Control Your Kids

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Children running around in pubs. Personally I never let mine as you have people walking with drinks and food. The pub I’m in has a massive park opposite, take them there to burn off their excess energy after you’ve finished your meal instead of them zooming past me at 100mph. AIBU?

Definitely not unreasonable.

I'd hope the waitress can counter sue for breaking her leg.

Parenting involves guiding children to the right behaviour. It involves care control and discipline. That's what you sign up for when you have them. If you don't want to do any of the tough love stuff then you probably shouldn't have them- it isn't compulsory.

I agree with Joystir it isn’t compulsory to have children, it’s a choice.
Yet 9 times out of 10 those with feral children don’t stop at one.
Pubs are not the place to let children run around, they are adult places where adults behave like adults and quite frankly sometimes it’s inappropriate for Ben well behaved children to be there.

It's absolutely reasonable that their life is put on hold until they develop better disciplinary strategies. I had a naturally impulsive and stubborn child. We used to go out but I'd run off his energy first, take some activities to do while waiting for food, take him out if necessary after ordering and not hang around too long once the food had been eaten.

Running around somewhere where hot food is being delivered is not a pretty benign child behaviour. If you can't be bothered to control your child, don't go somewhere frequented by other people or take a picnic to a park.

You might think your little darling is delightful and charming but everyone else thinks they're annoying as hell.

I hate it when kids are allowed to run feral in restaurants/pubs.

I've not seen any actual accidents with waiting staff, but I've seen several near misses, and the parents just don't seem to give a shiny shit.

I too have drummed it into my 2 DSs that when in a restaurant/eating place, they SIT at the table and don't get up and wander around. I have always taken stuff for them to do - little toys, colouring pens etc - and mostly they've been brilliant. Once I had to send 3yo DS1 out with DH (DH had already finished his food) because he was copying 3 other kids on another table, who were running around and under the tables, nearly tripping people up - but he never did it again.

DS2 was worse at sitting still but ok if he could draw or play with something. Never screamed or anything like that, because I can't stand it, and I'm certainly not going to inflict it on anyone else!

I had a nice compliment from our local restaurateur once - she said that they'd been considering turning into a "no children" place after one particularly feral family had been in, but then she remembered my 2 and decided not to do that because it showed that people could manage their kids ok.

Parent here.

My goodness, wasn't expecting to see that on Mumsnet! 😂

You need to take your child out in a more suitable place. It's embarrassing when DC don't listen when your out in public you need to be more aware and considerate of people weather they have a child or not is besides the point.

Running in a pub isn't the best thing for a kid to be doing of course but certainly they could be doing a lot worse
🙄

The irony of saying that it seems a bit unreasonable to say their entire life needs to be put on hold until they've figured it out while telling people to go elsewhere or go out at a different time.

YOU decided to have kids so YOU should be the one to make changes and not just assume everyone else will.

My child has asd and can be uncontrollable at times but one thing I’ve always insisted on is not running around in a restaurant. If they are little and they bolt and you get them and sit them back down then I think that’s different to allowing them to run around. It also makes it more difficult for parents that are trying to keep their kids sat when others are being allowed to run around as kids think it’s not fair

@Mrsjayy you can go and change your vote.simply by selecting the other option.

Don't be ridiculous of course they can be in pubs

You just take them out for a walk if they can't sit still for long periods rather than letting them run around the pub 🙄

Agree.

I take my two to our local pub sometimes because they do amazing food. We go as early as we can so it’s less likely to be too busy so we can be in and out quickly.

the dc like going but we tend to find there’s a limit to how long they’ll sit for. But by this point we’re usually done. So easy enough to get out quick.

Half the problem is that so few families have sit down family meals at the dining table so when children are out they are not used to the expectation of sitting still and engaging socially appropriately.

When dd was little from about 18 months to 4, it was impossible to take her out. She would not sit down for any length of time. McDonalds was ok as we’d wait, get the food, sit, eat, leave. However, no amount of amusing her worked. She was a ball of energy, still is in her teens.

I thought back to easy sit down lunches several years prior with a friend and her ds when he was this age, quietly playing with his dinosaurs, so engrossed he didn’t want to chat and didn’t understand how I’d got it so wrong. In hindsight, the boy just had a completely different personality.

Mummyoflittledragon

yes and we have to work to each person's strengths and needs. Your friend's son maybe needed more support to speak up confidently, put his hand up in class, greet strangers. Your daughter needs more support to learn when to sit still.

We have inherent traits but you can't just throw the towel in at that
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My child has asd and obviously I don’t know for sure and I can’t generalise for everyone but the majority of kids running around unsupervised do not in my opinion have any type of Sen. In my experience most Sen parents are watching their kids like hawks as we know we can go from total calm to total carnage in the space of seconds. A parent taking a child for a supervised little walk or movement break if they have Sen is totally different to children tearing round the place

DS is autistic and has adhd (on his long list of conditions) when we go out for a meal or similar if he needs to jump we either make sure it is in a corner behind our table where nobody else will pass (he isn’t noisy he literally needs to bounce and flap for a few minutes) or I will take him outside to somewhere safe.

Seems a bit harsh the waitress poured hot gravy over the child just because they ran into her?

Why are you assuming the waitress deliberately poured gravy on the kid?

@ProclivityForPyrotechnics you could let the pub manager know that a safe guarding report should be made and circulated to relevant authorities. The pubs lawyer may have already mentioned it but if they haven't, you could have a quick word with the manager. There's probably no shortage of witnesses either so the parents should be counter sued. and have their arsed handed back to them like Rebecca Vardy

I believe Germany has a similar thing, certainly used to. It meant also that if your child does damage, accidentally or deliberately, in someone else's home a claim can be made against the insurance with little or no ill-feeling.

YANBU - it’s lazy parenting!

I work in a chain restaurant known for being family friendly, the amount of parents who seem to think this means their children should be allowed to run riot is astounding. Thankfully I haven't had a serious accident - yet - but I have had several near misses and when I'm carrying burning hot plates and trays full of glasses it's just not safe. That's without mentioning the children who run into the kitchen (one child in particular ran into the kitchen 6 times! The parent did nothing and then complained when the manager told her to keep the child seated), or the car park, or under other customers tables and the same child who ran into the kitchen hitting a tiny baby on the back of the head with their toy.......

It always seems to be the parents who let their children run riot who leave the tables in a state too. Yes my job involves clearing the table of glasses and plates - no I should not have to pick up used Baby wipes full of spat out food, used nappies, packets of Crisps that have been thrown all over the floor and stomped in, used tissues and random bits of half chewed food left on the table.