What is up with letting children run wild in public?

In My Humble Opinion
181

I can never quite figure out how I get shit for being judgmental and “holier than thou” in a thread where people are calling other people they’ve never met and know nothing about “scum” whose children will “almost certainly grow up to be scum.”

I am impressed, though, that so many of you have mastered special looks and voices that can render any child immediately obedient. Most of the parents I know are imperfect creatures who are doing the best they can to do a job that they are learning as they go along and making copious mistakes (which I assume makes them “scum”) and clearly wouldn’t fit in on “the board where everyone is above average.”

182

Well . . .

183

You’ve never heard someone use the “mom voice”, even sven?

The thing about the “mom voice”, ironically enough, is that it actually tends to work better on other people’s children. Stranger using the mom voice = scary, better shape up! Mom using mom voice = oh, it’s just Mom. :wink:

184

Eh. I know the “mom voice.” As a teacher is comes in handy.

But the whole:

“Well, I never have to deal with kids acting up, because I always use perfect judgement all the time. My kids, for example, have never even uttered a word in public. It’s so easy to raise kids! Why doesn’t the scum just use the simple solution? It must be because they were planning to rob the restaurant. I bet they were smuggling drugs, too!”

“Oh yeah? Me too! I hate when scum is imperfect around me! I bet they are terrorists of some kind- just look at their ‘ghetto’ attitude! One time my child broke his arm, but he didn’t cry even once because I looked at him funny. Really, anyone whose kids cry is just a bad person. Isn’t it great that we aren’t scum?”

is getting a little silly. The couple in the OP probably weren’t great parents, although I didn’t know enough about them to judge their qualities as human beings. And none of us have a magic ability to control all children at all times.

185

Silly? Dude, what’s silly is you going all Rambo on everyone the minute you hear a crack in a child’s voice. Most people’s original response to a noisy family who is leaving a restaurant is to just be quiet and wait for them to go. After it’s clear that they’re lingering, and the disruption is getting progressively worse, then you say something, which is what the OP did. Calling anything short of that “passive-aggressive” is nonsense.

186

You should see my mom in action. 30+ years of teaching, the perfect Teacher Face, and when situations like this arises, she not only manages to get the rowdy kids to settle down, but she often leaves them with homework too!

Seriously, we were on a trip a few years back and there were some kids - about 6-8 years old - who were being rather loud and rowdy around the pool. I think the parents were on the other side, and weren’t paying attention. They bumped into my mom’s chair, and she gave them the Teacher Face, which stopped them in their tracks, then started talking to them and got them to go off and count the flags around the pool or somesuch. They kept coming back with the answer and she’d just ask them to go find out some other random fact, all the while just lounging around and taking in some sun. It was rather amazing!

She occasionally babysits her neighbour’s 4 year old, and every time he comes over, she has him practicing his letters or numbers or something. My dad is teaching the kid to speak English (he now asks for cheese and crackers by saying “Cheese please!” which my dad thinks is the funniest thing in the world!)

187

It’s OK to sometimes just sit back and enjoy someone else’s gloriously over-the-top anecdote. My favorite part so far is the velour sweatsuit, which really just brought the whole scene together for me.

188

I actually enjoy when kids are acting up. Especially when I am eating out with my own kids.

We are working pretty hard at socializing them and during the first few months, they learned what the limits were and that being in public did not mean they could get away with anything they couldn’t get away with at home. Sure, we missed out on a couple of meals at restaurants when we had to follow through on a threat to go home (one that we had even already ordered and then paid for <sigh>) while they were testing those limits but now we have kids who will sit through a whole meal at a restaurant (provided we have brought at least a colouring book since they can get bored) without incident.*

What I love now is watching the horrified looks my children get on their faces when other children do not behave well in a restaurant. They can’t help but stare as if they think that the other child is going to seriously get in trouble any moment.

My biggest problem when other children are acting up is to not say anything. My tongue has permanent bite marks. If I hear one more parent say, ‘Don’t do that.’ in a sing song voice only to be ignored over and over again, I might have to give them lessons. (If you want most kids to stop and they aren’t listening, look them straight in the eye, tell them quietly to stop it. Works 90% of the time.)

I think, though, one of the reasons we are seeing more and more of this behaviour from parents is because they do not want to embarass themselves. Take this weekend. We were at the grocery store and my daughter could not stop touching things on the shelves (she is allowed to help by pulling things off that we are buying, of course). She got two warnings (both in quiet ‘mom voice’ while looking her in the eye) and did it a third time. Guess what? My little girl got a time out in the middle of the grocery store (actually in a small alcove to the side so as not to disturb the folw of things). I got the hairy eyeball from everyone who walked by until it was over but she stopped and we kept going and had a nice little trip.

Now, while she was basically playing with things on the shelves, I was also getting the hairy eyeball. So, as a parent, I can’t do anything that people won’t disapprove of.

Non-parents will say that I just shouldn’t take the little gaffer to the store with me. That’s fine and dandy except she is normally well behaved and loves doing the groceries with me. And sometimes, I have to do groceries when I don’t have my husband at home where he can care for the kids.

Anyway, my point is that while you get the exact same discipline out of me no matter what the location, it is often hard for parents to know how they should react to their childrens’ behaviour issues outside the home.

*I also think it helps that we are there to eat dinner as a family. Which means we all talk to each other and pay attention to the kids. If we wanted to have a grown up dinner, we would get a sitter.

189

The whole “I’ll create a bunch of ridiculous strawmen to justify my inane criticism of the OP” thing is what’s silly.

