Oh yeah you’re that dude who was commenting on my meme about kids being annoying in a restaurant. I didn’t feel the need to comment there because I had thought “person doesn’t realize that few people have problems with well behaved kids or understand that people know that kids OCCASIONALLY act out.”. But it looks like you’re doubling down.
First, did you see anyone complaining about kids on playgrounds? Play places at fast food restaurants? Public parks? No? That’s because those are places for kids to be running around. Restaurants where adults are trying to relax is not for kids to be running around. Full stop. There is no “but”. YOU need to teach your child that their actions affect those around them.
Secondly, YOU choose to have children and where you take them. If you take them to a place where you know they have the potential to inconvenience the people around them and they do, then you are inflicting them on others and that makes you a bad parent.
And lastly, I can’t even remember the amount of children who stayed at their table, where maybe a little louder than would be necessary but ultimately settled down, or were well behaved and well mannered. But I do remember that the parents of those children were usually well put together and maintained people who seemed to have control over their life. An unruly child who was running around the restaurant is usually a symptom and not the problem.
YOU choose to have children and where you take them. If you take them to a place where you know they have the potential to inconvenience the people around them and they do, then you are inflicting them on others and that makes you a bad parent.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I kinda feel like that ignores the reality of how kids learn. They can’t be taught how to act at restaurants if they’re left at home for their entire childhood. We’ve got fairly well-behaved children, but it’s because they were a little bit crazy when they were younger and we disciplined them through the process. Particularly for neuro-spicy kids, they’re never going to be able to learn how to calm down unless you take them to those places, teach them how to act, and discipline them when they transgress those boundaries.
Yeah, it’s an inconvenience to others, but them being a minor inconvenience now so that they won’t be a major inconvenience when they’re adults is kind of the tradeoff you make in order to live in a reasonably well-adjusted society.
Now, if you’re talking about, like, a Michelin-starred restaurant with pristine tablecloths and no dollar signs on the menu, that’s one thing. People save up for months to have a single pleasant, quiet night at places like that, and parents need to find better ways/locations to train their kids. But if you mean Applebees or whatever, I kind of think the minor inconvenience now is worth the better-behaved adult the kids will turn into.
I think the annoying kids in restaurants stereotype we’re talking about are usually when the parents of the kids are ignoring the behavior rather than trying to teach their kids anything.
Your ideal scenario here is fine but 99% of the time when I’m super irritated at kids its because the parents are ignoring and/or downplaying the affect their kids have on other people.
Gotcha. Yeah, parents can definitely suck just as much as any other human (or, to be fair, they can just be exhausted or distracted). Though I will also note that in the cases where my kids have acted unexpectedly badly, it is notable to me that my usual nuclear threat (“we’ll just leave”) carries with it a financial penalty as well (now we have to pay for food we ordered but can’t eat), which adds an additional wrinkle to this problem; particularly for lower-income folks.
I do think that I usually have a lower tolerance for my kids’ behavior than most of the people around me do, so hopefully that’s part of what is on my side here.
You can train your kids at McDonalds. And while I’d acquiesce about Applebee’s, if alcohol is served, children shouldn’t be. Sure that may limit what you can do as a parent. But I’m sure the joys and triumphs of parenthood will outweigh the loss of having a beer while your child knocks into other customers at the restaurant.
Respectfully, no. That’s an entirely different scenario with entirely different norms, patterns, expectations, etc. A sit-down, table-service restaurant in a “boring” location with slow food is an entirely different experience than counter service at a fast food restaurant. You start with that, of course, but that’s definitely not where it can end.
Not to mention, there are no casual fast food places that serve vegetables. If you care about offering your kids any kind of healthy food, you have to go somewhere at least slightly more upmarket.
if alcohol is served, children shouldn’t be.
That excludes pretty much every restaurant that isn’t fast food. In some countries, that excludes even McDonald’s. It definitely excludes Applebee’s. It excludes Chuck E. Cheese, for crying out loud.
Maybe in the 90s that would’ve been a reasonable limitation, but that is far from the case today.
Sure that may limit what you can do as a parent.
Nah, I’m not worried about that even a little bit. I chose to be a parent, which means that I chose to accept certain limitations on my life while they’re still young. I don’t have any issue with that as a principle. Yes, parents are still human and should be able to exist independently of their children, and yes, some people didn’t choose to be parents (but had that choice made for them), but I don’t think that either situation is a large enough situation to be worth discussing here.
What I’m saying is that teaching and training has to happen in real situations. It doesn’t start there, no; you work on not throwing your food on the floor at home, you work on not shouting and screaming at the table at Grandma’s, you work on not running around the restaurant at McDonald’s. But once you have the basics down, you have to go out and actually work on them in the real world. That means a real restaurant, with waiters and other diners, where the food isn’t exactly what they want, and it takes “forever” to arrive. It has to be in the real world, or else it doesn’t work.
That means that your kids’ bad days are going to go out into the real world sometimes, too; and you won’t have any warning that they’re coming. They’ll just show up along with your basket of breadsticks at the pizza place, or they’ll be serving them alongside the General Tso’s chicken at the Chinese buffet.
At that point, you have three options: leave (probably not super feasible, you still have to pay for the meal and you still have to feed your kids and yourself), ignore them (this is clearly the type of parent you’re frustrated by, and I agree, but they’re far more exception than rule), or parent your way through it (which is honestly the whole point of this excursion). But the last one is the hardest, and runs the most risk of looking like ignoring if you have more than one kid and have to focus on them in turn.
