When Crying Children Disrupt Dinner, Who Pays The Price?

[Andara Bledin]

I've always believed that when it comes to kids and learning to behave in public, it starts at home. If the parents insist on civilized behavior, food appreciation,good table manners, and such at home, then they are more likely to have a good outcome when they go out to a restaurant. On the other hand, if they do none of those things, no amount of exposure to fine dining will magically civilize their children.

This. By the time my mother took me and my brother out anywhere, we knew what was expected of our behavior. And as much as we were little shits to one another at home, we were perfect angels when we were out. She used to get compliments about our behavior from everybody; our family was the only group that knew what we were like when not on our 'best behavior.'

When you were a kid, a badly behaved kid was the exception rather than the rule.

It's a population density thing.

Below a certain population density, everybody knows enough of everybody else that it's within the 'monkeysphere' threshold. When everybody around are virtual strangers, however, people are more likely to behave badly because there is much less likelihood of being called out for that behavior. Although, YouTube videos are making the global village a lot less anonymous that it has been for a while.

Plus, with more people surrounding you, you're exposed to a far wider variety of behaviors than before, and thus, are more likely to encounter bad behaviors, which will stick in your mind far more firmly than all of the well-behaved people that surround you all the time; you never notice those kids unless you directly interact with them because they never do anything to ping your awareness.

^-.-^

[jackfaire]

When you were a kid, a badly behaved kid was the exception rather than the rule. You were well behaved, and were treated accordingly. I applaud that..

I would say it's a regional thing. In my area a badly behaved kid was rewarded and a well behaved kid was treated like he was misbehaving.

Often because it was safer to treat the well behaved kid like shit.