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Being a parent pretty much requires a person to adopt an attitude of knowing what's what, knowing what's best for everyone else, etc. Trying to puncture that will not only get you jumped on by them, but by every other parent in the room (and half the non-parents).
You must not have children. I don't know about other parents, but I have no clue what's best for everyone else. I'm mostly guessing and crossing my fingers, and feeling lucky if I make it out of the house in matching socks. I'm sorry if you're encountering parents with some superiority complex, but please don't ascribe that attitude to everyone who has birthed a baby or two.
You must not have children. I don't know about other parents, but I have no clue what's best for everyone else. I'm mostly guessing and crossing my fingers, and feeling lucky if I make it out of the house in matching socks. I'm sorry if you're encountering parents with some superiority complex, but please don't ascribe that attitude to everyone who has birthed a baby or two.
I think this post was on the side of parents. Saying that society almost requires them to possess all these qualities.
I would probably have started with asking the restaurant staff to deal with it or asked to move, but that said, I have noticed a trend of restaurants not dealing with this type of behavior. Our small off roading group went to a "family" restaurant where there were so many kids everywhere out of their seats running around, using our chairs as pylons (actually grabbing the chair to swing around it) in their races around the restaurant that one of the wait staff was tripped holding a big tray of food and it crashed to the floor near our table and still nothing was said or done. We vowed to never eat there again and we diid not. Within a year the place was out of business.
My husband and I went a local lunch buffet. We were early and the place wasn't busy yet. While waiting to be seated (no staff in sight) I noticed a 5-ish year old boy at the buffet smacking his hands into every tray along the line touching the food. Ugh. I saw a couple with a toddler at a nearby table and immediately spoke to the father and asked, "Is that your son at the buffet? If so, he's touching all of the food and needs attendance." I could see that the father was thinking about rebuking me for saying something to him but there is no arguing the point that his child was okay touching other people's food or that it wasn't my business. He got up and got the child. We didn't eat from that side of the buffet.
Years ago I was on a red eye flight and the mother of two post toddler age children pulled into seats behind me. Great. The child behind me kept kicking my seat and the mom to her credit tried to intervene telling her child (ineffectively) to settle down and not kick my seat. This went on for about 20 minutes and finally I got up, turned around kneeling on my seat towering over the child and said in a firm voice, "This will be a really long flight if you don't quit kicking my seat!" The mom said, "See I told you." for which I was grateful and the kids both settled down and went to sleep within a few minutes.
Sometimes you have to stand up for yourself even in a public setting. Often restaurant staff are really young and will not deal with problems that should be handled on behalf of the rest of the patrons. I'm not bothered by the usual low level havoc that young kids can create because I have a pretty good tune out mechanism but I do not want to be rammed into, have my chair repeatedly banged, grabbed, kicked for no good reason other than parents wanting a public setting to do their babysitting. I draw the line at kids putting their hands into food that isn't theirs. Often I just bypass the parent. One or two well placed words and "the look" for the offending child is enough to do the job without the parents being the wiser.
Frankly if parents don't want a stranger speaking to their child then they would pay more attention to where their kids are and what they are doing. As completely tuned out as some parents are, their children are at risk for child predators and not only in the settings that we are discussing in this thread.
Lastly, I was in Salzburg, Austria a few years ago and at the table behind us were other Americans, a couple with a maybe 8 year old girl, and about a 5 year old boy. The children sat still, had self control, good table manners and joined the conversation around the table as they were capable which was much more than I would expect given their ages. They were a joy to see and have as fellow patrons.
It doesn't have to uncontrolled chaos when kids go to restaurants, the theater or elsewhere in public where there should be a certain level of consideration for others that are present. For parents to get all huffy about their rights is the rude behavior in these situations. Rights extend to the other person's reasonable expectation of peaceful enjoyment, personal space and proper sanitary comportment.
Talking is ok (I've done it) just don't touch them. When my son was 4 he was in a play area at a fast food place with a million other kids. I guess he was playing rough (it was so hectic lost visual on him) but suddenly an old man (grandpa) was holding him up in the air, roughly,shaking him, shouting "whose kid is this." I nearly ripped his face off. I was going to call the cops but a friend calmed me down. Yeah he saw momma bear.
