to take my children to a nice restaurant for lunch

[Nikna]

The idea fills me with dread, but DH booked a lunch at a nice restaurant today for my birthday. DS (3yrs) sat at the table really well playing with his cars, but when being encouraged to eat his meal did shout too loudly "its too hot!". Next thing I knew there was a man storming passed the table telling me "I should learn how to control my child!" as he walked out.

It wasn't as if he was running around the restaurant like a maniac. Of course should not let said, rude, miserable man upset me.... but here I am still stewing on it.

What a rude man. Your child has the rest of his life to learn volume control - but that man will be ignorant for ever by the look of it.

Runnyhabit says "We regularly take the ds out for lunch (5 & 3) Yes, they can be loud(ish) But we've taken them out since they were babies, and as has been said earlier, unless children go to these places often, they'll never know how to behave, and learn social skills."

Errr I'm sorry to burst your bubble but social skills should be taught in your home and round your own dining table. If your children are allowed to be loud round your own table then they are going to behave exactly the same when they are out.

I can understand that your children are the centre of your lift - but PLEASE don't impose them on the public when they are "learning to behave and social skills"

This is quite a recent behavioural problem from parents - I know then when I was young, my peers and I would never have been allowed to have caused a noise in a restaurant - our parents wouldn't have stood for it. Why has all that respect for other people gone? Some people are just so flippin selfish these days.

I've just posted on another thread where I explained that recently I was having dinner and there were children allowed to jump and scream on the seats - unbelievable.

moos there is a difference between talking a little loudly and jumping on seats!!!!

Moo also are you for real?

social skills are also taught everywhere actually,

I have an elderly lady as a friend.

She refuses to go shopping with her Dh despite them being happily married for a long time she cannot bear his rudeness to cashiers to people who breathe she says overnight everything made him cross!!

She wont go for a meal with him because waiters are too slow,the food isnt good enough - children are louder these days.

He is a very lovely man just inclined to be cross and rude.

If a restaurant is happy to accept children, then I'm afraid it's just tough luck on you Moos. Live and live dear.

If you don't like mixing with the public (and yes, that includes those under 16) then I suggest you stay indoors.

"I can understand that your children are the centre of your lift - but PLEASE don't impose them on the public when they are "learning to behave and social skills"

They are indeed the centre of my lift
What would you recommend then? Keeping them locked in a box until they have learned to be seen and not heard?

OP YANBU - the man sounds like a tit.

Do none of you ever come across loudvoiced adults in restaurants? Can remember a few booming middle-aged gents myself? Not to mention loud-laughing ladies in their tenties out for girlie lunches, cacking pensioners etc etc.

Is there an age group that can be safely trusted to coo as gently as suckling doves?

My 18 mth old behaved beautifully when we were out for a family lunch recently. Until I stopped him poking his fork in his eye, then he dropped his plate :( he was whisked out immediately and we had a little chat. No-one batted an eyelid thank god, and we will try again. He learns at home, at nursery, at grandmas' and when we go out. Hopefully will pay off sometime in next 10 years.

cory, your post made me PMSL.

girls in tenties sound fun, but I just love the idea of cacking pensioners

Now that would be cause for complaint.

YANBU, the man was completely out of order.
Children should be socialised into eating at proper restaurants early, I believe. And we have done it with DS since he was about 6mo. So far he has been very well behaved with one exception, when he had missed his nap and we ate early so that he could go to sleep after dinner but he was too tired to eat so created a fuss. But that was in a hotel restaurant and we were staying at the hotel so we just took him and his dinner plate back to our hotel room, where he ate it all quite happily.

I used to take toy animals with me whenever we went, now it's crayons and paper. Some restaurants supply crayons and activity books (which is lovely); one we went to here in Australia (which we had been warned was probably not child friendly) supplied us with an entire mug of crayons and allowed us to draw all over the paper table"cloth". Brilliant! They told us afterwards that DS was welcome back any time, he was such a happy boy.

