To ask people to keep their DC to themselves

[crazy8]

Ok. I know I may upset people with the following but am I being unreasonable to ask people to not let their children play around my table while I am out having dinner with my DH and DC so that they can eat in peace while their DC amuse themselves at my table.

Was at a restaurant in Canary Wharf and the table behind us let their DC happily play at my table. Was actually looking to have a nice meal out. Was not expecting fine dining but a little bit of courtesy from the parents of the walkabout children would have been appreciated.

Stop relying on telepathy and use your words.
YANBU to ask people to keep their DCs to themselves, but you didn't, did you?

YANBU - but you should have spoken to the parents at the time.

I would have done what someone up thread said and said 'off you go back to your parents'.....
If they didn't would say again more loudly looking anxiously in direction of parents.
Then if parents still oblivious would rethink tactics but would probably mutter crossly and be unwelcoming to children tell my children to ignore and get on with their food.

Yanbu. This happened to us on a long haul flight. The parents were napping while their children wandered up and down. They were stopping dd (5at the time) and SHE told them to go back to their mum and dad as she was trying to sleep.

OP YANBU it is a restaurant, you are eating. Felatio I am intrigued. These girls were 5&7 I would have happily left the dcs playing in a children's pool, while I sat somewhere else. As the mother said they know where we are if they need us.As a child on holiday we were not that closely supervised. Presumably these girls knew where the toilet etc was and it was AI so they could get themselves a drink or snack. I can't really see what it was you found so irksome about 2girls playing in the pool or have I missed something ?

I think you should have told the staff it was a problem and let them sort it out.

Not sure OP should need to ask. Surely parents/careers should be minding their own children. As others have said people are walking about with hot plates and glasses. If you want them to wander take them for a picnic.

Take books, colouring things and amuse them at your own table. No one minds happy chatter or even crying from others DC but they don't want to be unpaid entertainers/minders when they are eating.

If you want a peaceful meal out without your DC just pay a babysitter and don't expect other diners to do it.

In the situation with the two little girls at the pool you would just have to tell the parents. That is just taking the p*.

OP - to be fair, if you didn't tell them, then you shouldn't really grumble. Politely speaking to people isn't rude.

There'll always be people out there that live their lives differently. If you tell them and they react badly or don't do anything about it, then that's rude behaviour.

YANBU, I don't like that, you go in a restaurant to eat a meal not to play-a playground is to play in. I agree 100%.

YANBU. I glare. Have noticed that parents who previously were paying no attention to the fact their kids are hanging around other people act wounded when you glare at said kids. Maybe they think you want them there - but why?!

Really Xmas? You'd leave a 5 and 7 yo unsupervised round a pool?

YADNBU!

Children rampaging about restaurants as though they're playground drives me batty. As does their being allowed to be Incredibly Noisy because apparently their parents think whinging & shrieking & shouting & "singing" is the mealtime soundtrack everyone desires.

My brother & I were naturally quite Quiet And Well-Behaved Children, my sister was naturally far more energetic & I'm sure would often have liked to be doing laps of restaurants/making friends with other diners/generally not sitting quietly at the table. There was never any question of her doing that though, because there'd've been such trouble. We didn't eat out very often other than when on holiday (we were lucky enough to go abroad for a fortnight most years) but expectations about Home Manners were high & we were taught Outside Manners too. We were none of us horribly suppressed or unnaturally Good, but we all knew how to behave & [that] not doing so would've meant Consequences.

It's all part of people thinking the rest of the world should bend to them because they've got children & the strange reluctance to accept that they can't run their lives exactly as before. I would happily sit silently through (some!) Shakespeare at the age of 4 so was taken to the theatre (matinees, my parents weren't keeping me out to theatre hours!) on the understanding if I didn't behave I'd be taken out. My sister would never have managed the same at that age, so my parents didn't take her until she was old enough to enjoy a play without disturbing other audience members. I know there are parents out there who do this, but the ones who give me the catsbum face when I ask they stop their child constantly kicking my seat at the theatre because it is jarring my spine/think that there's no problem with their children playing so they block the door to the restaurant/generally give the impression we should be grateful their offspring are brightening our lives with their antics are the ones that really stick in the mind because of how cross they make me

You should have spoken to the parents. No point going on about it now.

We had a child on Christmas Eve who kept running behind dh's chair in a restaurant, then lay prostate behind it kicking her feet on the floor. Parents oblivious. I tapped mum on shoulder and said it would be awful if dh accidentally pushed chair back on her.
Problem solved. Child scooped up and sat on her chair.

Dh was like you...seething but not doing anything.
Although I did think he was going to tell her SAnta wasn't real

XmasPudding I t wasn't a children's pool as such it was the family pool, deep, full sized, but noisy/busy etc. The 'adult only' pool (i.e., quiet, no games, no splashing) was a good distance away, like 5 minutes or more walk!

I don't think the issue is whether the pool was suitable for them to be left unsupervised in though (although imho it wasn't) it was the assumption that as I had a two year with me all say every day I really wouldn't object to having their two as well, so they could get some well earned R&R.

Well IMO it's the difference between leaving them unsupervised and the children latching on to you off their own bat and the parents leaving them in your care which is very cheeky

Sorry all been at work today. If children can swim then I think it's ok to for example go into the bar area whilst they are in the pool.
My Dad regularly left us in the kids pool (some of which was out of our depth) to dollengths in the pool next door.

This drives me nuts. Sadly, OH does it all the time. He's got this stupid sense of entitlement that the rest of the world must want to help him look after the DCs. I stop it when I'm around but I dread to think what the train journey to Edinburgh must have been like for the people in his carriage :(

What parents would take their children to a restaurant then let them wander off bothering other customers. We eat out 2 or 3 times a week in all types of restaurants and I never see children wandering around the dining room and it wouldn't occur to my DS to get up from our table and walk over to random strangers! It's incredibly rude of the parents to let their children behave that way in the first place and they have no business taking them to restaurants if they are unable to sit at a table for the duration of a meal.

You shouldn't have to speak to the parents

Parents should know that they need to entertain their own kids - particularly the snotty ones

Never ceases to amaze me that some parents let their kids run loose around other people - and then spout that 'benign neglect' bollocks to justify lazy, selfish parenting

Nilent - you are right that you shouldn't have to say anything to the parents, but evidence would suggest that, in some cases, you clearly do!

I hope I would say something to the parents.