Why can't parents get control?

Parenting children is not fun. Sitting in a restaurant, trying to have an adult conversation and pretending those are someone else’s children is more fun. I was recently in a restaurant where two women with small children were at a table gabbing away, and a little one that looked to be 3 years old followed a man out the door. He ignored her, got in his car and drove away. The mother realized the child was missing, and berated the hostess for not stopping the child from going out the door! Normally the mom in me would intervene; I was keeping an eye on the child from my seat, and wanted to see what the mother would do.

Children generally misbehave when they are in either an inappropriate or overstimulating environment, or when the wait is too long and there aren’t enough distractions.

@PandoraBoxx I just believe it is parents now, kids having kids, they obviously can’t control them.

Do you have kids? I am sure you were a little darling when you were a child (as was I ;) but the other 99.99999 percent of children acted the same way they do now. I totally agree with @PandoraBoxx though :)

It’s not that they can’t control them, it’s that children are work, and parents are often self-absorbed or tired. They put children in situations where they shouldn’t be because the parent wants to go out, but doesn’t want to pay for a sitter. Or their children are good at home, and they assume they will be good out in public, but they’re not.

@reacting_acid No I don’t, I actually was a well behaved child, I didn’t dare speak out of line or miss behave in anyway, I had to grow up pretty quickly. If think if people waited untill they were adults before having children then maybe they would have more control.

Usually teenaged parents are not the ones taking children out to restaurants. They cannot afford to eat out. It’s generally people of traditional childbearing age (mid-20s to early 30s) who want to keep the social life of being childless, and expect to integrate children into those socialization patterns, without incurring the cost of a sitter. Ordering food off the kid’s menu is less costly than a babysitter.

@Dibley well that is good to hear, because frankly you dont hear about a lot of well behaved children anymore. And I think I also understand your question a bit more. I didn’t know you meant young parents. It can be hard when you are a young parent to control your kids.

@PandoraBoxx Teenage kids will take their kids to places like McDonalds, like the earlier question from TheJoker.

I bet a lot of them remember harsh parents being “mean” and not letting them run wild in social situations. What we remember as good manners, they remember as fear and embarrassment. These are the same people who won’t ever spank their kids because they, themselves, were spanked. “We have to let the special snowflakes express their individuality! We don’t want to repress their essential personhood!” etc.

These are the same kids that they let lick the belt and wail on the floor at the grocery store. Eww.

No, I don’t have kids, why do you ask? ;)

Ah, well that’s different. If teenagers had self-control, they wouldn’t be underaged parents in the first place.

I have a whole soapbox on multi-generational parenting. Some of this comes back on the parents of the teens. Just because a teenager becomes a parent themselves, it doesn’t mean they automatically become an adult. Parenting is a learned skill, and if you become a parent before you are developmentally ready to assume responsibility for someone else, then adult help from the next generation up is needed.

Generalities are always dangerous. We know a few teenaged parents who are wonderful parents and have well-behaved children. But they have great parents themselves, and the upbringing of the child is multi-generational; that’s not always the case.

ummm…I’m sure people talked about me and my brother…we were no Saints!!!!

Not all parents let their kids behave that way. My kids have never been allowed to run around in a restaurant.

Maybe there are kids in the restaurant who behave, but you don’t notice them because they aren’t attracting attention with their rude behavior.

@MissAusten Then you should be proud of yourself for being a good parent.

Those parents are idiots…no other way to put it. Going out with kids anywhere is a challenge no doubt…been there done that. You have to have sound strategies in place to keep hungry kids occupied until the food arrives. I can’t count the times we got up and left because my boys were just too wound up. Shame on the server or mgmt for not stepping up to put those parents on notice.

I agree with @PandoraBoxx. I don’t think it is the age of the parents. I had my sons when I was 21 and 23. When we went out to eat, our children sat with us and were not allowed to get out of their seat. One afternoon I went out to eat with my husband, mother and our oldest son when he was 2. Our son started to act up and would not listen to us, so my husband took him to the car until my mother and I were done eating. There are good parents and well behaved children out there, but like @MissAusten mentioned, maybe you just don’t notice them.

