But is it really that hard to have your children not act like monkeys when dining at a restaurant?
I would think that if you can’t get your child to not act like a monkey at a restaurant, maybe taking them to a restaurant isn’t the best idea.
But is it really that hard to have your children not act like monkeys when dining at a restaurant?
I would think that if you can’t get your child to not act like a monkey at a restaurant, maybe taking them to a restaurant isn’t the best idea.
WDYM?
just making noise? Oh well. them’s kids.
running around the place like banshees? Parents should be smacked.
unless it’s a Chuck E. Cheese’s or a McPuke’s with a play area. You should know what to expect going in.
Parental control is a pet peeve of mine. My kids were [del]threatened[/del] taught to behave themselves or face [del]death[/del] the consequences. Nowadays, parents just look around helplessly and squeak “Now buddy, you’re interjecting yourself when mama is having discourse with blahblahblahblah.” Using logic with a five-year-old is like wrestling with pigs.
What restaurant were you in? Some are deliberately kid-friendly, and you should probably expect some monkey-child hybrid things running about and screaming. A fine dining steakhouse or something? Not so much.
Any establishment that does not have a play area, has real silverware and linens, and has a server from whom you order and who brings your food.
I’m not talking fast food. But I am talking about places that I would call “table service”.
FTR - A specific incident didn’t not spark my post. Just many experiences at many places.
Also, I also wonder about kids at the dining tables that have their faces planted in some device. I suppose I’m glad they’re not acting like monkeys. But why bring them to dinner just to sit them with a device and ignore them? Why not teach them how to behave in social situations and involve them in the table conversation? I would think that any child old enough to sit at the table is old enough to participate in the conversation. Still in a baby seat or a high chair, maybe not.
Again, I don’t have kids. So maybe I just don’t understand.
You think this is just kids?
Ha! Good point.
Admittedly, I have raised 3 kids through school. The baby just started University this year. There is NO reason a child, past the toddler stage, cannot not act correctly in any situation. I took my children to everything, weddings, funerals, restaurants, just anywhere. During toddlerhood we stayed home alot. I never even took them shopping. You can NEVER assume a fickle 3 or 4 yr old will not go berserk at the most inopportune time. That is my experience, YMMV.
Raised 3 kids, and I’m with the OP. I remember there was one restaurant - Fuddruckers - which was loud enough that we didn’t worry about the kids interrupting other diners’ experience. Or pizza places or a couple of Mexican restaurants. Other than that, we’d take the kids to Denny’s - generally in off-hours - to teach them how to behave in restaurants. I remember (rare instances of) taking kids out of restaurants and sitting in the car with them if they were too fussy.
Of course, it helped that we didn’t really have enough money to go out much.
Drives me nuts when a kid is acting up, and the parent is making no effort to quiet them down. Of course, even if the parent is making an effort, I don’t pay my $ to go out to hear someone else’s kid whine.
With EXTREMELY limited exceptions, I think the checking of a phone at the table to be the height of bad manners. Stupid us - we planned on a family dinner just about every night, and expected our kids to participate in a general discussion. Of course, in my day I was taught that a man removes his hat at the table as well.
Yeah - I’m an old fuddy duddy who is generally not fit for public consumption.
What really sends me over the moon is Parents in Wal-Mart at bedtime with whiny, or screaming children. Take that child home feed them, bathe them, put them in bed. Really, do you not know what time your child eats or needs a nap? Wal-Mart trip can wait. Unless you are here to pick up life saving, vital medication, you have no excuse. AND do not punish said child for acting up in Wal-Mart, take them home to punish. It is your fault the kid is in the store, they obviously didn’t drive here alone.
Not that either of the Junior Shodans were ever other than saintly in their public behavior, but which do you notice - the 90% of the time when they are sitting nicely eating crackers and drawing on the placemats with the crayons, or the 10% when they are fussing/crying/lobbing dinner rolls into the aquarium? IYSWIM. I’m not talking about ignoring it when they stab other diners with the plastic sporks, but domestication of children is a process rather than an On/Off switch.
