Another lunch ruined by other peoples’ children

[Bakeoffskateoff]

Am I being unreasonable to get really pissed off with other people being unable or unwillling to teach their children to sit quietly in cafes and restaurants. Went out for lunch today to our usual weekend cafe. Two lots of families with kids aged five to eight who were noisy, whiny, annoying, sat on tables, crying. I had to hurry my lunch down to get out of there as soon as possible. I’m sick of parents who think little Freddie is so cute for making loud tractor noises, causing other diners to turn around. No one else appreciates your child quite like you do.

If you can’t teach your child manners please don’t take them out where there are other people.

I also can’t stand groups of shrieking women and groups of shouty men( all trying to prove they have the biggest balls by out shouting each other).

A small perk for you. Not for anyone else.

We had this in a pub recently fairly late one Sunday evening. Shrieking children, we left as quick as we could.
I've had children and don't remember them behaving like that but it is the reason we've booked adults only for our hotel this year

I don't think this post makes you look as good as you think it does.

@thecatwiththesilveryfur she’s right though.

Only for kids that are NT, though.

It's not Victorian to want to be able to eat without a kid running around, making a racket and going up to other diners and bothering them which from personal experience and posts here seems to be what happens in the UK

Oh? Are they awfully behaved and you can't be bothered to parent them then?

Or are you suggesting that the thread says the mere presence of well parented children "ruins" other people's holidays?

My children don't. DTwins would have done two years ago. So we didn't take them. We do now.

Yes- BUT if my child was ND ( which I do have) I would not take them to somewhere where they could disrupt others. It’s not fair . Me wanting to go to a restaurant does not trump other people’s right to enjoy their meal in peace.

My OH is sometimes on reception in our local minors unit. It can get extraordinarily busy- standing room only.
He frequently tells me of kids who are allowed to run round, lie all over the floor, climb on chairs play with cars in the floor, shriek. Their parents make half arsed attempts to ‘control’ them. It’s only when the nurses come and tell them to stop that they do.
He has also heard the mother’s then blame the nurses for the fact that they can’t do what they want.
what a load of shit parenting.
I was told some kids off in a supermarket for racing around and crashing into people. One other customers told me that their poor parents were just trying their best and I should be more understanding . I pointed out it was not a playground and was dangerous, dangerous for shoppers. Shop workers and the children.

We have a beautiful tranquil allotment site, or did until a new couple arrived and turned it into a playground. Now we have an out of control 5 year old trampling all over other people plants, trying to get in other people's cars, walking off with other people's property, all while the mother just stands there with a vacant look on her face like controlling her child is an alien concept to her. If she isn't allowed to do what she wants then we are subjected to hours and hours of screaming instead. One person has ruined the entire site for everyone else with her 'gentle parenting' (insert useless parenting here) and seems clueless about the impact it is having. People are working so hard only to return and find someone else's kid has trampled all over their plants and destroyed them, then you have the mother trampling all over stuff trying to retrieve the child. It's relentless. It isn't up to everyone else to supervise other people's children.

But how will said child learn to be in an allotment unless you allow them into the allotment?( or other such tropes).
it is ridiculous parenting. It is lazy and selfish. Not surprised you are furious.

@ArcticFreeze why do you allow it to happen? Id have erupted on the parent by now.

Teaching your little children to behave appropriately takes time and requires effort and consistency on behalf of the parents. So many parents just cannot be bothered to put the effort in, their child acting up doesn't bother them and they don't give a shit if it bothers others. Unfortunately the tide is turning in favour of these idle parents and badly behaved children outnumber the well behaved ones. Once upon a time parents would have rightly been embarrassed if their child was annoying others, but now they just selfishly shrug it off.

If you really cared about your child surely you would want other people to like them and behave positively towards them. Why would you allow them to create annoyance, irritation and resentment in others?

i have a 2 year old, went out last night and he screamed and shouted so much out of excitement that we left. it was so embarrassing, don't go out very often because of this- think i am becoming a hermit because of his behaviour

At our lunch out yesterday, it was adults watching YouTube videos snd facetiming loudly at the next table that annoyed me. Sometimes it's adults, sometimes it's kids, sometimes it's dogs, it's ridiculous to blame only kids.

The typical black and white thinking on here. Children are either running riot, out of control, or sitting deathly still and not bothering anyone. I mean come on, what are we teaching children here? There is a world of difference between children who have not been taught appropriate boundaries and children showing age appropriate developmental behaviours, like crying. We have got this down to a fine art in this country, teaching kids emotional repression, that it's their responsibility to adjust and make others feel better. Threads on here are full of people who have been trained in this way and you can see the problems it causes. The guilt, the stress, when they try to look after what THEY need. The endless analysis on here of why women stay with shit husbands or vice versa. Maybe they can't feel the feelings they need to feel to help themselves. Children cry. Get over it. No wonder this country is so fucked up, rampant mental health issues, anxiety and depression and a dearth of emotional intellegence everywhere.

I have four children and they were all good when out in public in restaurants etc. We didn't have gadgets to amuse them either back when mine were little. It's about including them. Talk about the menu, talk to them like you do other adults when out. Make it sociable so they don't feel the need to be noisy and run about.

These days so many parents are hooked to their phones and children are constantly distracted by phones and movies/TV that fewer parents just sit and talk to their children in places like this.

"No it's not easy bringing children up properly. It can be tricky; sometimes difficult. Needs effort."

I doubt you know what difficult and tricky is as regards to parenting.

Sounds tough @hangingonfordearlife1 you'll get there, 2 is a tricky age. Just remember it won't be forever

I really don't think being taught to sit and speak at a reasonable volume as a child causes depression😂
Neglect including neglecting to interact with your " kids" and plonking them in front of a screen is far more damaging when they grow into entitled adults and wonder why they struggle with life.
Children cry,its up to their parents to remove swiftly, give them space and go back once they are settled.
This is good parenting,they express their feelings without an audience.
They learn respect for themselves and others which is a crucial part of success later in life.

You're probably right. You and @thecatwiththesilveryfur both.

What seemed to me like effort, taking advice, long hours spent, sleepless nights, long discussions with partner, thoughtful boundary-drawing, psychological investigation, discussion with barely-verbal children, unstinting praise of effort in the face of failure, ... and all the rest ... was very likely as nothing compared with your unstinting efforts to get your graceless and ungrateful children to behave themselves.

It's probably the case my children's, and their children's, ability to behave sensibly in company when small was just pure happenstance.

The old nature/nurture debate continues. Of course it does.

But, then, I look around (and have done for a while; I'm pretty old now) and see how parents behave with and to their children, and check out the behaviour of their children. And, guess what? -- Bad behaviour of children correlates strongly with lazy good-for-nothing parents who don't spend time and effort teaching their children how to behave. So, yes, I'm judgemental and ungenerous etc. about this.

I know what works. I've seen with my own eyes. No, not bashing or assaulting children or anything like that. Love, care, thoughtful concern. Praise of effort, talk, boundaries set and maintained, careful monitoring of developing independence ... Hours, weeks, years of effort. Worth it in the end, of course - much more so than the slack Harriets who leave their children be seem to realise.

Many of you reading this realise its truth, of course. Many of you are better parents than I could hope to be. But some of you are worse. (Some of you, even, are bad parents from good motives -- you get stuff wrong.) And, well, you latter, your children suffer from that, and - to a lesser extent - so do those who encounter your little snot-nosed monsters in cafés and restaurants. Shame on you.

This isn't what the thread says at all.

Do you feel better for your out of context speech?

Then you need to go out more often not less. Even a cuppa and a squash , piece of cake.

Twenty minutes and leave if necessary.