Some parents are just impatient and don’t want to deal with disciplining their child. I don’t think it is an age issue.

I don’t have a problem but I am also the parent that is taking their children to the restroom to bust their little butts. I have never had a problem with them not being controlled in public. They (yes twins) know that if they act up then there are consequences to their actions. Parents no longer allow their children to suffer the consequences. Sometimes, you just can not put them in a corner especially when they are throwing a temper tantrum. I was at Chuck e cheese with my children and they misbehaved and I put them in the corner at the restaurant. A lot of parents looked at me like OMG! but i didn’t care. People need to also stop caring what other people think. People are going to judge you no matter what.

There are lot’s of problems with parenting, and the aforementioned reluctance to discipline is one of them.
Yes, as well they should remember embarrassment. That plus the pain of a spanked bottom were the incentives for NOT acting out in public. I can never understand why people with children try to impose and inflict their children on others. At a restaurant where the waitress/er brings the food to you, one should not have to listen to a kid screaming. That crap about people having rights to bring their kids out in public is a cop out. Other people have a right to relax and ext their dinner in peace. I’m not talking about the occasional outburst, I’m talking about the continual screamer or the loud whiner who NEVER stops* and whose parents are unable to make them because they’re trying to bargain with the kid or ignore it. Oh lord, I’ve been here before haven’t I?
Parenting IS lots of work. That’s the thing, you can never stop being vigilant. The idiot who didn’t watch her child in that restaurant could have lost her. Iinstead of being angry at herself for that, and being relieved that she didn’t lose the child to a speeding car or a pervert, she berated the worker as if it were the workers responsibility. That is the attitude of a goodly percentage of parents today.
They think that children are small adults. They’re not. One cannot reason with a child, or expect adult behaviour. Even if they surprise us from timt to time with an insight or moment of brilliance.
Age does factor in, but this lazy parenting attitude cuts across all demographics.

It’s another benefit of that wonderful mindlessness called “political correctness.”

I’m not a parent, so I don’t know for sure, but here’s my opinion. It seems to me that parents now are more concerned with being friends with their kids, or being the cool parents, than disciplining them. Couple that with a total disregard for the feelings of and lack of respect for other people that has been increasing in our society over the last few generations, and you’ve got yourself some hell raising kids and parents who are too quick to turn that mute button on in their heads.

@essieness I think you are exactly right.

Couldn’t it just as well be that people are becoming more and more intolerant of children in the public environment? When we get to the states, we notice in many places people are far more easily annoyed by children, than when we go to Italy, for instance. The same goes for France as well, since the French also seem to have little tolerance to children.

In the UK, they have a nice system: they will state explicitely at the entrance, whether kids are welcome.

Kids are kids, and need a little slack. They shouldn’t bother other people, but it is a balance that parents need to deal with. I feel society as whole needs to have a little slack and care for children: slow down near schools, stop them from wondering off, when their parents are just a bit distracted… etc. To the flip side, parents should teach children to respect strangers and be polite and allow other people to address their children when they fall out of tune.

Maybe, we may then just stop getting annoyed in restaurants, smile at the children (or just tell them to be less noisy) and enjoy our dinner.

@whitenoise It puts me off going out, especially before 8. I prefer to go out and there be no kids.

Here we go again with this “discussion…”

Some people are good with disciplining their children. Some suck. If you see a child running amok in an unsafe place or doing something destructive, tell the parent! They may not know that they suck, and won’t be able to work on it unless someone brings it to their attention. Though, if it’s simply a matter of you seeing a parent who is actively struggling with a tantrum throwing kid, they know and and are trying to get a hold of the situation so you should probably keep quiet.

Ex: There was a kid playing in a mall play area who was being very rough and began knocking my two-year-old to the ground and kicking him in the chest and face. This is the kind of thing that needed to be brought to his dad’s attention. The dad was deeply involved in some paperwork and not paying a lick of attention to his abusive brat.

