Terrible behaviour from children who are old enough to know better - how do you handle?

[Earlybird]

Grrr....perhaps trivial, but I would appreciate any advice.

I went to a birthday dinner at a restaurant for a friend tonight (we went very early as it was a school night, and only planned to stay for perhaps 90 minutes).

Dd was invited, as was the friend's dd. What should have been a lovely evening turned unpleasant when the 2 girls behaved abominably - loud, rude, restless, bored, endless interruptions, etc. Nothing we said or did seemed to make any difference to the girls. Finally, we skipped dessert and left because we (the adults) were getting so wound up.

I was angry with dd and the other child for ruining the evening. Both are almost 9, so certainly should be able to chat, draw, play hangman/tic-tac-toe, etc to occupy themselves for a bit.

Dd is now remorseful, but seemed 'deaf' at the restaurant when I tried several times to calm her down.

It was unusual behaviour for dd, but that being said, she often misbehaves when with this other child - they seem to bring out the worst in each other.

What else could I (or the other parents) have done to rescue the evening? Would you give any consequences, and if so, what would be appropriate? I've told her she must write a note of apology to my friend, and DD has already banned herself from having any pudding/biscuits for the next 2 days.

Is there anything we can do to avoid a repeat 'performance' next time these 2 girls are together?

IF you can get her to focus on the fact that you are telling her to stop, take it by the hand to the toilets or outside, then, once you have her attention fall on her as pile of bricks, ask her to calm down or you will remove X,Y or Z privileges.

Having said that, my son is normally very well behaved in restaurants but from time to time he gets excited and no amount of talking can calm him down. In such circumstances I'll rather leave the place.

Mongolia - good advice to temporarily remove her from the situation for a strict 'talking to'. I think last night we were all hoping that glares and reprimands would do the trick, as we wanted to get on with having our evening/conversation.

I think part of what was so upsetting is that dd is usually a very good girl who can be counted on to behave - within reason. She was out of character last night.

Maybe there are simply some occasions that are doomed? Or some children that incite each other to be naughty?

Am so sorry your evening was ruined. How disappointing for you. I have a 9 year old dd and if she was spoiling my time with a friend like this I would have shouted at her there and then - and ruined the evening anyway! Am very interested to see if our wiser Mumsnetters have any more sensible suggestions.

I read the following in a "Good manners book" (no victorian staff, was written by a 5* hotel concierge who run some very popular manners for children courses.

He said that you need to treat your children with respect, in order to get the same. So, you need to include them in the conversation, obviously choosing suitable topics. The question he asked was something like: How would you feel if you were sitting at a table were you were left out of the conversation and ignored for as long as you were there? I have to say that until I read it, I had not even give a thought to it (DS was 4 back then, and perhaps I had just expected that I could talk to my friends over a coffee while DS entertained himself, in the same way he did when he was "less interactive", or when we took them to the park.

I guess they may have realised they were not part of your party, and decided to have one party, their way, on their terms. With the unfortunate results expected of running two parties at the same table.

I think the problem might be that it is really hard in a table of 4 to conduct two separate sets of conversations. Thus the girls might have played up because they were bored. They are probably too old for colouring and drawing at the table and just too young to make conversation with the grown ups. Tricky. Would have it been possible to sit them at a table separate but near you? you could have then given them the choice as to having grown up conversation with you two or being silly by themselves

I don't think they are too young to participate in a conversation with the adults. Obviously, you can talk about the private problems you may be experiencing with them, but certainly a light hearted conversation is not too much if you are spending a night out together?

My DSs are 8 and 6 and we go out a lot with them. I usually give them a bit of a pep talk before we go out, explain where we're going, who else will be there, what to expect foodwise, etc. And tell them what kind of behaviour will be acceptable. And ask them if there's anything they'd like to take with them to amuse themselves. Like the concierge said, you have to respect them and credit them with some sense!

Perhaps the OP and her friend could sit down with their DDs and come up with a strategy for good behaviour when its needed, on the agreement that theyre allowed to go loopy together in private, at each other's houses or whatever?

Hmm - food for thought. Maybe there is more strategising than I realised for older children.

You're right, we weren't including them in the conversation, but rather hoped the 2 of them could keep each other company. I brought pencils/paper, and a little portable game with wooden blocks (one we sometimes take on airplane journeys), so they had 'props' to play with if their imagination and conversation failed.

I spoke to dd about how there is indoor play and outdoor play (shouldn't that be obvious by now??), and that while i wanted them to have fun, wild/loud/rude behaviour was unacceptable. But she knows all that - so where did last night come from?

DD knows she behaved badly, but I keep wondering what i could have/should have done in the moment to get things back on track (because the adults were essentially 'controlled' by the children) - or whether the situation was unsalvageable.