And thats when you make a hail mary pass towards the end zone with the toy 
I think kids and parents are pretty much identical now to how they were when I was a kid. People are people. There are the entitled ones and the humble ones, the ones who try to cope and the ones who just throw up their hands or get snotty. I wasn’t anything approaching a perfect kid, nor are my nieces and nephews. In restaurants, I’ve been seated next to good kids and bad kids and the bad kids are just as often the ones in my party as they are in someone else’s.
Don’t go feeling special about it though. He/she has been doing it to quite a few people in the thread.
Hm… good point.
I don’t think you understand what “confirmation bias” means.
It does not mean “selective delusion or intentional bias”.
Same comment.
If you think an argument about “confirmation bias” is an accusation of “selective delusion or intentional bias”, you are simply not aware of what the argument is about.
Ah yes, that Hesiod quote. I remember that one from back in my post-graduate days in sociology. I had to totally re-write a thesis devoted to an analysis of child-rearing norms throughout history. My supervising prof said that I had spent far too much time devoted to examining all of the manifest changes in human society over the last six millennia and considering how they might influence said norms. “No, no, no - you’ve got it all wrong,” he said. “What you have completely failed to consider is that a Greek philosopher who died 2700 years ago has already scientifically established the immutability of human behavior.”
I took his criticism pretty hard and felt rather despondent over the whole thing. He suggested I might have an excess of black bile in my system and offered to tap my gall bladder to balance things out. I foolishly demurred. 
Wise man, that prof.
Disclaimer: I did not really do any post-graduate work in sociology.
Sure, but the Nazis made the kids straighten up and fly right with the Hitler Youth. Just look at the Pope. You think it’s a coincidence he was in it?
Ah, if only the Boy Scouts were allowed to hold executions…
A man can dream, can’t he?
What are the odds that he would have been “accidentally” overheard if he was 5 foot 6 instead of 6 foot 5?
I think that this is the basic problem, not that kids have changed, but parenting styles have changed. Many people now believe that they can offer toddlers choices in every behavior. Sure, it’s OK to ask your 3 year old if she wants to wear the pink or purple top today, when it really doesn’t matter which one she wears. It’s not a good idea to ask that same 3 year old if she’s ready to leave the playground yet, when YOU know that you need to get going now if you want to be on time to that next appointment. She’s going to say that she wants to play some more, you’re going to keep asking her the same question and getting the same answer, and both of you will be frustrated. Instead, it’s better to give the child limited choices, but as a parent, YOU decide the important things…like behavior in public, and when it’s time to leave.
The thing is, when parents give these choices, they feel like they are doing the right thing, and if they can only reason well enough with the child, s/he’ll be reasonable and see things the parent’s way. But kids aren’t reasonable, for the most part, and they want to do whatever is the most fun NOW, and never mind the consequences later. Hell, some so-called adults haven’t mastered the concept of delayed gratification. Which brings us to another point. Teaching the kids proper behavior isn’t something that’s easy. It’s damned hard. And a lot of people aren’t willing to put in that much effort. It’s easier to let the kid run around the restaurant, getting in everyone else’s way, and play with the condiment bottles than to keep an eye on the kid and make sure that she stays seated and relatively quiet.
It’s easy to give a meaningful (to a 3 year old) choice about when to leave, too. You just have to remember to do it earlier. If you need to leave at 3:00, you start the process at 2:45. “Honey, do you want to leave now, or in 15 minutes?” Of course the kid will say 15 minutes. So then she gets a 10 minute warning that is NOT phrased the the form of a choice: “Just letting you know, 10 more minutes!” And a 5, “We get to stay for 5 more minutes, wheeee!” and a 2, which may include a small choice: “Only 2 minutes left - slide or swings?” And then you leave at 3:00, just like you planned to all along.
Not all kids need such a production, of course, but the ones who have trouble with control and transitions really benefit from it. And that does seem to be most kids. Because, really - when you leave a party, do you decide to do it and grab your coat? Of course not. You contemplate leaving, you check in with your spouse about leaving in 10 or 20 minutes, you make your rounds and say goodbye, you use the bathroom one last time…very few of us, at any age, don’t need some sort of planning to mentally and physically switch activities. So why not assume small people need the same space to transition, and teach them how to do it?