But, where do you live that this is a consistent problem? I can’t imagine this being such a problem that you don’t want to leave the house before a kid’s bedtime. I see this stuff happen maybe once a month. Are you going to Chuck E Cheese or something? Hint: If the place has a ball pit, there will be kids. If it’s somewhere upscale, talk to the manager of the place and if he/she won’t say anything, then tell the parent that the kid is being unsafe and disruptive.

Edit: I have a strange suspicion that anything above a whisper from a kid is “annoying” to you and considered poor behavior brought on by bad parenting.

Just a few days ago my daughter said to me, “Dad, you aren’t my friend.” And I said, “I’m not supposed to be your friend.” She’s 13.5, starting the transition into increased autonomy, testing the lines everywhere. But that’s another story.

The question here is why can’t parents get control of their children, and as is natural, we are getting a lot of personal testimony in response. And perhaps that’s what the OP wants.

Still, it’s probably impossible to answer this question because there are so many variables and none have been defined. What is “control” for example? In this case it seems to mean keeping children from disturbing other diners. There are, however, so many other situations where one might consider children out of control. In particular, I think the area of how they relate to other children and how they resolve disputes is incredibly important.

Certainly, learning about social rules is important. But here’s a problem. Not everyone agrees on what it means to be polite. In many communities, children run around everywhere and no one thinks anything of it. The children, if they need discipline, can be disciplined by anyone in the community. If you came from a culture where that was the norm, I can easily see parents letting kids run around the restaurant and then castigating the hostess for letting the child go out.

There are, to be sure, parents who don’t know how to train their children. There are parents who don’t care to train their children. There are parents who don’t care about politeness or about what other people think (like @velvetmelody). There are probably as many reasons why parent don’t or can’t control their kids as there are parents.

As to methods of “control.” Far too many parents think they it is their job to control their kids. In my opinion, it is my job to teach my child to control himself or herself. I want my kids to be able to think on their own; to assess situations and respond appropriately on their own.

The research is pretty strong in saying that using physical punishment to control kids doesn’t have good long term outcomes. Spanking teaches kids about external control They learn that their parents control them and they have a much harder time learning how to control themselves. Or rather, they learn to control themselves based on rules, not based on assessment of situations. The problem with this is that when they run into a situation they don’t have a rule for, they don’t know what to do if the parent isn’t there.

This is the attitude that the military and many low-wage employers like. They like workers who only follow rules and don’t think for themselves. This is the kind of training that makes it harder for such children to grow up into leaders, managers or creative people. Not impossible, but definitely harder.

It is possible to train children to behave appropriately without hitting them. Lot’s of people do it. But you aren’t going to train your child, no matter what method you use, if you don’t have the same standards as other people.

I’m sorry, but if you can’t stand the annoyance of a few kids running around occasionally when you are at a restaurant, then don’t go out. There are many things that bother us. I, for example, can’t stand cigarette smoke or perfume. Both give me headaches. That doesn’t stop me from going out. I’ve been on planes with babies that scream for five hours. That doesn’t stop me from flying. My point is that the world is full of things you don’t like. Either take initiative to try to help the thing that annoys you go away, or stop complaining.

@wundayatta I do, that’s why I don’t go out.

There is good and bad in every situation and for all the parents who don’t appear to have control of their kids, there are probably plenty that have well behaved kids but like @MissAusten said, we hardly notice them because they are not drawing attention to themselves. I am not a parent myself and so I feel that I am unqualified to judge how a parent lets their child behave in public but I remember being in a supermarket once with my slightly cantankerous grandmother. There was a young girl of about 3 years old crying very loudly. My grandmother said, under her breath but loud enough for the mother to hear, “I wish that child would shut up” to which the mother said politely “excuse me, my daughter is blind but she has to learn to cope with situations like this (I assume she meant a big, scary supermarket with people everywhere that she can’t see) so please be patient”. Since then I have tried not to judge things like this on face value because, rightly or wrongly, the mother thought that she was doing the best thing for her child in the long run.

