I saw someone pointing fingers at my DD

[TheMaryClaire]

Hi Mums! I just want to get this off my chest and maybe get some advice from you all.

My daughter and I went to this restaurant (i don't want to mention the name) over the weekend and had some dinner there. Of course, as a child, my DD has a really short attention span, so after watching some videos, she started wandering around the restaurant hall and waving at all the people coming in.

Some people appreciate it and smile at her, so I just let her move around. Suddenly, a lady (around 50 yo) started stopping her and pointing a finger at her, saying that she should not be running around the restaurant.

While I know that she's right, I feel that it's not appropriate to point your fingers at someone else's child. I just apologise to her and walk away with my daughter in tow but I feel extremely uncomfortable in my heart.

What do you think?

until they're going home saying "blimey, an ambulance had to take a child to hospital with 80% burns because they tripped over a waiter carrying hot soup" or something similar.

The world isn't there to take care of your children. People can't have it both ways. Either you parent your children effectively and don't let them roam - or you live with other people parenting your child better than you do.

What? What planet do you live on?

How is this comparable to adults getting up to go to the toilet?

How is it not? The OP was walking with her child and people would also be presumably walking to the toilet?

she started wandering around the restaurant hall and waving at all the people coming in.

that is the issue.

nobody cares about your 3 year old.I would have told her to go right back to her family and stay there. With or without a pointing finger.

She wasn’t walking with her child. That’s the problem. A parent holding their child’s hand and taking a walk is fine but take them outside for a wander not to dawdle around all the tables and get in the way of waiters serving.

Adults going to the toilet don’t meander about. They go to the toilet and come back.

Anyway bored of this now 🙄 don’t think it’s right to pile on someone who made the huge mistake of walking with their child in a restaurant when she was bored. Such a non event! I wouldn’t listen to a single person in this thread OP.

She wasn’t walking with her child and she isn’t interested in listening to anyone saying that this is her problem anyway.

If she walks with her child in future she won’t have any issues.

it's not a "pile on" but to be fair to the "you are wrong" crew, OP posted a thread, then posted a 2nd thread because most people don't agree with her.

Time for OP to have a little think about how to teach her child to behave appropriately in public places

It's not an unjustified 'pile on'.

The OP came here to complain about a person who had stepped in to do something the OP wasn't doing - acting as n adult supervising a toddler in a restaurant.
Even after virtually everyone told her no-one would have needed to have said anything (or 'pointed fingers') had she been parenting her own child properly, the OP then returned to the thread to double down on saying she was right and all but a tiny minority of posters were wrong.

Also, she wasn't walking with her child through the restaurant, she was letting a toddler roam about annoying people and getting in the way.

Totally spot on

It’s hard dining out with little kids but if you don’t do it then how are they going to learn how to behave in a restaurant? As others have said, plenty of activities for the table are key.

I once had a meal for my birthday in a very fancy Italian restaurant with DS when he was 2. He was bored by the time the starters were finished and the waiter took him off to the kitchen (with our consent) while we had our main courses. It was so lovely but Italians have a different view of children. In fact I think the owner of this restaurant said in the press once that people who think children shouldn’t be in smart restaurants should avoid his restaurant.

Stick with it, they aren’t little for long. Just take a bag with some toys and games.

It’s hard dining out with little kids but if you don’t do it then how are they going to learn how to behave in a restaurant? As others have said, plenty of activities for the table are key.

I disagree, plus you're contradicting yourself. Adults don't need or want "plenty of activities for the table"; that isn't how adults behave in a restaurant. It's what we might do to placate children and keep them quiet, so that they are not disturbing other people in the restaurant.

Small children are not good at sitting still for long periods, especially when they are not the focus. This comes with age and maturity.