But yes, your point is spot on. “Choices” is a great parenting strategy, but you never EVER offer a choice that’s not okay with you. Never. That will be the choice they choose. They don’t have fully functioning frontal lobes in their brain. You’ve got to be their filter for many years, and filter out the ridiculous, impractical and dangerous options for them by just not mentioning them!
Well, you where quite right to not bother with any post-graduate work in sociology - why bother with all that “science” stuff when, as many in this thread will tell you, a few choice anecdotes clearly demonstrates important and universal contemporary trends?
Who needs anecdotes when the real ace-in-the-hole is an impressive-sounding term like “confirmation bias”?
“You’ve had kids thump on your back? I never have! Confirmation bias!”
“You don’t like screaming kids? Teenagers and old people are annoying too! Confirmation bias!”
“You think you can tell the difference between parents letting their kids run wild and parents making an effort? Confirmation bias! What, you’ve seen your brother and his wife doing a good job parenting their son and think they’d never for a moment allow him to terrorize a restaurant? Doubleplus confirmation bias!!!”
You rang? I’m not quite over 70, but close – I’m 66. And childless. So that means I was a toddler myself more than 60 years ago, and I do remember going out to eat, being a bit bratty and being quickly reined in. I also remember an episode when I was in my twenties, at a restaurant with a friend and her brother and sister-in-law and their young child. He was probably around 2 or 3, old enough to be mobile, not old enough to be civilized. My friend and I both got pretty peeved and embarrassed that the parents didn’t seem to be doing much to control the kid. So it’s definitely not a modern phenomenon. Some parents are better than others at keeping their kids in check, some kids need a firmer hand than others.
By the way, while I’m strolling down memory lane (slowly but without a cane or walker yet), I’ll mention that I remember babysitting (for 50 cents an hour) when I was about 12. I also remember that back then not only did kids ride without seatbelts, but so did grownups – because cars didn’t even have seatbelts back then. Times have changed and attitudes have changed. I think seatbelts are a good thing, but I would not characterize parents in earlier times of being uncaring about their children just because they operated by the standards of their times.
You guys are going to laugh at me and I know it’s not the same as what y’all are talking about, but I have to tell you this story.
A few weeks after I got my dog (she was about a year old, Blue Tick Coon Hound) I took her to obedience class. There was one particular day when she just wouldn’t listen. She wouldn’t stop barking (she rarely barks) and pulling and screwing around and I was SO EMBARRASSED. I was freakin’ mortified at her behaviour. As we were driving home I had to actually pull over into a park and I just sat and cried in frustration. All I could think was: “This is how parents feel when their child acts up in public.” At that moment I was so grateful that I’m never having kids, I couldn’t imagine having that frustrated/helpless/everybody-thinks-I-suck-as-a-parent feeling on a regular basis. I will never, ever judge a parent whose child is acting up in public again!
(We got home and my dog went straight to the kitchen and had a massive drink of water. I couldn’t believe it - she was simply thirsty. I felt like an even worse parent when I realized the problem, LOL.)
These days, the most commonly served food is burgers that are mass produced and distributed to the restaurants.
Fortunately, there is a move to locally produced food. As this catches on, I predict that the number of ill behaved children running about and screaming in restaurants will be inversely proportional to the number of restaurants that grind their meat on the premises.
Remember, folks, eat local.
Took me a moment. Clever!
Soylent Green burgers. Soylent Juicy would pick that up
It may be the percentage of bad parents today is the same it has always been. And it may be the percentage of kids that are naturally bad or hard to control is the same it has always been.
However, I do get the impression that over the past handful of decades one thing has changed. Adults other than parents are no longer “allowed” to set the kid straight if the parents won’t. If thats true it certainly can’t be helping on the “screaming kids” war.
Oh, yeah? Well, then, miss smarty pants, tell me this: Who will keep the lawns safe???
And besides, you need to be more polite, or else you’ll never be** mrs. elizabeth!**
I’m a charmer, ain’t I?