To think if your kid can't behave in restaurants you don't go

[hardshoulderr]

Unless you really need to eat.
so obviously lots of sympathy to kids who are Neurodiverse.
But went out to lunch this afternoon, quite an expensive place ordered the food and wine and a family sat down kids on iPads, no problem, the volume really low.
voices are starting to be raised, the parents shush ,then I look over and so don't worry it's no problem.

This then escalate from raised voices and slight frustration to the kid spitting across the table shouting and swearing. I literally can't focus on what my friend is saying because of the shouting and the swearing from kids who like primary School age next to me.

I work with kids - you know what I've loads of sympathy, but I don't spend my weekends wanting to have kids spitting next to me.
I go to the restaurant and calmly ask the wait staff if we could move around this corner out of vision of the Family.
By then, the dad has gone home with one, the mother and other kids stay to continue the meal.
I have kids who are not Neurodiverse, but even though were a pain in the arse when we went out to restaurants, therefore would avoid eating out , certainly not to place at lunchtime. It would be like pizza early doors.

Is this unreasonable?

Restaurants over Maccie's level need No Tech signage

And it needs to be enforced.

Agreed. I was often just reading a book or playing outside while my parents and their friends had adult conversations. But back then children were expected to quietly amuse themselves in restaurants if they got bored.

Why do you keep going on a tangent and bringing up bad parenting?

I mean why do you think I’d be ‘fooled’ because I said the PP was demonstrating good parenting in this one instance? 😳

Ignoring the people you’ve gone out to dine with, in favour of using any device is just unacceptably rude.

We wouldn’t accept it from adults so why would anyone encourage it with a child?

If a child had a friend around for a play date and sat there ignoring them, I’m sure the parents would have something to say about that.

Well one would hope so anyway.

I take my children out regularly, always have done. Some of them are neurodiverse. We play games or colour at the table if they are getting restless. On the rare occasion the food is very delayed they’ve played a colouring game on my phone. Never take their iPads out the house with us.

i certainly wouldn’t let them run about. I would never ever allow spitting. That’s absolutely disgusting.

People are nothing but selfish and entitled with no consideration for others. We were having lunch at Prezzo the other week and someone had a baby with them that kept letting out ear piercing "fun" screams on average of once every 2 minutes. Absolutely deafening with the echo in that type of place. Loads of people looking and grimacing. I was other side of restaurant and it was painful. Poor sods who had to sit near them. I mean fair enough it's a developmental thing and they can't control it etc. But if your kid is going through a phase of doing that you simply don't go out to eat jn a restaurant and make everyone else's.meal unbearable. Selfish entitled behaviour

In what setting do you work with children? Just because you went to an ‘expensive’ place at lunchtime doesn’t mean families shouldn’t. It would probably annoy me pre children but after children, give the parents a break. Sounds like they were correcting them and removing when they could, you said the dad actually left with one.

It’s such as hard one, the child shouldn’t have to be hidden away from society but you’ve paid for an enjoyable meal. The family did right by taking the child home, did the restaurant move you after your request m?

I think it says more about you, the fact you found a babies developmental phase of ‘fun screams’ completely unbearable! Maybe you shouldn’t go out to eat if the normal sounds of babies are unbearable?

Typical selfish attitude. And actually if enough people were to complain then no you couldn’t go there regardless of what you pay. You would be asked to leave. You don’t get to buy your poorly behaved children into an expensive restaurant that a lot of other people have also spent a lot of money on.

The hospitality industry needs you as a special adviser, obviously.

Parents with reduced incomes because of ML or childcare costs are the demographic to attract, not people who dine out as a relaxing and enjoyable treat.

Perhaps they don't usually behave like that. I remember when DS was 6, I took him out to eat - nothing fancy or unusual, we had done it plenty of times with no problem. To say that he suddenly turned into a total little shit would be an understatement. It started with him rocking his chair, then he kept banging on the table, I told him off, he ignored me, he filled his mouth with his drink and dribbled it out on the table, chewing bread and opening his mouth to show everyone what was in there, all accompanied by some random shouting. In the end I literally dragged him outside, we left without eating. He had toast for dinner and he's lucky he got that. To this day I have no idea what got into him. He had never behaved like that and hasn't done it since, but we were definitely getting the disapproving stares. My point is that's its not always bad parenting, sometimes kids just act up and the best thing you can do (after giving them a chance to fix their behaviour) is to remove them so that they don't spoil it for everyone else.