I’m sure the joys and triumphs of parenthood will outweigh the loss of having a beer […]
Yeah, honestly, it does. Not all the time, but every time.
Oh yeah you’re that dude who was commenting on my meme about kids being annoying in a restaurant. I didn’t feel the need to comment there because I had thought “person doesn’t realize that few people have problems with well behaved kids or understand that people know that kids OCCASIONALLY act out.”. But it looks like you’re doubling down.
First, did you see anyone complaining about kids on playgrounds? Play places at fast food restaurants? Public parks? No? That’s because those are places for kids to be running around. Restaurants where adults are trying to relax is not for kids to be running around. Full stop. There is no “but”. YOU need to teach your child that their actions affect those around them.
Secondly, YOU choose to have children and where you take them. If you take them to a place where you know they have the potential to inconvenience the people around them and they do, then you are inflicting them on others and that makes you a bad parent.
And lastly, I can’t even remember the amount of children who stayed at their table, where maybe a little louder than would be necessary but ultimately settled down, or were well behaved and well mannered. But I do remember that the parents of those children were usually well put together and maintained people who seemed to have control over their life. An unruly child who was running around the restaurant is usually a symptom and not the problem.
I didn’t see the meme, but–
Maybe I’m missing something, but I kinda feel like that ignores the reality of how kids learn. They can’t be taught how to act at restaurants if they’re left at home for their entire childhood. We’ve got fairly well-behaved children, but it’s because they were a little bit crazy when they were younger and we disciplined them through the process. Particularly for neuro-spicy kids, they’re never going to be able to learn how to calm down unless you take them to those places, teach them how to act, and discipline them when they transgress those boundaries.
Yeah, it’s an inconvenience to others, but them being a minor inconvenience now so that they won’t be a major inconvenience when they’re adults is kind of the tradeoff you make in order to live in a reasonably well-adjusted society.
Now, if you’re talking about, like, a Michelin-starred restaurant with pristine tablecloths and no dollar signs on the menu, that’s one thing. People save up for months to have a single pleasant, quiet night at places like that, and parents need to find better ways/locations to train their kids. But if you mean Applebees or whatever, I kind of think the minor inconvenience now is worth the better-behaved adult the kids will turn into.
I think the annoying kids in restaurants stereotype we’re talking about are usually when the parents of the kids are ignoring the behavior rather than trying to teach their kids anything.
Your ideal scenario here is fine but 99% of the time when I’m super irritated at kids its because the parents are ignoring and/or downplaying the affect their kids have on other people.
Gotcha. Yeah, parents can definitely suck just as much as any other human (or, to be fair, they can just be exhausted or distracted). Though I will also note that in the cases where my kids have acted unexpectedly badly, it is notable to me that my usual nuclear threat (“we’ll just leave”) carries with it a financial penalty as well (now we have to pay for food we ordered but can’t eat), which adds an additional wrinkle to this problem; particularly for lower-income folks.
I do think that I usually have a lower tolerance for my kids’ behavior than most of the people around me do, so hopefully that’s part of what is on my side here.
You can train your kids at McDonalds. And while I’d acquiesce about Applebee’s, if alcohol is served, children shouldn’t be. Sure that may limit what you can do as a parent. But I’m sure the joys and triumphs of parenthood will outweigh the loss of having a beer while your child knocks into other customers at the restaurant.
Respectfully, no. That’s an entirely different scenario with entirely different norms, patterns, expectations, etc. A sit-down, table-service restaurant in a “boring” location with slow food is an entirely different experience than counter service at a fast food restaurant. You start with that, of course, but that’s definitely not where it can end.
Not to mention, there are no casual fast food places that serve vegetables. If you care about offering your kids any kind of healthy food, you have to go somewhere at least slightly more upmarket.
That excludes pretty much every restaurant that isn’t fast food. In some countries, that excludes even McDonald’s. It definitely excludes Applebee’s. It excludes Chuck E. Cheese, for crying out loud.
Maybe in the 90s that would’ve been a reasonable limitation, but that is far from the case today.
Nah, I’m not worried about that even a little bit. I chose to be a parent, which means that I chose to accept certain limitations on my life while they’re still young. I don’t have any issue with that as a principle. Yes, parents are still human and should be able to exist independently of their children, and yes, some people didn’t choose to be parents (but had that choice made for them), but I don’t think that either situation is a large enough situation to be worth discussing here.
What I’m saying is that teaching and training has to happen in real situations. It doesn’t start there, no; you work on not throwing your food on the floor at home, you work on not shouting and screaming at the table at Grandma’s, you work on not running around the restaurant at McDonald’s. But once you have the basics down, you have to go out and actually work on them in the real world. That means a real restaurant, with waiters and other diners, where the food isn’t exactly what they want, and it takes “forever” to arrive. It has to be in the real world, or else it doesn’t work.
That means that your kids’ bad days are going to go out into the real world sometimes, too; and you won’t have any warning that they’re coming. They’ll just show up along with your basket of breadsticks at the pizza place, or they’ll be serving them alongside the General Tso’s chicken at the Chinese buffet.
At that point, you have three options: leave (probably not super feasible, you still have to pay for the meal and you still have to feed your kids and yourself), ignore them (this is clearly the type of parent you’re frustrated by, and I agree, but they’re far more exception than rule), or parent your way through it (which is honestly the whole point of this excursion). But the last one is the hardest, and runs the most risk of looking like ignoring if you have more than one kid and have to focus on them in turn.
Yeah, honestly, it does. Not all the time, but every time.
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