to have expected this woman to remove her tantruming child?

[musicboxwoundbyakey]

Went out for Sunday dinner with two friends. They were sat next to each other and I was sat opposite so my chair was in the middle (not sure if that's completely relevant but don't want to drip feed)

We were sat on a higher tier of the restaurant (3 steps). A woman with 2ish year old (could have been a little younger) walked up with a friend and her baby when her ds started to throw a huge tantrum and dropped to the floor right next to me.

As my chair was in the middle and not on the edge he really was right next to me screaming and crying and she left him there for a good few minutes and went to sit down before picking him up.

Now I was in a family friendly restaurant and don't care about children throwing tantrums or crying (it's expected) and with a tantrum its usually best ignored but I think in this situation she should have been quicker to pick him up and remove him from our table?

people have suggested throwing water over a tantrumming child
Love this. I didn't have any water to hand on that occassion though just coffee.

The onus isn't on them all the time, but in situations where the parent is obviously oblivious, why shouldn't they say something? I'm not saying we should just let our kids run riot until someone says they are annoyed, but why sit through a situation when you have the power to actually do something about it? Any maybe even prevent that parent from disrupting someone else in the future. Who knows.

But if you want to sit their tutting and fuming in silence, then go ahead. It's just really pointless.

Whistle are you trying to sound like a spoilt brat yourself?

YABU

I wouldn't have been able to resist trying to distract the child from his tantrum by flapping napkin origami at him, or silly singing or something. I would have felt compelled to try.

And his poor mum. Public tantrums are hideous.

raven can you really not see that someone on this thread is being inflammatory and I'm reacting to that?

Whistle - my autistic child behaves like an utter brat sometimes. I don't 'let him'. I can't stop him!

They don't say something about it though hopalong they come on MN to bitch about it instead. A kid was messing about in a public place Christmas eve. Guess what? I told the Parent. Got a mouthful of abuse back but at least next time she might think twice about allowing her PFB to run amok and hit people / children and do fuck all about it. Oh and I still wouldn't call said PFB a brat or a fuckwit.

Since it's the parents' responsibility to deal with the behaviour of their children, it should be the parents (or guardians etc) who any complaint is addressed to, or personnel of the train/restaurant etc.
Alternatively, it's also possible to talk to a child, rather than 'trip them up'.

thornrose I don't agree with tripping up the running child, although given there may well have been legs/ bags innocently in the aisle which might have been trip hazards allowing the child to run up and down was a stupid idea.

As for being obliged to tell the parents - is there any one needs to be told that having a child which isn't your own beside you is annoying?

On provocative posts , yours are possibly the worst. What was the point of the calling out on the (correct) use of "it"?

thornrose - yep, I'm not for a moment advocating tripping up small dc because their parent is not dealing with their perfectly normal, exuberant behaviour, which is unfortunately somewhat irritating to others. It's hardly the kid's fault...so no,I don't agree with whistleblower0!

Sorry. I can see you are mostly reacting to inflammatory comments.

But you said upthread it wouldn't even register with you if a child was running up & down the aisle - well, it would me, hence I don't let mine do it.

Shame on me for having one with autism, god, you'd all hate her and love to judge me as such a terrible parent.

The OP didn't have a problem with the child tantruming. Most people wouldn't. She had a problem with the fact that the mother made no effort to minimise the impact of the tantrum on other diners.

I have two DDs with AS. DD2 has had and still has, some cracking tantrums. We have always removed her from places like restaurants if she is likely to disturb other diners. That is out responsibility as her parents.

If we were too tired to be bothered to remove her we wouldn't be there in the first place.

If moving her would make the tantrum worse we would just suck it up. That is no reason to allow a child to disrupt someone else's meal.

I don't like the comments about throwing iced water over children or tripping them up. It's the parents who are responsible for their behaviour so it's the parents who should be approached to deal with it.

Regardless of whether the child in the OP had additional needs or not, that mother should have removed him from the restaurant until he could be quiet. If that entailed her getting wet in the rain that is tough. If she couldn't keep him safe from running in front of cars she shouldn't have been out with him in the first place.

There is no excuse for bad manners and making no effort to prevent your child from disturbing others is bad manners.

Oh come on, she implied that she tripped the child deliberately, there was no mention of "trip hazards".

My posts are the most provocative, really? Compared to throwing ice cold water in a child's face, tripping a child deliberately, under 12's not being allowed in restaurants, picking up a child by an arm and a leg to carry them out, me being "predictable" by mentioning my dd's autism and "allowing" her to behave like a brat!

Vida really? You would have tried to calm down someone else's child having a tantrum?

Possibly you are an expert in child psychology/trained Norland nanny. There are several posters on here saying sometimes they can't do anything with their child, why would a 3rd party risk it. And very possibly risk being challenged by an irate parent that they are interfering with the child.

goldmandra what a sensible, measured post.

Goldmandra I have always removed my child when having a meltdown please don't assume otherwise because I'm reacting to some fairly unpleasant posts.

Thanks Whistle , it's not exactly waterboarding, is it?

And you all thought the cinema thread was fucking bonkers...

at least most children grow out of tantryms. ahame some adults cant behave like decent human beings.

if anybody deliberately tripoed up my child or threw a drink on them i would call the police.

and yes if i am near enough to a tantrumming child and their parent looks like they need help i will try to help be it by distracting rhe child or just by saying a kind word to the parents.

with five kids i have dealt with my share of tantrums and i know just how awful it can be and that sometimes yoy can just be having one of those days. so if i can help i will do, its just being nice and tbh tantrums just dont phase me after five kids.

why would you not just move them to a place where only you had to listen to it,

because to do so would mean ending up at the car with the architrave from around the door, a couple of door handles and an instant referral to social services.

we tend not to attempt pubs and restauants when he is approaching melt down although, we would not avoid them completely just because he has a disablity.

Misspixie depends what you mean by bonkers. There are certainly very surprising comments on both.

I'm genuinely confused as to why I've been "attacked" on this thread!

YANBU

My two year old started screaming and shouting when we were out the other day, unfortunately it was when my DH had left me with him for ten minutes. So I took him outside, and it was really really difficult for me to do that because I am severely disabled and can't walk unaided and it bloody hurt but there is no way I would have considered doing anything else

I'm not convinced that you have been. Not every poster has agreed with every point you've made. Not quite the same thing.