No clue why they're allowed in restaurants. Or maybe require separate ones or separate spaces, far away from other diners. Or maybe time limits? So, not after 5pm.

I have a child with profound SEN. If we’re in a restaurant then he sits at the table with us. If he’s not able to do that then one of us will remove him and either bring him back when the food is served or if he doesn’t feel like it, we tag team and swap over to eat. He doesn’t have great fine motor skills so we always make sure we clean up everything after him. The one thing I do not do is stop him being vocal. He’s non-verbal, so to him, making sounds is communication and I will never tell him not to do that. If he’s shrieking then he’ll he told to use his indoor voice or one of us will take him out, but just laughing and making happy sounds, no.

We don’t go to fancy places - Nando’s, pizza express, maybe a relaxed pub - but we do take him out and always have, because he has a lifelong disability, he’s not going to grow out of it, and no amount of different parenting is going to make his brain understand social dining etiquette, but he loves food and loves people watching.

What do you count as Tech? What's wrong with a phone?

You’re in Prezzo, love, not the River Cafe 🙄

Best comment on the internet today 😂😂😂

I was recently in an ice cream parlour with my friends, and a group of maybe 3 or 4 adults and 2-3 children sat right behind us. One of the kids, the boy, was running around, yelling, bumping our seats and getting really close to us - the adults did nothing about it. My friend finally had enough and said, "seriously, this isn't okay! Keep your kids in line!". Of course, they did not so we moved our seat.

People who bring their misbehaved children out in public, and show absolutely no effort of stopping their kids annoying other people around them, are the reason why a lot of people don't want kids included in the public sphere. I genuinely don't mind kids that are just being kids and having fun, but it's the annoying ones that have never been taught how to behave in public that's the issue. So yes, if you have not taught your child to behave a certain way in restaurants, you should not be taking them to restaurants. Order in and eat at home until your kid is suitable to socialise in public. If dog owners are expected to discipline their dogs, parents should also be expected to discipline their children.

You can't tell paying customers that they cannot use their phones - it's not the school canteen! You can insist on headphones for people who want the volume up, but that's about it, really.

I bet you don’t 😂😂
If your Dc can behave reasonably so as not to disturb other diners, then feel free to take them wherever. But if they cannot, then leave them at home. Same goes for cinemas, theatres, basically anywhere where there’s lots of people who want to have a nice time.

@wishfulthinking25 i'm thinking that I wouldn't have taken kids who were obviously unreliably behaved to a restaurant for a long drawn out meal.

We frequently go to "bougie" (I assume you mean a bit fancy? I'm not up with current terms) with my 2 children (who are neurodivergent) but they know how to behave and do behave.

There are places we can't and don't go because they can't cope, thankfully a fancy restaurant isn't one of them as I love dining out!

I was a teen single parent.
The dad has never been involved.
I have been on benefits and have always lived on council estates.
My DC are ND
So I am a stereotype to many people.

But never have my DC acted like that in public.
They’ve only time they acted up a bit was when they were toddlers/young.

They’ve never taken an iPad to a restaurant.
Now they’re teens they would be on their phones but not with the sound on or anything.

YANBU however the dad did the right thing by taking the boy out and leaving, so I wouldn’t judge them.
If they’d let the behaviour carry on then I would judge them.

Not everything has to be a teaching moment. Parents are allowed to sometimes have a nice lunch and chat to their friends and let the iPad babysit for a bit. So long as it isn't all the time, there's no problem wth a parent sometimes pleasing themselves.

So you enjoy listening to ear splitting high pitched screams every 2 minutes when you are trying to enjoy a meal and trying to have a conversation do you? Give over. Considering it was pissing off most other diners and even staff were wincing at the assault on their ears, I'd say it doesn't exclusively say alot about me. One poor bloke actually had his hands over his ears the screams were that loud and high pitched.