AIBU to think that this lady has lost her mind ...

[kavvLar]

South Kiosk at Martello Park Felixstowe out this status up on Facebook earlier today:

"Can we make ourselves perfectly clear to all parents who are too scared to disipline their children about tantrum screaming. We will give you five lenient minutes to ask the child to stop screaming and then we will ask the child ourselves. If that means you too having a tantrum about our having to speak to your child and hurling threats about not returning – that's really okay with us. We have a duty of care to the rest of our customers."

Cue hundreds of people flaming them on Facebook and 1* reviewing the business.

What on earth were they thinking?

That not everybody wants to listen to kids having a melt down, and that many kids are well behaved when out. If I am out for a drink/meal in a cafe, I don't want to listen to melt downs either.

I was regularly taken to Felistowe as a kid, and managed not to have a melt down, but then we went to the Regal to eat (that dates me), where melt downs were not appropriate.

Presumably, Felixstowe still has quite an elderly population who like a quieter life and will be providing custom all year round as opposed to the summer only? I always took ds outside at the first signs of a melt down, so others didn't have to share it. Consideration, I would have thought?

Blimey, I just googled 'South Kiosk at Martello Park Felixstowe', because I didn't understand what sort of kiosk it was, and came across the FB post.

They seem to have committed business suicide.

Stupid business owner.

I judge people who try and mobilise online hate mobs much more harshly TBH. She asked the child to stop screaming because her parents were ignoring her. Doesn't seem to be any reason to think the child has SN or is even old enough for a diagnosis.

Had to look it up. FFS sake it's a kiosk that sells ice cream! They have seriously shot themselves in the foot there because families with children are their core customer demographic. It would be different if they were a restaurant that catered mainly to adults.

Quote from the page

You know what, I was there when this happened. The little girl was about 2 I'd say. Yes, she was having a tantrum and yelling a bit. Her mum had told her firmly a couple of times to stop and then ignored her. The owner of the kiosk then came out and held the little girl around the wrist and told her to stop shouting. The mum and other family took exception to this and was told that the owner needed to "think about [my] other customers". None of which - including me - had, to my knowledge, complained.

Now I've often gushed about the South Kiosk, but I don't know that I'll be going back. I was totally shocked by her behaviour and found it totally out of order. No one was complaining, the little girl was being disciplined and you NEVER grab hold of someone else's child like that.

Idiots.

Stapler, that post is very contradictory. First she says the mother was ignoring the child, then she said she was being disciplined.

Good for them, sounds fair enough to me.

Sorry yes it's an ice cream kiosk type place. It's next to a kids play area and does home made cakes and sausage rolls as well.

I haven't commented and won't on FB, but never seen such a crazy decision.

I always took ds outside at the first signs of a melt down, so others didn't have to share it

Isn't the kiosk already outside?

It's a place which seems to target children and is in a play park, I do think they will suffer loss of business from this. I wonder if that wedding venue where the owner had a similar rant about bridezillas a few months ago has recovered yet.

And as a PP said, it's an outside bloody kiosk, not a restaurant.

If the owner can't chill her tits and ignore the child until the family move on, she's picked a funny place to work.

I would imagine in today's heat, there were quite a few tantrums being thrown, although by far the biggest tantrum here seems to be from the kiosk owner.

Looks like the owner is the one throwing a tantrum here! Silly, silly woman. She's no doubt done some real damage to her business. If screaming undisciplined children are genuinely a problem to her business then this is not the way to address it.

Oh my word that's pretty stupid! It's assuming that all children behave the same, will be disciplined within a timeframe, that all parents should have control over their kids in 5 mins... How odd. I agree that they should be prioritising the experience their customers have but wow.

Yes discipline and telling them to stop really works with a toddler tantrum and doesn't at all make them snout more than ignoring them does. Silly owner.

An outside kiosk, next to a play park? I'd kind of accept there may be paddies.

I've yet to come across a two year old who doesn't through the odd wobbler. And I doubt a stranger grabbing hold of them will help the situation much.

It doesn't sound the type of place you wouldn't take kids until they were old enough to behave, like certain restaurants so if I was a customer I'd take it as par for the course.

Crikey...she has truely set the cat among the pigeons

It isn't contradictory, a lot of people ignore a tantrum as a form of discipline after first at letting to reason or remonstrate with the child. A tantrum (rather than a meltdown) feeds off attention and you can't generally tell a child of two to stop having one. In the circumstances the mum could have taken her outside, but what's further outside than outside? Into the sea, perhaps, or space.

If she takes the time to personally manhandle and tell off every child having a tantrum in the vicinity of her ice cream kiosk I can't imagine she'll have much time left for buttering her scones.

Yanbu -in a restaurant I would think it was fair enough, but in this set up it seems pretty ludicrous.

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Putting her hands on an already stressed out child who doesnt know her from adam? Idiot. But to then go and draw the world's attention to it? Heh, she's the creator of her own problems.

Imagine if we grabbed the kiosk owner by the wrist to tell her what we thought of her behaviour.

What a ridiculous woman.

Don't live anywhere near the kiosk but would certainly boycott it if I did. Unreasonable.

It describes itself as a coffee shop and cafe so surely more than just an ice cream kiosk?

I agree that the owner shouldn't have grabbed the child, that's bang out of order.

Not to worry, the FB lynch mob (many who've probably never even been there) will ensure it goes out of business.

It would have been so much more helpful if the owner had tried to distract the child. One can presume that the owner has other stresses in her life.