Restaurant bans screaming kids

[Crow]

http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story...storyid=215516

I remember when was a kid that if a baby started screaming at a restaurant, people took the kid away for a few minutes until that kid was quiet. I also remember that people didn't let their kids run amok in restaurants. Kids behaved. It was expected.

I know that kids are going to make noise sometimes. They had the same propensity half a century ago when I first started getting taken into the restaurant. But then a parent responding to a kid's behavior and trying to correct it was the norm. Today the norm seems to be mom yakking on the cell phone while her kids destroy the buffet and run down the aisles knocking into people.

I figure that business owners have the right to step in and demand good behavior in their place of business.

[Philosophickle]

Thank God.

[Crow]

What is really sad is that you see some families in restaurants and their kids are well behaved. You see some people actually try to distract their baby when he screams or take the kid to the restroom and see if he needs changed. Then there are the other ones.....

You would think that seeing the well behaved kids would give the parents of the ill behaved the hint that yes, it can be done.

[rogue06]

It should be that the restaurant bans the parents with the screaming kids that they either ignore or can't control rather than the kids per se.

[One Bad Pig]

Unfortunately, those parents are too busy yakking on their cell phones to notice the well-behaved kids.

Of course, I'm one of those rubes who thinks that talking on a cell phone in a restaurant is socially rude to whomever you're dining with (let alone everyone else around you, because you're talking more loudly than you would in a face-to-face conversation). Everyone's doing it though, so it must be okay, right?

[NeilUnreal]

Of course, I'm one of those rubes who thinks that talking on a cell phone in a restaurant is socially rude to whomever you're dining with...

My only disagreement with this is that I would take it even further: holding a private conversation on a cell phone when in company is socially rude period.

10 pearls.

-Neil

[Teallaura]

Some of us legitimately have to have phones on. And heck, sometimes you just forget to turn the thing off.

If it's not a call I have to take - doctor's office, patient, actual emergency, that sort of thing - I just explain that I'm occupied and will call them back shortly. If I do have to take it, I explain that to the person I'm with and excuse myself if necessary. If I'm alone in a restaurant then I just take the thing - it's not rude unless someone has a reasonable expectation of having your attention or it causes a disruption.

I used to attend a church where the youngest kids were allowed to run around during service. I would have needed a backside transplant if I'd ever even thought about doing that.

[NeilUnreal]

People who have to leave phones on because it's a necessary to either their health and safety or that of others are excused my ire.

-Neil

[Rayado]

Unfortunately, those parents are too busy yakking on their cell phones to notice the well-behaved kids.

Of course, I'm one of those rubes who thinks that talking on a cell phone in a restaurant is socially rude to whomever you're dining with (let alone everyone else around you, because you're talking more loudly than you would in a face-to-face conversation). Everyone's doing it though, so it must be okay, right?

I'll add talking on cellphones while trying to go through a drive-through line at a food chain, or while going through checkout at a store. I feel terribly awkward, like I'm butting in on someone's legitimate business, and offer to call back later, only to hear "No, it's no problem." Yeah right it's no problem. I feel complicit in someone else's rudeness.

[Teallaura]

Thanks, Neil...


In the Eeeeewwww! Category, the nominee is: talking on your cell phone while in the bathroom.

[Speed Donkey]

Yey! As long as the signs read 'Screaming CHILDREN will not be tolerated', I can keep on screaming all I want

[Speed Donkey]

Thanks, Neil...


In the Eeeeewwww! Category, the nominee is: talking on your cell phone while in the bathroom.

Nawt wrong with that. I'm always ether talking on my phone or playing that new app I just downloaded while sat on the bog. It passes the time.

[Rational Gaze]

All I can say, be thankful you do not live where I live. As Quanta Fille, Kelp et al. can attest, I have spent much time complaining about my neighbours and their retarded children. I live in a place where the parents are too lazy to push the open door button for the flat block door, and who would rather spend four hours+ at the pub than spend time with their kids... even the single parents. The kids therefore resort to kicking the door open (because of how crap the locks are). Some parents have resorted to attacking hooks and chains to keep the door permanently open (which I have made my mission to remedy by taking them down and, as a result, they have given up). The kids are also really really stupid. For pastimes, they run around screaming, throw stones at each other, at windows and parked cars, play in rubbish dumpsters. This afternoon I discovered a 2-litre bottle full of urine dumped by the washing lines.

[ChemMJW]

Unfortunately, those parents are too busy yakking on their cell phones to notice the well-behaved kids.

Of course, I'm one of those rubes who thinks that talking on a cell phone in a restaurant is socially rude to whomever you're dining with (let alone everyone else around you, because you're talking more loudly than you would in a face-to-face conversation). Everyone's doing it though, so it must be okay, right?

Very true. Specifically, though, studies show clearly that hearing only one side of a conversation (such as when you overhear a person talking on a cell phone in a restaurant) is more agitating and taxing to the average listener than hearing two people directly talking to each other. The reasoning is that, when hearing only one side of a conversation, our brains must worker harder to reason out what person 2's response to person 1 must have been based on person 1's subsequent statements to person 2, and so forth. That is, hearing someone speak into a cell phone at normal conversational volume and hearing someone speak to another person who is actually present at a normal conversational volume are not the same thing, as far as our mental processing of the conversation is concerned.

[Philosophickle]

I live in a place where the parents...would rather spend four hours+ at the pub than spend time with their kids...

I think you just described every parent in the world.