trouble with bright light instead of just finding the right dark glasses -- or like asking all women to wear bags with eyeslits because you are a hetero dude who chooses not to control his sexual imagination.

Modifying your own behavior and circumstances is more likely to achieve good outcomes for you and others than trying to change the whole world to suit you. I think BeaArthur's ideas are sensible, practical and likely to achieve a positive result: find times when children are unlikely to be present to shop, or arrange for home delivery.

It's not just supermarkets. It's everywhere. The only places that don't allow kids are bars late at night, and adult movies. Otherwise, everywhere you go you have to endure the din of other people's brats. It doesn't matter what restaurant I go to, there are always families with their noisy kids. Even if I want a meal in a peaceful country pub, somewhere where you don't expect young families to go to, there is still people with babies and toddlers there.

Last week I saw a film at the cinema, and I admit it was a child-friendly film, so I was expecting children to be in there, but in front of us sat people with a kid that looked just under 2, and the whole movie he kept moving about, babbling loudly and demanding, and it was so distracting. I mean, a child of that age isn't really going to sit quietly and pay attention to the film. I was never took to the movies until I was about 10, because I had short attention span as a child (ADD) so my parents decided it was fair to leave it til I was older.

Adamantium, what you say is generally of course fair, but I don't think anyone here is truly expecting the world to change for their sensory issues. We are simply saying that even though we GET that children will be children, it's not a pleasant situation when they are allowed to run riot. And your post is very judgemental against those of use who have a hard time with some childrens' behavior, it's just as harsh to us as you think we're being to the children or parents.

Also, I don't know about the other members experiences but personally I'm talking about happy kids who didn't look to me like they were having a bad experience in that store at all. I have compassion for a child who is clearly freaking out; when I posted on this thread, the only children I considered myself to be referring to were the ones who were running and playing and making noise not from a place of problems but just because they're being allowed to play as if it's their backyard. The screaming I for one am talking about is not the screaming of fear or anxiety but of kids who SCREAM for the hell of it. And parents who do not do EFF ALL about it.

And just because some of us don't personally have our own children, don't be so sure we don't know what it's like to have some under our care in a public place. I've been a nanny and have taken care of nieces and nephews by myself in stores and public places.

There is a legitimate complaint to be made about not the troubled kid but the OTHERWISE kid being allowed to be quite frankly little brats in public.

Going early in the morning or later in the evening is also not always a solution, nor is online shopping. I'm not about to spend £100 so that I can get free delivery. No space to store stuff, and for the very fact that I AM NOT a family, it will go bad before I can eat it.

That's still not "expecting the world to change just for my sensory issues." At the same time, why should WE have to be the ones to bow down to the screaming children and have to get mugged coming home at night because that's the only time I could get away from the children?

Come visit my area where the only route home on foot at night is past drug dealers, and you tell me when you think I should go, and I'll tailor my entire world around other people's brats? Nope.

I don't expect that at all but I do think EVERYONE, even NTs with no sensory issues, would be happier in the world if some parents weren't so spineless.

Sorry but there it is.

There is also a new world order these days in parenting, where kids are allowed to be as bratty and anti social in public as they want, and no, I'm NOT talking about children having problems, meltdown's, anxiety, kids that might be autistic, kids genuinely upset about something, kids crying for a reason.

I'm talking about just kids shrieking FOR FUN, or for NOTHING. And parents not even trying to say "Indoor voices please guys!"

I'm talking about kids playing SOCCER in the middle of Tesco with balls taken from the toy aisle that they are probably not going to pay for. And the staff don't do a damn thing about it, nor the parents.

I'm talking about kids running playing chase and smashing right into strangers.

As mentioned I have severe pain and one bash from one of those running kids and I'll be on the floor screaming myself, but not for fun.

I would also like to add, my comment about who are the staff going to value more, me with my sensory issues or the family who spends a lot more money than me -- that IS a comment on how my sensory issues clearly don't matter.

I fully acknowledge that the world does not, never had and never will "revolve around my sensory issues" or whatever Adamantium said.

THIS I KNOW. I acknowledged that the all important, all-spending family of shrieking soccer playing children are going to trump me every time in this world.

I know all too well my sensory issues will never matter a DAMN to anyone but me.

