Badly behaved children in restaurants = £40

[Jewelspun]

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/restaurants-parenting-policy-could-see-28010645.amp

A restaurant has sparked controversy for charging extra for “adults unable to parent”, adding £40 to the bill for families with badly behaved children. Toccoa Riverside Restaurant said the charge has been around for a long time, but is just now garnering attention.

I mean you could just ask the parents to stop their child running around and disturbing others and actually deal with the matter politely at the time - or you could just slap a £40 fine on the parents afterwards and not care about who was disturbed in the mean time.

At a family restaurant I expect a fair bit of noise and kids toing and froing - if people don't want to be disturbed by kids then don't go to a family restaurant. Equally people teaching their kids how to behave at a restaurant shouldn't be doing so at a michelin starred place.

I have no problem with people giving their kids a tablet to amuse them if they are sitting waiting for a while, especially if they have SEN - some places the service is very slow! Just make sure you have headphones or the sound is off.

I want to relax when I eat out. I expect most customers do. I like to see children who behave and sit up nicely eating their meal. Unfortunately there are a few DC who don't know how to sit up nicely and eat their meal and instead scream, throw food about and run around and the parents of these DC don't seem in the least bothered about making their DC behave. Tax them all they like perhaps they'll keep the brats at home. Maybe they could tax this behaviour on flights too and for seat kickers.

@IncompleteSenten you sound amazing. I find the problems are generally not with children with SEN, but children whose parents are "gentle" or just selfish ...

@Parakeetamol

To get £40 fine for that, when I'm already trying to handle the situation as best as I can and trying not to annoy other diners would be soul destroying.

I do agree - being a parent myself, I try my hardest to make sure my kids are well-behaved when we eat out. But there are those inevitable times when they just decide to get up and do something insane, or make daft noises and so forth. Honestly, I think there's a whole world of difference between generally well-behaved children being occasionally exuberant and, well, children, and parents who don't give a hoot what their kids are doing. With the latter, there's no attempt at all at any form of discipline and it's quite obvious that the kids are left to their own devices and bollocks to the other customers. For this cohort of people, the fine is entirely appropriate.

I don't mind eating next to a family where the kids are just being kids, and the parents are actively parenting them.

I think it's an excellent idea!
I for one am sick of having my restaurant experiences totally ruined by obnoxious arrogant bratty psychos screaming and/or tantruming non-stop, very loud and running around as if the place is a playground while mummy and daddy do absolutely nothing to stop them while worshipping their mobiles!

It's about time establishments took action against these monsters!

Pubs have schemes where if you are banned from one, you are banned from all those in the area.

I don't think it could work for restaurants, but wish it could. Not being able to take your child who you don't make any effort to get to behave to McDonalds or KFC might be an incentive to get them to behave to begin with.

Normally by how the parents react, parents of SEN children try to placate them, it is the parents that stick their heads in their phones and refuse to parent that are the problem.

It is the parents that stick their heads in their phones and refuse to parent that are the problem.

Very true!

Agreed, it seems like a lazy solution to a problem where the losers are the restaurant's customers. Meanwhile the restaurant owner gains £40. Kerching

Me too.
I've walked out of places before where children have been allowed to behave like that and their parents do nothing 😔

The restaurant owner comes across as a bit of a wanker. If the children were annoying other diners / staff, he should have had the balls to tell the parents to either get the children under control or leave. Looks like instead he took the opportunity to eait until the end to make a load of money and then use that to get a bunch of free publicity.

The article is very vague about what exactly the restaurant thought the children did wrong. They were “running around outside.” So what? Mediterranean restaurants always have children running around on the grass near the tables and it’s lovely.

Drunk people who talk too loudly are much more annoying than children 👀

DH’s good friend has two kids. Him and his wife allow their two DC to wander up to other tables and hover. It’s so weird.

They’re very strict with so many other things (never allowed sweets, water and milk are the only drinks, must finish every scrap of food at mealtimes).

A toddler making her solitary way around a huge inglenook fireplace complete with roaring fire gave me a very twitchy experience recently…