Out of Control Children in Restaurants / Public Places

looky loo wrote: »

Saw this sign in a restaurant....'Unattended children will be given expressos and free puppies'....:)

a nice cheerful post.......howdy doo looky loo:)

thebigbiffo wrote: »

it's the only record I'll ever hold on boards. anyway, I stand by it. Nobody, absolutely nobody has any idea what it's like raising kids till you've done it yourself. it may be overused, but that doesn't mean it's not true.

It's one I can't agree with, I have no kids; however, I may need to do parenting skills with some clients. I hear this type of generalisation a lot in my area. For example, recovering addicts stating that only a person who has experience of addiction can really understand.

Thing is I also work with people who are suffering form a form of psychosis, severe criminals, sex offenders, do I need experience of those pathologies to understand them , basically no.

It may seem like a bit of a jump, but the generalisation of needing experience of something to really understand it; is the same. I have never been to war but due to some personal contacts I also do some work with former soldiers suffering from PTSD, once again I don't need experience of being in a battle situation to understand the impact it has on people.

Finally I do know that it can be difficult when you have ordered food; you are stuck in that position and just have to try your best. However, you work on it so they are better behaved over time.

If I was the OP I would have complained to the manager, I love to see kids run free and express themselves, but it is neither the correct time or place when your are in a public place where other people are there to have a discussion/socialise over a meal.

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.

Then if you can't control them stay home with them.

Dont mind kids having a bit of craic and being rowdy as long as the parents try and make an effort. When the kid is roaring crying its time to leave though.

Did anyone when they were younger get the "look" from either your mother or father - the "look" that ment you were in for a right hiding if you didn't sit down and shut up.

Nagikami wrote: »

Nope We just got flat out told that we were gonna get a smack if we didn't stop acting up

And we actually got smacked...


I dont recall being brought anywhere public other than the supermarket until we were about 6 or 7. By that age we weren't so hyper, and so were quiet in restaurants, cinema etc. Also, we got a schmack or two for being bold which shut us up.

I agree with the oddity of parents not realising that kids have such short attention spans and then making them stay in a pub or cafe for literally hours. Then wondering why they are tugging at their sleeves and whining, and hopping around the place.

Friend of mine works in a cafe, day I visited her, a 2/ 3 year old who'd been there for hours and bored, so running around, was after wandering in behind the counter to watch my friend load the industrial dishwasher.

Where was her mom, making sure she wasn't getting burnt off the steam of it, or grabbing the sharp utensils from the counter, or pulling something onto herself?

Outside, smoking a fag, assuming my friend was going to watch her kid for her. Its. Not. Her. Responsibility. Its YOURS.

pixiebean22 wrote: »

Same goes for kids in the cinema. A trip to the cinema is bloody expensive these days and yet you have parents willing to shell out probably in the region of €50 if not more to bring their little angels to see Harry Potter eventhough they know that the child is going to spend 50% of the film running around like a lunatic, 40% whinging about how bored they are and 10% actually sitting still and watching the film (until their popcorn runs out).

Went to see Harry Potter a few weeks ago. A midweek evening show, 8:30 i think it started. And somebody had brought an baby into the film. While the baby only cried fully once and was brought out by the parent then - from where I was sitting you could hear the baby fussing and whinging throughout the movie. Was absolutley shocked as was friends i was with who are also parents. The evening show in the cinema is not an appropriate place for a baby - get a babysitter or dont go.

Originally Posted by OutlawPete
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.

While I have the utmost sympathy for your sister and your situation and others all around the world in a similar situation, if your sister didn't have autism you wouldn't give the first fuuuuuu- about this.

Like Chris Reeve and paraplegics and Katie Price and whatever the hell her child has, you only care when it affects you and not before so don't sit there on your massively high horse and tell people to mind their own bloody business you hypocrite.