And it is for fear of offending people like Moos with my DS, who may NEVER learn "appropriate" table manners, that the nicest place we have eaten out in 4 years is Pizza Express...at 11.45am, with no other customers present.

And he was utterly, utterly charming...shame no one will ever get to see him.

loulou - you should never fear offending people like Moos. [hsmile]

easier said than done I'm afraid 3thumbedwitch

moo you loon - socail skills are taught everywhere.

OP ignore the silly old man.

I have regularly taken Ds to restaurants, since he was a baby. He knows the difference between what is expected on him at the dinner table at home, at someone else's dinner table, at a noisy country pub and at a smart city restaurant. Differnet settings require different behaviour, but he learns that from experiencing these different settings and observing the behaviour of adults (and children) around him at these different settings.

Scuttlebutter. Bear in mind that we eat at 5pm not at "coupley" times and when I say no volume control I don't mean swinging from the rafters doing Tarzan impressions. I mean they chatter constantly. They are (in my humble opinion) lovely, well mannered children who have eaten in restaurants since birth. My point was I tend to spoil my own meal shushing them and being paranoid when we probably aren't any louder than the group of friends at the next table.

We were at a restaurant recently where there was a table of elderly diners making an incredible amount of noise.

We commented at the time that children or teenagers would have been heavily criticised for causing half as much disturbance to other diners.

Mooo - sorry, but it is simply not possible to teach children the skills involved in eating at a restaurant while you sit at home. Unless you run a restaurant, I guess .

So, he lost his temper and lectured your child on lack of self control? He doesn't really sound like he is much of an expert on the subject to me!

"PLEASE don't impose them on the public"???

That is a horrible attitude to have about children. I love seeing kids out and about and would much rather be sitting next to a family group than a group of drunk shrieking, cackling women...

I sometimes eat lunch at a rather nice restaraunt in Essex and the self regarding gob shite perma tanned mothers who are sometimes there would put any child to shame with their appaling screeching braying voices. One even wanted to light up "as no once could possibly mind"

Oh you silly Moos You have made me rather cross with your comments.

Surely, by definition, social skills are learnt in social environments.

And "please don't impose them on the public" Patronising twaddle.

You are absolutely right in one respect though, my children are the centre of my life. Which is why I want to teach them about everything - from reading, to how behave in restaurants.

Runny - you think I'M PATRONISING !!??

Every week I encounter women taking their badly behaved children into public places and talking very loudly to them in a patronising manner.

There's a lot of people out there who are so fed up of the "new age" parenting ie 30-40 years old generally. What happened that you turned out like that.?

PLEASE don't speak so loudly to your chldren.

PLEASE don't allow them to shout in public.

I could go on ..but you get my drift ?

PS Your children are only badly behaved because of YOUR BEHAVIOUR.

Moo, you are being ridiculous. Children are part of our society. If we want them to behave in an approprite manner, we have to teach them. But if we expect children to behave in public, should we also not expect adults to do the same? The amount of rude diners of the adult variety I have encountered in restaurants far outweights badly behaved children. I also expect adults to make concessions for children's behaviour because they a) used to be children themselves and b) are the adult in the situation and should know better.

Anyway, my oft repeated story of DD is a restaurant was on her second birthday whe, i n one of those momentary lulls in the general restaurant hub of noise, she decided to demonstrate her newly aquired sentence construction skills in a louder than normal voice...

"Daddy has purple knick knicks" (knickers)
"Daddy's bits in his purple knick knicks"

The whole restaurant erupted in laughter except DH who and swore he'd never get dressed in front of his daughter again.

mooos is absolutely hilarious in my book. For a start, OP's child was not badly behaved in the slightest. For a second, the man was worse behaved than the child. For a third, mooos lives in a weird dystopian universe that nobody else in their right mind would ever like to inhabit. Actually, did anyone else watch The Witches on Sunday afternoon? Offended and revolted by the mere sight of children, anyone?