What Polimom says regarding this story about a restaurant owner who told the parents of particularly unruly kids to not come back.
Civilizing young people is a slow, sometimes frustrating process, but it can be done. Children are high energy, curious, and loud; that doesn’t make them bad, or evil — but it can make them annoying in certain circumstances.
If Little Janey and Johnny can’t yet control themselves when you tell them, “No”, that’s not (necessarily) a reflection on them… and if they’re still tiny, that’s not a reflection on you, either. As parents, though, it is incumbent upon us to consider that they may not be ready for prime time, and that other diners are also paying for the privilege / relief / novelty of dining out.
Kids are kids; Unless you’re prepared to pay for the meals of those around you who don’t actually want to listen to them thunder about the room or scream because the food’s not served yet and they’re hungry, mom!, take them somewhere that is set up to let them behave that way… and slowly work your way up to ketchup from a bottle instead of packets. It can be done. I promise.
Common sense goes a long way here, and can help avoid most problems. Get to the restaurant before your kid is hungry. Go places where there’s someplace safe for the kid to play or explore. Be prepared to change your order to “to go” and hightail it out of there if the kid won’t behave.
Olivia has accompanied us to restaurants since she was a babe in arms. Audrey goes with us now, too. We generally go to kid-friendly places (the neighborhood Berryhill’s, which is always swarming with kids, is one of her favorites), but there are still rules, and she’s been good about following them. It can be challenging, as Polimom says, but it’s a lot easier if you don’t set yourself up for failure in the first place.
There’s never an excuse for being rude to other diners, and there’s no need for adult conversation that excuses letting your kid run around unchecked in a restaurant. If you just have to get away from the responsibilities for a little while, get a sitter. Thanks to John for the link.
I was thinking about this story during my 9.5 hour flight home from London. The row in front of us was occupied by two parents and a kid, and the kid basically wailed and bounced (like, cups about to fly off my tray table from the bouncing) from most of the flight. And the parents basically cooed at the kid the whole time.
Across the aisle from them was a British family with beautifully behaved children (about the same age, 4-ish I would guess).
It really comes down to parenting, and instilling in your kids a sense the way you behave is public is different. Both MWK and I travelled extensively with our parents as kids – and both of us had immigrant parents with a tremendously old world sense of decorum about these things.
This seems to be a dying idea in the US.
Related story from a teacher friend:
http://weeklyscheiss.blogspot.com/2007/03/tale-of-two-families.html
Tough topic, because it is not fair to expect children to be perfect. But as parents, we have to make sure our kids are acting OK.
I like the sign that our local coffee shop put up – it says something like “Unattended children will be given a shot of espresso and a puppy.”
I am not shy at all about yelling at other people’s kids.
Funny story I thought of reading this.
I was at Chuy’s in Round Rock on a Friday night with friends, my kids and their kids.
We were sitting out on the patio, which at the Round Rock restaurant is right next to I35.
The music was cranked up to try and drown out the road noise, and there was a table next to us with about 15 or so people celebrating someone’s 40th birthday.
It was loud out on the patio, and the kids at our table weren’t even the loudest people there, let alone having to compete with I-35 traffic sounds.
An older man walks up to our table, after he paid and thanked us for providing him with the absolute worst dining experience of his life.
When we asked him why he singled us out, he looked at the kids.
A point of pride on my part, to have created such a horrific experience for someone.
However, and more to the point, some people just hate kids, and no matter what really was the situation (I-35, drunk party goers, blasting radio, and Interstate traffic) the kids will be blamed.
I eat at the Heights Berryhill’s all the time and “swarming” is a good word for many of the children there. I’ve often wanted to start shouting expletives in the hope that some of the families would leave. Even though the place is kid friendly doesn’t mean that it’s o.k. for parents to let them behave like a horde of Mongols.
As noted in the link Amerloc, the issue here isn’t the kids, it’s the parents. Going out in public and dining in public are opportunities for learning responsible behaviour.
I’ve seen a kid run up and slam his hands against the glass of a pastry case, and the parent step up and have a quiet conversation with the kid. I’ve had a kid run full-tilt into me and the parents didn’t even notice.
The issue isn’t nearly so much our expectations for the kids as our expectations for the parents and for when it is and isn’t appropriate to speak to someone when their kids are misbehaving.
Waiting until you’re done with your meal, isn’t the time to speak up (and the patio at Chuy’s certainly is a kid-friendly and rowdy place).