In my own defence, I do as much as I can to make my own accommodations to my sensory issue, but in all honesty I still have to concede that most of my day is going to consist of enviroments I cannot exert much control over -- even including my own apartment.

I put up with my sensory issues being assaulted more of the time than not. Don't accuse me of "expecting the world" to accomodate my issues -- I spend my whole life letting the world walk all over my needs.

I happen to be someone whose needs in those ways are pretty much NEVER met.

I know all too well that I'm supposed to just suck it up and I'm a horrible person for even WONDERING if I could get the least little bit of consideration from others.

Hell no. I'm only the person with autism struggling to even get through the day.

Go ahead and let your kids take precedent. They always do, but I just have to suck that up don't I.

I don't like how someone can assume that this thread is about harshly judging kids who must be experiencing something awful, and what rotten people we are.

Some of us have even pointed out we are not referring to when we can see that a child is genuinely in distress.
But that we are talking about uncontrolled bad behavior of the exuberant kind, uncorrected by parents who don't give a flying one about other people.

My impression is we're talking about kids feeling fine but simply being allowed to run riot.

When was that ever okay?

This has made me really angry, the judgment now on the people in this thread.

I'm being judged, yet I'm not judging the kids who are genuinely having a difficult time.

And I'm NOT expecting the world to revolve around me. We all know the world revolves around kids........

I'm judging and pissed off at the kids who are just being brats and the parents who no longer care to parent properly.

It's disingenuous for anyone to pretend THOSE don't exist.

Restaurants that seat their patrons often try to keep the undesirable ones - families with children, gimps (I am one, so may I use that word?) in wheelchairs, and single patrons, in a separate section, off in back or near the kitchen, in any case not prominently positioned.

When I see they are about to seat me there, without delay I say "Please do not put me near children." They always have accommodated my request.

Supermarkets don't have the same latitude. But I might exercise my freedom to shop in a different aisle until the noisemakers have moved on, or choose a checkout lane a good distance from families.

As a parent, I used to apply some behavioral techniques to manage my kids in stores. One was letting them pick out some choice item - for instance, I would choose the "adult" cereals and each kid could pick their own box of "yummy" cereal. I would also let the older one go look for an item elsewhere in the store and return with it, or take the younger by the hand and go pick out the peanut butter and jelly. Anything to keep them occupied and not too bored. So I agree that parents need not (and should not) let the kids run riot in the store.

But choosing to maintain my composure instead of feeling victimized seems like a good tradeoff to me, so I have devised methods of dealing with life's little slings and arrows.

I do know NTs, without sensory issues, to get irritated with screaming toddlers too.

When I used to do part-time work experience at a preschool, I was working with 2 to 4-year-olds all day, but their noise didn't bother me so much because my purpose of being there was to be dealing with the children, so I was quite tuned in to it. In actual fact, my favourite one was the most tantrum-prone. He was the youngest, but he was so darling, that I wished he was my own little boy.

So children are ok depending on the environment and the context. In public places, no, I can't tolerate them.

I'll be glad when most kids will be back in school during the weekday afternoons so there will be fewer of them when I shop anywhere. On the other hand, I will have to once again to deal with the teens and the traffic at the high school across the street.

Teens used to bother me because they are as unpredictable as little kids and I used to get teens making silly noises as I went by or humiliating me in some other way. But in the last 3 or 4 years teens haven't really took much notice of me. But I do hate walking past them if they are being really stupid like pushing each other about and yelling and swearing, because I just know that they will most likely make you feel intimidated as you walk by, if you're on your own.

But I will be glad when they're back at school. I know you still get kids under 5 in shops and places, but it still seems quieter. Toddlers seem to be more grizzly when it's crowded.

It's the running around that bothers me the most, the noise can be bad too but the running around especially is dangerous. But when they are shrieking it makes me nervous because those are usually the same kids who might suddenly take off running.

This is not a sensory problem or a matter of being judgmental, it's just unacceptable behavior that should not be allowed in public places because it disturbs everyone. I did not act like that growing up, I knew better, and I did not see other kids running around acting like loons in stores all the time either like they do now. It is dangerous, especially to elderly and handicapped people, and it is dangerous to the kids themselves.

As if little kids aren't irritating enogh, to me a lot of times the parent is worse. "Sit still!" "Get over here!" "Stop that!" "LOWER YOUR VOICE!!".