For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for May 08, 2016

Kids should know better to not play with fire.

Once again, the reality overrules the ideal.

You can take the boy out of the farm . . ."

That would have lasted less than 2 minutes in our house when I was growing up. Either my dad would have never taken two children too young to know how to behave in that kind of restaurant or, as in the case as shown, two kids would have been removed to the parking lot for a very short discussion of how they were going to behave and any snot nosed comments would have gotten behinds smacked and then when the crying stopped we would have gone back inside and helped Mom enjoy her night out.

By the time my sister and I were the ages of these two we knew better than to behave that way outside the house, especially in a restaurant of any type.

The only place we went out to eat was Steak and Shake when I was a kid (and one time when we stopped at a truck stop). I was almost 40 years old and divorced the first time I went to a “nice” restaurant. It was also during the “single” period in my life that I was taken out to a Chinese restaurant for the first time. During my 2nd marriage, we were both working and managed to eat out several times a week – and chose a good variety of restaurants to visit.

On Mother’s Day?

It is their own fault if they don’t teach their children how to behave.

It’s why there are restaurants with No Kids Allowed. I’ve seen places that look like they were hit by a tornado. Parents let the kids run riot.

I would have gone back to the house. No give in/reward behavior like that.

Long years ago, I went to a “nice” restaurant in the Poconos with my parents. I ended up getting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich under one of those covered plates.

Happy Mother’s Day!

I liked how they solved it. My dad would have just taken us out and whipped us into shape! No hot dogs in sight! Or ice cream…yum!

What the heck’s a “grunt-burg”?

In civilized parts of the world, you can actually take children out to a nice restaurant and have a pleasant time. They have been taught from the beginning that you don’t have to eat what’s served, but you have to at least try it the first time it’s served, and you will get nothing in place of it if you don’t want it. They also know that they respect the occasion by sitting quietly and interacting politely. They don’t believe they must be the focus of everything or that they must be constantly amused. The above is just one more reason so many in the US raise obnoxious bumpkins. Kids are kid, of course. I spilled a full glass of milk on the wine colored carpet of the best place in the city. The problem is what we’ve negligently allowed kids to think they can be.

I taught my 4 good manners at home and they never misbehaved at a restaurant. They knew what would happen when they got home if they did act up. “Work therapy” can work wonders.

A good solution, instead of the kids getting their way and having fast food, would have been to be told to calm down or have consequences OR instead of the fast food go to a grocery store and buy stuff for a nice meal so Dad AND the kids cook a meal for Mom while she enjoys a hot bubble bath to relax after the restaurant fiasco!

Teaching you kids not to act like chimpanzees is first andforemost before bringing them to a restaurant such as this.All you’re doing is ruining the experience for the other paying patrons.

That looks like a real high end restaurant.It took a lot of meals at Perkins before we took our girls to a place like that.Why ruin everyone else’s day?

Seriously,kids hate fancy restaurant food anyway.Perkins has the kind of grub they like to tuck into.And kids eat free on Tuesday!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Brats

KentheCoffinDweller you just described what my dad did to my brother many years back when he started acting up in a steak house we went to…in the car he went and on the backside he got hit. In today’s stupid society he’d be in jail. I am so glad I grew up when I did…..and am in the winter of my life.

My father’s excuse for never taking us out is that we didn’t have correct manners. He was just cheap, kids have to be taught, but they still have trouble cutting their meat and the like.

I’ve never seen or heard of ‘brochettes’ outside of the province of Quebec.

rickyh17Back in the 1970s in BC, they were heard of, and occasionally mentioned, but never common.

Bad parenting. They should teaching those kids how to behave when they go out to restaurants.

One Mother’s day, Mom wanted to go out for breakfast. After breakfast, she said we should go into a bowling alley. Mom wasn’t a bowler. She decided her best Mother’s day would be to do something for Dad and Me.

If you don’t set expectations for behavior before you go or yank those kids out with a walk of shame to and from the table to talk to them about their behavior, then this is what you get — your kids determining your activities and spoiling a celebration dinner. My daughter didn’t like everyone staring at her on the way out to the door to discuss her actions. She shaped up really fast and really young.