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.

Fewer people have the balls to say it in real life in my experience- you see the looks/tutting/comments to their mates etc but most people are too cowardly to admit what they think to your face.

And I do live in a very friendly part of the country, I notice a massive difference when I travel.

The difference is though, that I assume that you and your family are attentive to your granddaughter, and interacting with her.

That's nothing like casually ignoring children's bad behaviour.

Surely there's sufficient awareness of SEN that onlookers can see that the two are not the same?

I had hoped that came over as supportive and separating out different behaviours - one needing understanding and compassion and the other needing hard stares and a certain amount if tutting. Apologies if you didn’t read it that way.

I would say in 95% of cases, in my experience people are understanding of SEN and it irritates me when people are clearly talking about obviously shit parenting that people have to do this "oh, so you're saying my SEN child shouldn't be allowed out aren't you". No, that's not what people are saying, and you know it.

As a SEN mother, I feel it does us all a real disservice to suggest the things our children can't cope with, and may cause disruption to others in the process, is everyone else's fault for not being inclusive. To me, it's irrelevant whether it's DTwins (NT) or eldest DS (ND) who might be screaming. Other people haven't paid good money to eat a nice meal for my child to be screaming next to them. I take them home if they can't behave. Eldest DS, it may not have been anything I could have prevented, but the action is still the same, if you are spoiling the experience for everyone else there, then we need to leave. No, it's not his fault, but it's not theirs either.

It is not discrimination to not want a disruptive child near you, with a parent doing nothing about it. As said previously, DS was actually fine in restaurants but would melt down on buses and trains. So, I stopped taking him on them. Not glare at anyone who dared to look inconvenienced by his absolute disruption. It was indeed absolute disruption. And whilst I could claim it's our equal entitlement to be on the bus, it's just being a decent human being to recognise that you are doing so at the detriment to everyone else there, and it's quite something to declare you don't give a toss about that because the only thing that matters is you and your child. Being ND is almost a red herring, it's all about the parent's actions, or lack of them, in all of the thread examples.

I think you are eminently sensible and very considerate of others. Your child has actual difficulties, and you are thinking of other people in a way that the parents of children who are just ill disciplined refuse to do.

I struggle to understand though why parents of NT children who can't behave, insist on taking them out to eat. What pleasure do the parents get from it? I'd be mortified and wouldn't enjoy my meal. I'd rather stay at home with a Just Eat at my own dining table!

Re babies on planes too - I know there are times when air travel is unavoidable but I always think it must be a special kind of hell for a baby to experience the pressure of take-off and landing when they have no idea what is happening to them.

We used to manage it

And if we couldn't we took them out.

Like most of us decent parents.

@Runnerinthenight I think exactly the same.

When we did a few "test" dinners with DTwins in the very early years, you would have seen me looking frazzled, trying to gulp dinner down, whilst bouncing boy twin on my knee, in the hope he'd stop squawking objecting to the high chair and annoying every diner with his wailing. DH would be most likely carrying girl twin who was just highly strung about absolutely everything. DS would be eating his food, muttering about "those noisy two" and myself and DH would be trying to exit, shooting each other looks of "well, this is a fucking disaster that we won't be attempting again for another 6mths". No one was having fun. Not us. Not the kids. Not the other diners. Yes, you have to try. But you also have to know when to leave.

I just can't comprehend parents who, when faced with the same kind of situation, just ignore all the screaming, with perhaps an occasional "shh, shh" and order dessert. How self absorbed and unaware do you have to be, to not notice or care that your children are disruptive, unhappy, ruin other diners meals, and still actively choose to eat out? How can they get home and genuinely think what a nice meal?

It's more frequent when the children are not disrupting them directly. They'll let dear Jane and Johnny run around and lie on the floor, because hey, it's only spoiling other people's meals, and they don't give a rats arse. Point out they should be parenting their children before someone treads on their head or spills coffee on them? They'll most likely verbally attack you. They've been brought up no better than their badly behaved children. Selfish adults produce selfish unruly children.

The answer shouldn't be decent folk have to avoid places that they used to be able to enjoy without these kind of parents, but when these parents are increasing in numbers, it's the lesser of two evils to just not go. Wrong, but sadly what happens. You can't reason with pig ignorant.

What you have written is the sad truth. When our children were very little we started out with small steps in eating out and like you we found it stressful. We were always conscious not to disrupt other diners around us and several meals went nearly uneaten when we left early. But gradually our children's behaviour improved and eating out became less stressful and more pleasant. It took effort and patience but it really paid off because by the time our children were four or five they could be trusted to sit politely through lunch. And there's the rub, it took effort and patience and too many parents just cannot be bothered anymore. They only care about making their own life and experiences as pleasant as possible and don't give a fuck if other people's experience are spoilt.

@WillYouPutYourCoatOn @Arraminta completely agree with you both.

I rarely go out nowadays - ND and can’t cope with noise, and most places I’d visit just seem to be full of noisy unruly children and oblivious or lazy parents.

Went out to a pub on Easter. Remembered immediately why I don’t go out anymore:
• one table with 3 kids, all 3 are running around tables and bumping them, knocking other people’s drinks over etc
• second table with 2 kids, listening to separate things on separate ipads, volume turned up
• third table with baby screaming its lungs out whilst parents both sat eating their meal and vaguely shushing from time to time
• fourth table with 4 kids, two of whom are wrestling/play-fighting, the other two of whom are shouting at each other

It was like witnessing a zoo. Not one adult ‘parent’ in there seemed to give a single shiny shit about anything other than their own family. The staff looked absolutely done in with it all.

We turned around and left. Would’ve been a total waste of money.

I genuinely don’t think parents care anymore. I know it’s not all of them but I hardly ever eee any actual parenting these days.

God help us all in two or three decades when this lot are having their own kids.

Really interesting to see that 74% of over a thousand voters thought my views weren’t unreasonable.

It is reassuring that we have many sensible, caring safe people on MN

I said in my post earlier, signs need to go up and the owners/workers need to be pro-active telling people not to allow kids to do this as its a big H&S issue