There have been occasions when I had to carry him outside because Junior is crying too loud and it is disturbing the other patrons, and we didn’t start their edumacation at the best restaurant in town, but eventually they learned how to behave in public.
And “no phones at the table” is a commandment set in stone to this day. And it isn’t always the kids who need to be reminded thereof. (Hint, hint, wife of my bosom, and texts count too.)
Regards,
Shodan
Not all the time, but I have made a point of complimenting parents on well behaved kids, as I know it does not occur without considerable effort.
This is also a pet peeve of mine. I don’t mind it so much at “family-type” restaurants, where the general din sort of drowns out the noise, but kids running around wildly and climbing on the chairs is a bit much. We would never have been permitted to get away with that as children.
Most recently, I took my wife out for her birthday at a rather nice place. We actually got reseated because a party of six adults came in (without reservations, but that’s not my problem). The wait staff needed to pull together a couple tables, so we ended up parked right next to the servers’ station. When the party was seated, they brought in a full-sized baby stroller (and baby) which was parked next to our table. They actually had to lift it and carry it down the stairs because we were seated in a sunken area. I’m not talking about a fold-up stroller; I’m talking a bathtub size unit with big wheels and a folding cover. Our server couldn’t even approach our table from that side. Of course, it wasn’t long before baby was upset at being in a strange place with lots of irritating noise and chatter. Need I go on?
It has reached the point that I often actually tell the host/hostess at the front that we will be spending a significant sum and that we expect to be seated in a prime location. (In this instance, our bill was over $450 for two people.) I may be crass, but we don’t dine out that often and I’m really tired of having to put up with disruptions from family units that don’t control their kids (or intoxicated fellow diners). If we DO end up with wild children near us, I ask that we be moved to somewhere more quiet.
Even in kid friendly restaurants, running indoors when people are carrying hot food, cold drinks, breakable glass, and sharp implements is a Very Bad Idea. I expect kids to laugh, to have fun and too get a little louder than usual in places like that, but scream? NO. Screaming indoors something had better be on fire or someone better be bleeding. Screaming as communication is something a child should outgrow before school age. Of course, that is greatly facilitated by adults (parents, teachers, whomever) actually pay attention to their efforts at verbal communication. Too many adults who would never interrupt to other adults without apologizing first have no problems interrupting kids.
In fact, a lot of adults could use a refresher course in manners when it comes to dealing with children. It is not ok to make fun of them, to laugh at them when they’re embarrassed, or to point out their failures to others.
Reminds me of one of the last times we went out to dinner. But in our case, there were no kids. Just 6 very happy, very loud, heavily drinking people. Definitely did not add to our enjoyment.
I try really hard not to judge. Unless you know a person well, over time, you don’t know if what you are seeing is typical, or a worst possible day. My son is great. He just came out of the womb lawful good. I didn’t do a thing to promote it. But there have been times I’ve been a terrible mom–times where I’m having to take the less bad of two options. You just don’t know what is going on in someone’s life.
I learned not to do that when I was a teenage cashier at Target, because the parents would always say, “Come back in 10 minutes and you’ll be singing another tune.” :o
“Don’t let your kids make noise! Also, don’t have them quietly amused by a screen!”
Back in the day, you took your kids out with a pile of coloring books or Matchbox cars or plastic dinosaurs so they wouldn’t entertain themselves by building the World’s Largest Creamer Tower or sugar-packet sandbag fortresses. These days, mobile devices serve the same function.
“I hate it when mothers say ‘Johnny please don’t interrupt’ as though a five year old understands that! Why don’t parents have involved conversations with their five year olds over dinner?!”
You might not believe this, but young children are not great conversationalists. You should, of course, talk to them and include them but unless you want the entire conversation to be about Disney channel programs or what Tom made in Minecraft, they’re going to run out of material fairly quickly. They have precious little to say about the economy or Aunt Karen’s wedding or what’s going on at the office. Mom and Dad might actually want to have a Big People Conversation over part of dinner and if you’re terribly offended that a kid looks at a tablet while that happens you’re just going to have to get over yourself.
Ding ding ding
Well said! If some would just mind their own damn business and the rest would learn some damn manners, the world would be a much better place (for me, anyway, haha).