No Kidding

I have taken my daughter to restaurants since she was a baby and she knows how to behave, yes table manners start at home but children learn by seeing and doing, so if parents and siblings are eating tv dinners or using poor table manners kids will copy Kids in schools these days are allowed to eat like animals, I work as a volunteer at a primary school and it's like a zoo at lunch time, no table supervision at all.... table manners are appalling, only few know how to use a knife at all, either forks held badly or fingers are the norm and its a case of eat the very bad food quickly and get out so the next batch can eat..... I think there is a breakdown in parenting skills and family eating time generally and how can we expect children to suddenly start behaving just because it's a restaurant. I would hate to be eating out and have screaming kids running about.... but if they were well behaved it's fine, I would like to see families being given the chance but if kids start playing up should be asked to leave immediately, that would soon get the message across....

i too have had really annoying experiences of little brats in the dining room. a local restaurant we used (used) to go to in one evening one child picking up the table mats and banging them on the table and yelling and screaming at the same time. another climbing up the back of my parters seat, leaning over her shoulder and giggling (her parents were sat next too her) and another child running amok round the dining room and we later found the childs mother sitting in the bar (alone) drinking lager and smoking (it was a while ago). i refused point blank to go there again. it is not my place to admonish these children but if the management do nothing about it they dont deserve any custom.

We have encountered this problem too, its definitely a recent phenomena. Previously kids were not taken to pubs or restaurants, but we do accommodate children making it clear that its only WELL BEHAVED children. Many parents don't seem to know what well behaved means, some cant even behave themselves! Our ground rules are, no shrieking, or screaming, no standing on the seats and NO Running about. Kids who do so are asked to go outside and eat in the garden. When we opened four years ago I even put it on the menus - "well behaved children and women are welcome" but my staff were uncomfortable with the PC-ness of it. Unruly children were the only time I lost my rag (and we serve about a thousand meals a week) was a family table of 8, two young girls of about 10, who just ran back and forth to the toilets, stood up to eat lolling over a chair and threw food. I asked them to behave a bit better and sit down, and their father blew his top and said it was insulting. He was well oiled and a bit of an oaf, so I invited the whole party to leave. They seemed delighted they were getting out without paying for their drinks and food - one wanted to take his pint of Guinness with him, but i do draw the line somewhere and insisted we pour it away.