New Forest pub bans under 12 year olds...

[Dresssos]

m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10159581700162769&id=185263007768

It's all kicking off in the comments.

Do you agree with the pub's decision?

YABU No
YANBU Yes

Good idea. People should be able to enjoy kid free zones.

Posie are you saying that children abroad don't behave badly when eating out ? What do parents do if they do?

Sigh. I know you’d get the posters who trumpet that “abroad” they love children.

NO THEY DO NOT.

Most people love children who sit down and eat their dinner. No one - and certainly not all these “Europeans” love children - particularly Brits - who misbehave, get down from the table and who want “kids’ food”. In fact many restaurants will stick a cover charge on if they see they will have to clean up a table that is messy.

That’s a shame. We’ve stopped at this pub several times as DH is coeliac and their menus are completely gluten free. I understand why they’ve done it, but it is very extreme. I feel like there could be some tight and clear rules around the place to show they expect good behaviour from all!

Pizza express yes. Still a restaurant where you are required to sit at a table but I was responding to a comment that said they only go to places with play areas. Most of these places have seating inside or directly adjacent to the play areas so it's perfectly acceptable for dc to be running to and from a table and getting up and down between having a drink. That's not ok in pizza express or Nando's

No @cocoloco987 I didn’t say I only go to places with play areas. I said I think it’s a good idea to take your children to age appropriate/child friendly places, this is what I do and it works well for us.

As a I previously responded to you I like to follow a developmental lead to our outings, my children can and have behaved lovely in formal places from a very young age because I teach my children both manners and respect for others. However, it’s more fun for them to be in spaces more suited to them, this changes with age like I said.

This is the way I do things, it works for us.

I take my dc to the pub all the time and they are well behaved but I have sat next to families who have no regard for others and so I don't blame them

@Skysblue

Hmm. I have a quiet well behaved child but we have often been annoyed in pubs by drunk adults talking loudly / crowding us.

Don’t massively care as we can just go to restaurants instead, but I think there are far more badly behaved adults in pubs than there are badly behaved children.

Pubs are places where adults go to talk and drink alcohol shocker

I wish the meals and times we’ve had ruin4d because kids are running around etc.

Maybe they need families like this one, The last time I went for a Sunday lunch at a pub, well before all the lockdowns, a family of seven came in,they all sat around a large circular table not far from me. There was a Mother and Father, two children aged about 8 and 10, a baby that was put in high chair, and two Grandparents.

At the moment of sit down, all of them, except the Grandad, all placed phones or Ipads in front of them on the table,and proceeded to use them, the baby in the highchair was given a screen to watch. Nobody spoke a word to eachother, nobody spoke to the baby. The Grandad went to order the food, as he must have known what they all wanted to eat.. He came back to the table, and then got his own phone out,, and all was silent at the table until the food came.

But the two children were still messing with their phones whilst eating.... I could not help but notice all this, as they were at the table near to me.

I went to The Ivy for a drink. There was a family there - complete with giant pushchair, paraphernalia everywhere, and the kids were wrestling on the floor, and the dad was standing a toddler on the table. I felt so bad for the schmucks on the next table trying to have a smart dinner. I’d have been apoplectic if I had forked out for a posh dinner and found myself in Centerparks.

Sounds great to me. More pubs should do it

@Posieandpip

I'm so glad my children are growing up abroad! As an expat I miss the UK a lot in many ways, but it's so nice to live in a country where children are welcomed everywhere, in fact, seeing children play and run and laugh and sing and be children is viewed as a joy rather than in the UK where the very sight and sound of children annoys people. Crazy that seeing a child running or hearing their voice can cause such rage to British adults. To be honest, i was probably the same before movint abroad and realising that 90% of other countries are totally different to Britain and actually like children 😂 So lovely to live somewhere where people are genuinely so happy to see children being children in any environment.

I have also lived overseas, Italy, Spain and Greece, these countries DO NOT tolerate screaming or shouting or bad behavior from children and they also would not find kids running around where there is hot food being carried by waiting staff acceptable. Absolutely nowhere so I'm afraid you are talking nonsense. The kids I came across in restaurants overseas were welcome because on the whole, they were all well behaved, that the difference. In the UK parents often let their kids behave like savages.