No one’s expecting “perfect” parenting. Some effort, is, however, necessary.

And that’s what it comes down to - not a reluctance to make an embarassing scene, or cluelessless (though they may come into play to some degree). It’s about not giving a damn. Not as big a problem when parents avoid responsibility in their own home, but clearly a whole different matter when out in public.

190

Spoken in a loud voice: “If the manager is unavailable, YOU are the responsible person. I am paying in part for peaceable enjoyment of my meal. Since you are incapable of that, I am leaving”

191

Please note:

Pay especially close attention to the bolded part. I don’t have any ‘tricks’ that make me ‘perfect’ (or anything close to it) in dealing with my own children, or anyone else’s. I have learned, in 23 years of being a mother, what is effective much of the time; this is as opposed to parents like those in the OP who don’t really seem concerned about figuring out what’s effective at all. That type of parent, IME, is perfectly content to put absolutely no effort into parenting, as long as what their little heathens are doing isn’t directly affecting them.

I don’t think what I’ve described is a majority of parents. I think most parents would prefer to do a good job, some may just need some guidance or education. But I’ve seen my share of parents who only have kids because they couldn’t be bothered to go to the trouble of birth control, and then they parent very badly. The reason my method gets the attention of kids MOST of the time is that they’re not accustomed to it. The reason it works on my kids MOST of the time is that they understand cause and effect, and understand that if they don’t settle down immediately, unpleasantness will result.

192

I’ve never had anywhere near the problems cited by the OP, but I have spent some quality time in the presence of kids acting out.

I usually just offer them candy.

The adults get them out of the area quite quickly for some reason.

193

I’ve had kids give me that reaction, too. They’re the ones who get to write letters of apology, walk laps at recess, and explain to mom the detailed email about their behavior. Now those kids act up, they look over at me, see my expressionless stare, and knock it the heck off.

194

Oh, please.

I certainly don’t have a magic ability to control the Firebug, but when we’re in public and he’s disturbing other people, I have the not-so-magic ability to pick him up and take him out to the car for a time-out and a quiet talk.

195

The solution universally used by parents in this thread is removing the kid when he or she acts up. That is not the same as claiming our kids are perfect. There are many reasons why kids may lose control, but none of them excuse bothering other people. In the situation described by the OP there were two parents, so one could remove the kid while the other paid, they had finished their meal so they didn’t even have to worry about the food being cold. A kid having a fit in his booth is bad but I can see it being tolerable. Jumping into someone else’s booth is so over the top as to be absurd. Do you really think that parents who allow such behavior are anything other than assholes?
You do not have had to develop mother, father or teacher voices to be able to move a six-year old kid.

196

First off, I’ve been at my current job for a loooooong time. And I’ve never seen anyone get kicked out of the store. So it doesn’t happen as much as some people would have you believe.

A friend of mine - another manager actually - was working at another store one time. A guy started getting really nasty because his meal was taking longer than usual (the store was very busy at the time). She went out to talk to him and he got up, got in her face and started cursing at her - had her backed up against a wall actually. He then left because she told him he had to. He later called the district manager and complained. My friend was written up. The DM didn’t care about her side of the story, he just cared that one of his pwecious customers was bitching, never mind that he was an asshole.

The DM was a douchebag too IIRC.

I wasn’t surprised by a recent article stating that restaurant work is one of the most stressful jobs you can have, especially for managers who are quite often stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

197

I’ll save that for the next time I get stuck sitting next to a kid on a plane.

198

I have two kids, a 3 and 1 year old. So they’re prone to not behave perfectly when we go out. But they are remarkably well behaved, and I can’t recall a meltdown - we learned as parents to not stop at twenty stores before naptime, etc. But I do feel sympathy for parents who have young kids and are just clueless on how to deal with them. Of course this isn’t really the category that the parents in the OP are dealing with.

I’m an old school parent, and I will dress down a kid in public; I really don’t care and don’t embarrass easily. I do believe if your kid is totally out of control, it’s your job to get out of there as quickly and safely as possible and deal with him/her in a place where others aren’t being bothered. But I do not think it is a good idea to interact with someone else’s kids. It’s not 1950, we don’t live in the same neighborhoods, and you do not know who you’re dealing with. You talk to the parents, then the management, and if that fails, go elsewhere. There are places where management are clueless drones that have to clear everything through corporate, and there are places where the people working there are empowered to handle a situation.

I taught fourth grade in the 'hood. Trust me, I dealt with some kids that would challenge the best mom/teacher stares out there. Not every tactic works on every kid. But certainly, if you can remove yourself from the situation, do so. There’s nothing noble about getting into a battle of wits with a child, and if you don’t have to - don’t. Having dealt with kids for a living I sure as hell didn’t want to do it outside of work.

199

Ordinarily I would never put my hands on even the brattiest of kids (although many times the back of my hand itched to do so), but I once physically moved a 6YO kid out of the store entrance that he was deliberately blocking as his mother ineffectually cooed “Dylan, let her in! Dylan! Dylan! Dylan, stop that! Dylan! Dylan! Dylan, let her in! Dylan! Dylan! Dylan!”

Her demeanour changed instantly and she snapped, “Don’t you put your hands on my boy!” I simpered “Dylan, let her in! Dylan! Dylan! Dylan!”, rolled my eyes and kept on walking. Perhaps if she’d used the tone she used on me on her child instead, he wouldn’t have just eyeballed the two of us and continued doing whatever he felt like.

200

Did I miss a thread somewhere?