Out of Control Children in Restaurants / Public Places

donalg1 wrote: »

One of my biggest pet peeves is parents who refuse to tell their children to sit down and stop running around screaming when they are in public places such as restaurants. Just the other day i was in a hotel having dinner and a table in the middle of the bar had two kids probably 4 and 2 and the two parents at it, now the whole time i was there the kids weren't sitting down at any stage they were in the middle of the floor chasing each other around and fighting over toys having great fun, getting in everyones way, especially the waiting staff who they ran into at least five times while they were carrying plates full of stuff. The parents just sat there eating and drinking and never once told them to sit down despite the fact that everyone in the place was getting really pi**ed off with the two little s***s!!

Just wondering if you were to say something would you say it to the children given that they are the annoying liitle brats or the parents for being too lazy and ret**ded to tell them to sit down and shut up.

thebigbiffo wrote: »

The problem with kids that age - as you may know if you had any, which i suspect you dont - is that they rarely sit still and can be very hard to get to do so. the fact is you can't lock kids up just because some people are annoyed by kids doing what kids do.

donalg1 wrote: »

being too lazy and ret**ded to tell them to sit down and shut up.

thebigbiffo wrote: »

The problem with kids that age - as you may know if you had any, which i suspect you dont - is that they rarely sit still and can be very hard to get to do so. the fact is you can't lock kids up just because some people are annoyed by kids doing what kids do.

Show Time wrote: »

I take it you have no idea that kids have minds of their own and cannot be programmed to behave.

OutlawPete wrote: »

Certain complaints that have made here have been legitimate. Children running amok and going unsupervised in public places is not on. Screaming kids and the like should be removed if at all possible (cinemas, theaters, galleries etc) but sometimes it isn't of course possible to just removed yourself and a child from a situation (doctors or just queuing etc). Also, people bringing children to pubs and restaurants after 7pm should have a bit more cop on, or at the very least, be super aware and keep them on a far tighter leash than they would say if it were 2 or 3pm. As Snyper eluded to earlier, there is a big difference between complaining of children crying and making noise at the cinema at a 1pm screening, than there is of complaining of the same type of behavior at a late night screening. One is understandable, the other is not.



In saying all that, members of the public can be selfish, narcissistic, sour faced *****, who just will complain at the smallest of things regarding children and what they perceive to be 'bad parenting'. They are everywhere and they are a boil on the arse of humanity. I have been the carer of someone with autism (my sister) for almost 25 years now, since I was a child myself in fact and the kind of stuff that has been leveled at me by so called adults, has been nothing short of disgusting. Rolled eyes would be a Christmas present compared to the crap that we've dealt with while out in public places trying to live our lives. When I was younger I used to snap back, but you eventually get thick skinned, otherwise you'd be fighting with morons all day everyday.



You may think that my situation is different to that which is being discussed here, but it isn't and the reason for that is because people do not know that my sister has autism, as she looks just looks just like anybody else (as many kids/adults with autism do in fact). Even today, as a 33 year old, you would just think she was just an average 12 year old and so, throughout all my years of being in public places together, what I experience is precisely what parents of normal kids experience when they have a bad day with their "normal" unruly children in public, when other people react badly to them. Only difference is, with most parents that might be 2 or 3% of the time they go out, with myself (and most other parents/siblings of someone with autism) it's almost every single day and every single time that they leave the house.



Again, there are of course times when people have every right to expect some peace and quiet. They may very well have problems of their own to cope with and so when they go out, they should be entitled to expect to enjoy that time undisturbed by children screaming and acting up.



However, people who complain, throw dirty looks and make judgmental comments about other parents, just because they see a child scream or throw a tantrum in a shop, cinema etc, in my mind .. are just arseholes, get over yourselves. Okay, so your day has been interrupted by noise that you would prefer went away or hadn't happened, but that doesn't give you the right to be prissy or obnoxious about it. If an adult is clearly doing their best to take care of a kid, but that child is still being wild or unruly, bear in mind that there could very well be more to why that child is behaving that way, than meets the eye. That adult or sibling may have spent the last week stuck indoors, going through the same crap (sometimes literately) and this trip to the shop, cinema, cafe etc has been there only refuge in that time, their only chance to get outside the house and so the last thing that they need is someone making things harder for them, with their selfish, ignorant reactions and attitudes to those situations. Of course, a small dose of 'minding your own bloody business' would go a long way too.