Personally I believe that it is absolutely fine for some spaces to be adults only, pubs should be one of them

It's up to the pub and I agree that having children running around and interrupting others isn't acceptable.

However my DS was 6 months when Covid started so at nearly 2 has never been out to eat with us, or around others in general. Myself and DH are very nervous of going out to eat as a family when things properly open again (am in ROI) as we're not sure of his reaction. Even going out to the shop or park, he gets overwhelmed and if he sees other children is so happy and runs straight to them. Obviously when we do eat out we won't let him leave the table or run around etc. but I imagine (Hope!) there are a lot of 'Covid' babies that have no experience with this, so there will be a settling in period!

Reading through so many initial replies to this and needed to double check what forum I'm on.

This is Mumsnet? A supportive place for families? So many people wishing they could ban children from a Sunday lunch

It's a shitty policy for a shitty pub unable to do. They were unable to provide decent customer service to the people inside by removing the rowdy customers.

I agree that overseas people have less of a tolerance for misbehaved children. In Spain, France, Italy, Korea, Japan, and India for example children that can’t sit at a table don’t get taken out. That’s why you don’t often see kids aged 6mths - 3 years at sit down restaurants unless they’re a tourist.

Their business, their choice. I can fully understand it to be honest, for every parent that actually ensures their child behaves, their are ten that don't.

We are gluten-free and have made special trips to go to this pub twice. It is so nice to have somewhere that is completely gluten-free and not have to worry about cross contamination. Staff have been great both times and food is fantastic. Brilliant pub food and large portions!

Reminds me of a thread donkeys’ years ago on here where a poster said the waiters loved her dd when they went to an Italian restaurant, as she ran around banging her tambourine .

@AntiSocialDistancer

Reading through so many initial replies to this and needed to double check what forum I'm on.

This is Mumsnet? A supportive place for families? So many people wishing they could ban children from a Sunday lunch

It's a shitty policy for a shitty pub unable to do. They were unable to provide decent customer service to the people inside by removing the rowdy customers.

Oh ffs. We don’t want to ban all children. Only the ones that can’t behave themselves.

@IrmaFayLear hmm yeah, course they did . Not at all annoying

The thing is if you only go to such places then they aren't going to learn how to behave somewhere more formal

They will be absolutely fine - appropriate behaviour comes with age. I wouldn't have taken ds to a Michelin starred restaurant when he was small, but we did go to pubs and places like Pizza Express so he knew to sit quietly (and used to read, or do colouring - or - shock! - play on his Nintendo DS (the horror of a screen!). That meant that once we did go to more formal places he knew to sit quietly and was of an age where he didn't need distractions. And we would tell him to leave his phone at home by then.

Kids do not need to be taught everything. They do need to be told when something is unacceptable, and parents also need to understand that everyone else does not have to love their kids (or their noise).

@AntiSocialDistancer

Reading through so many initial replies to this and needed to double check what forum I'm on.

This is Mumsnet? A supportive place for families? So many people wishing they could ban children from a Sunday lunch

It's a shitty policy for a shitty pub unable to do. They were unable to provide decent customer service to the people inside by removing the rowdy customers.

Pubs are adult environments.

It's only in the last couple of decades that it became de rigueur to have children running around in them.

There are many, many places to take children which aren't pubs.

@Youresogolden

I’m British but live abroad, it’s much more family friendly here and usual for kids to be out with families at night eating/walking etc, rather than put to bed at 7 with a babysitter. When we return to the U.K. I notice the difference instantly. I prefer kids being able to be around.

How do they get enough sleep?

Surely it's only rampaging children that don't belong in pubs. What's your issue with quiet well behaved ones being there?

Because it's a casual adult environment and I want to be able to use words like shit, piss, fuck, cunt and perhaps even bollocks. There are plenty of places for children to go and pubs are not one of them.

There is a bit of a balance. The pub is perfectly able to ban children and will be popular. I was out with with 2 and 5yo yesterday. They were pretty well behaved until the end when the 2yo started getting moany so we made a swift exit. However it annoyed me that the pub was really slow collecting plates, asking for the bill etc. When I’m out with under 5s I need swift service, a menu without a ton of salt and a general realisation that often with small kids there is a tolerance threshold so slow service contributes to them getting angsty which in turn is likely to stress everyone out.