Quote:
Originally Posted by southbymidwest
Pet Peeve Alert: Uhh, no. Any selfish parents who let their kid act up (and not just a little fussing) in a restaurant without dealing with it (mainly by ignoring or unsuccessful cajoling) need to be spanked themselves. J/K, but it is not my problem that your little darling is tired/hungry/bored/out of patience/whatever. And don't make it worse by spanking the kid in the restaurant thereby letting the rest of the restaurant hear the kid crying/roaring from the spanking.
OK, back to regularly scheduled programming.
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Fully agree. I am not above (politely) saying something to parents who allow this. They might think their little hellion is adorable, but his screaming is not cute. It's a problem I see a lot, for some reason extremely frequently in my hometown. Parents let their children RUN around the restaurant and I've seen waiters lose whole trays twice because a child ran straight into them-and have seen the parents yell at the poor waiter because they couldn't be bothered to say "Timmy SIT DOWN". Last week some kid in the booth behind myself and my boyfriend thought shooting balls of paper out of a straw at us was just so fun. So was jumping up and down on the seat, and popping up and screaming loudly. I finally turned around and asked the parents to please control their child only to have them look put out and tell me I should just leave. We complained to the manager and tipped the waiter heavily because that poor guy had to deal with that nightmare and its parents, too and still managed to be very nice to us. If I EVER behave like that as a parent someone better be hitting me, hard, and not with just a hand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPhil
The Post Provides the Context Alert. 
Parents should eventually learn how to discipline their kids in public to avoid having to leave everytime the kid is acting up. I've seen kids taken to the restroom or outside during church service. The kids come back acting right. Something was successful whether it was a spanking, a grabbing, or a stern conversation.  |
That doesn't always work. It just plain doesn't. I have a cousin I have the...
pleasure?...of babysitting occasionally and understand why her parents are at whit's end. They've tried every creative way of disciplining possible (incidentally they do not spank) but every time she hears another child act up in a restaurant she takes it as a challenge and attempts to top her peer. Short of Duct-taping her mouth shut or other methods that could be considered child abuse her there's nothing they haven't tried and oftentimes leaving is the only thing that keeps other customers from suffering, so one of them takes her outside, one pays, and they leave, which IMO is the right thing to do. I don't care how cute she is, no one wants to listen to that. Her brother, on the other hand, usually responds to a quiet "Do you want to lose your electronics privileges?" and at the worst gets a trip to the ladies room and a stern lecture and then feels guilty enough to apologize and hush. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to ask him twice to do/not do something. Every child is different, and it's not always feasible to stick it out in a public place just to prove a point.