Note to all....never touch a kid that doesn't belong to you unless you are saving their life.
and this is why the Mr. and I avoid "family-style" restaurants like the plague. Going out to dinner is an adult activity, and we want to be surrounded by other adults.
Talking is ok (I've done it) just don't touch them. When my son was 4 he was in a play area at a fast food place with a million other kids. I guess he was playing rough (it was so hectic lost visual on him) but suddenly an old man (grandpa) was holding him up in the air, roughly,shaking him, shouting "whose kid is this." I nearly ripped his face off. I was going to call the cops but a friend calmed me down. Yeah he saw momma bear.
Note to all....never touch a kid that doesn't belong to you unless you are saving their life.
Maybe he was given that your child was out of your field of vision.
I remember that being young, misbehave in a store or restaurant? Get swatted on the spot. Didn't take me long to learn manners in public.
The Spock Hold always worked on my kids! They would straighten right up.
I only had to leave a restaurant once - but I did leave, rather than bother the other patrons. It turned out that my child was actually suddenly sick and had a roaring fever by the time we got home.
One of the benefits of having four children close in age is that sometimes only one lesson works for all four of them. For instance, I only had to leave a store one time - they all learned from it. I only had to punish them one time for arguing over cookies - they all learned from it (I threw the cookies out the car window - LOL! NOT IN THE BOX just in case anyone is wondering!).
I think I'd agree with some others that it's best to take it up with management. Let them deal with it. It can be a touchy situation and that seems like the best solution to handling these types of situations.
I agree, I'd never dream of chiding or confronting a stranger about their child's behavior.
1) I'm never sure how they might react.
2) I'm never sure what's going on in their lives at that moment.
3) It's countering rudeness with rudeness, IMO a no-win tactic.
If for some reason, it's not practical to take it up with management, I'll remove myself from the scene as quickly as possible.
I taught public school pre-K, K, and 1st grade for several years so have some training and experience in dealing calmly with misbehaving young children. Because of that, I have on a few occasions - when young children were throwing tantrums in supermarkets - asked the parent "Is there anything I can do to help?" The offer was always sincere but no one ever took me up on it. I was usually thinking in terms of ~I could watch your basket if you want to take the child elsewhere to deal with him/her~. Perhaps I should have stated that specifically, might try that someday.
Sometimes you have to step in with a parent when they are clearly abusing a child too.
My husband is great at stepping in - it's one of his qualities (fearlessness and a sense of moral justice) that I love.
A few years ago he was at the drug store, looking for a card, and there was a father and son in the card section as well. The boy was about five. He picked up a card (gently, not destructively) and tugged his dad's shirt and said, "Hey, what about this one?" The dad cuffed the boy on the side of the head - not hard, but not gently either - and said, "I TOLD you not to touch anything!" The little boy's eyes welled with tears. My husband was on high alert at this point. A few minutes later, the little boy pointed at a card and said, "I like this one," at which point the dad CUFFED HIM AGAIN and said, "BE QUIET, YOU LITTLE SOB." THAT WAS IT. My husband stalked over there and got right up in the dad's face and said, "If I see you touch that boy again, I am going to take YOU out in the parking lot and hit YOU in the head and I'll be out of jail before you're out of the hospital!"
The dad actually came up to my husband in the store a few minutes later and said, "Hey, man, I'm sorry - I was out of line. His mom's sick and I'm stressed out, but I shouldn't have done that."
And he's right - he shouldn't have. My husband heard the little boy call the guy by his first name as they left, so on top of it all, it was a step parent/step son situation, or a boyfriend rather than the little boy's dad. Very sad.
The thing about it is, that just like the mom in the OP's story, the guy had an "excuse," but you know that even if it's true, there's some very ineffective "parenting" going on there - and not just at the moment.
My husband was blue about that little kid's situation for days afterward. He kept telling me, "That little boy doesn't have much of a chance with that guy in his life."
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They would straighten right up. 