@Dibley 8 isn’t that bad… could still have a lot of fun after that ;)

My kids are 26 (next week: Happy Birthday, Eric!) and 25. When they were toddlers we let them walk around in restaurants—in our view—and talk back to people who wanted to talk with them. We made sure that they knew they were only allowed to walk and talk and stay in sight, or we’d have them back at the table in psychic “restraints”.

They never made pests of themselves, and we always got kudos from other diners (and wait staff) on how well-behaved they were, because when they weren’t… then we figured we’d let them suffer at the table as we suffered their bad behavior with us. This also helped us to train them that they were certainly allowed to talk to strangers, but only when we were present. (And then we had to teach them exceptions to that rule for when they started school, visited relatives, etc.)

My oldest is the one that can run (youngest still learning to walk) and he is not allowed to run like an insane maniac anywhere. He understands (he’s 3) boundaries and knows he’s wrong when he’s wrong. He is aware that if he’s going to become an unreasonable screaming mess that I will march him out of the place and back home. We’ve never had a problem in restaurants and if people aren’t cool with my kids, I use my judgment with them because sometimes people are all about the whole ‘ugh there are kids around, I simply must make it clear to the world that I am just so annoyed at this perfectly natural phenomenon’...like when we’re on the plane and the baby starts to cry…it usually takes him a minute (just a minute) to calm down but there will always be some douchebag to start complaining and there is no reason for it…it’s so overblown out of proportion and I have turned around and said ‘if you can just keep quiet for another 30 seconds the baby will go to sleep…if you would like to instead sit here and argue with me, he will scream on for much longer’...because they’re being assholes, because they see I’m doing everything I can to manage a squirming 8 mo old while I am buckled down in my small-ass economy seat and my husband is on the floor trying to manage our 3 year old into hit seat…fuck off people, give us a break, we’re excellent parents and when you have kids (which you shouldn’t if you’re a prick) you will know…you just will KNOW.

discipline + consistency
———————————- = behavior change
time

something goes wrong with this equation and parents loose control of their kiddos

I suspect the choice of restaurant is a factor in this question. In a well managed restaurant, parents of children who are allowed to endanger people would be asked to control their children or leave.

In my experience, this is a rather rare problem, unless you are in a child oriented place, like Chuck E Cheese.

@KhiaKarma that’s a good equation. I’ll be you were good at word problems in math.

… and welcome to the collective.

@CyanoticWasp she’s good at a lot more than math problems..heh

@wundayatta re: disciplined children have the attitude that military and low-wage employers like.—> It follows, then, that since many of these kids will probably end up in the military or in low wage jobs, that we ought to make it easier for them to cope by teaching them these things early? Not everyone is lucky enough to be middle management or a CEO.

@laureth wait what? can you back up a bit and elaborate?

@laureth That’s what what happens already. I’m suggesting we give everyone more of a chance to move into more economically satisfactory lives.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir and @wundayatta

It’s a true fact that not everyone is going to be middle- or upper-class. Those classes can’t function without a large pyramid of underclass beneath them. My grandma used to have a saying, “Too many Chiefs, not enough Indians.” Those few that succeed can’t be “managers” or “generals” without “employees” and “privates.”

So, knowing that the vast majority of these kids aren’t going to make to to the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, shouldn’t we prepare them for the world that actually waits for them? I’m only half-serious, but everyone thinks that their kid is the special snowflake that’s going to be the next Bill Gates, Einstein or Mozart. It’s more likely that they’ll say “want fries with that?” or “paper or plastic?” or “Yes, Sir!”.

Which is better – to be happy with what you have, even if you don’t have much? Or to be constantly unsatisfied with your lot in life, and no way to get out, even if you’re really smart?

@laureth I have no idea what my kids will be – I have no unrealistic expectations for them but if I have anything to do with it they will want to be more than a peg in the lowest level of the machine.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir – Knowing about you only what I know from Fluther, I have no doubt that you’ll do that far better than the majority of parents who let their kids run amok in restaurants.

@laureth thank you