UBC January 2025 - Toddlers in Restaurants

Welcome back to another UBC post.

I don't know whether you can view this video, so I'll summarize it for you:

It's a Mom who explains the rules in a friendly and patient way before they have dinner at a restaurant. 

"Are we allowed to scream?" She asks.

A cute 3 to 4 year old girl replies "no."

"What can we do?" Mommy wants to know.

"Be happy" the girl suggests.

"Are we allowed to run at the restaurant?" She proceeds.

"No" the girl shakes her head.

"Are we gonna sit in our chair?"

"Yeah."

"What games can we play at the restaurant? Can we color?"

"Yeah."

"Can we play with our pony?" (I'm gonna assume it's a small toy pony ;-)))

"Yeah."

"Can we eat food?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we run around at the restaurant?"

"Yeah"

"No, no running"

"Just be happy?"

I thought it was adorable, and I had great confidence that the girl was gonna be happily sitting in her chair, playing with her pony and eating her food at the restaurant. 

Scrolling through the comments I honestly expected a lot of aawwws and heart emojis, and there were a lot, and I also liked the one that said "well, let me try the food first, and then I'll decide if I am happy or not", but there was also a critical opinion:

She will grow into an adult who cannot express her feelings, who doesn’t trust herself because every time she feels something, she believes it’s not okay to feel that way. This can lead to significant frustrations, difficulty in forming relationships, and introversion. Children need to be allowed to express their feelings and be guided in managing them and their reactions, rather than being taught to repress them.

I have known about this video for a long time, and it really should not be online—it gives mothers a harmful example of how to set rules with children. A healthier approach might be: If you feel the need to run in the restaurant, I can take you for a quick walk around it, but only once. After that, we need to stay seated. Or, If something bothers you or makes you sad, I would appreciate it if you tell me calmly, and I will help you.

Whoa! Even though I got her point, I felt inclined to answer:

All the parents should have this little briefing before taking young kids to the restaurant.

 

There's a difference between expressing your feelings and running havoc at the restaurant. It's up to the parents to assess whether their children are able to sit quietly at the table for long enough. If they can't - get a babysitter.

What I didn't say because I didn't feel this person was open to deviate from her opinion:

I believe a person tends to be born an introvert or extrovert. Just because you're being told not to scream at the restaurant doesn't make you an introvert (and even if it did, it wouldn't be a bad thing! Introverts are nice people!), nor  does it prevent you from having healthy relationships. 

Also: I would applaud every parent who actually gets off their butt and takes their toddler for a walk around the restaurant. Honestly I am still waiting to witness it just once. What's more, don't you think you're restricting your child's urge to move if you're only prepared to walk around the house “once”? And then you expect them to sit quietly at the table for the rest of the evening? 

This is what I observed not too long ago:

Like so many times, I was at Freiruum during Colin's hockey practice. Freiruum is a former electronics manufacturing plant turned into a multi-purpose facility that offers indoor sports, food stalls, a huge seating area, wifi, anything a hockey mom may need! 

The audience is very diverse: business people come here for a drink after work, girlfriends meet to enjoy dinner and some gossip, large-ish groups celebrate somebody's birthday, you get the picture. 

Of course it attracts families with young children, too. Some of the kiddos are well-behaved, while others fall into the category of free-range creatures. 

A few tables away from me there were four grown-ups and one little girl, I estimated her to be three years old. 

At first I thought she belonged in the group of children who know how to behave in a public place. Until voices were raised. It was about dessert. I didn't understand every word, but obviously she had barely touched her dinner, and the parents were trying to make it clear to the girl that she wouldn't get ice cream until she finished her food. 

So far so good. 

This may have been a recurring situation, and the little girl knew exactly what to do to get her way: Scream! Scream, lash out, scream more, scream louder, don't stop screaming and screeching! 

It worked, Dad quickly jumped up and got her a huge bowl of ice cream. This shut her up for a while, but of course it was way too much ice cream, and Instead of eating it, she started smearing it in her hair and on her clothes. 

The adults didn't “notice” or they deliberately ignored her. 

I mean, they may have had a long and hard day and deserved a fun night out with their friends. 

Just, it was past 9pm, and it was probably bedtime for the girl. Speaking of, now it looked like they were getting ready to leave. Mom got a huge pile of napkins and tried to clean her child up a bit. The girl fought back loudly. She didn't want to be washed and she didn't want to put on her shoes and jacket. 

"Come on, we're leaving" the adults said to her. 

Did I mention that the girl was in a high chair? She seemed too old or too big for it, but the alternative was probably that she ran away and the parents had to keep fetching her back. Of course, you see this every day here too. Often the toddlers run around in socks and there are individual French fries and other leftovers on the floor. Yuck.

So the girl refused to leave her high chair, and it was impossible to lift her out of her chair. 

Now there are food stalls here with all kinds of international specialties. My favorites are poke bowls and tacos, but there is also pizza, burgers, tapas, Greek and Thai cuisine, you name it. 

The one thing you can't get, however, is popcorn. And I needed some because this was getting interesting. 

How on earth did these adults want to get the sugar-hyped, wiped out and cranky girl out now?

They tried pleading, they tried threatening, you know what they ended up doing? They dragged the screaming girl in her high chair towards the exit. 

All the while, I was sitting there, looking into my notebook, trying to keep a straight face because I didn't want them to realize that I was watching them. But who are you kidding, all the people at the next tables couldn't help but look between embarrassed and obviously amused. 

Now I was torn between feeling smug and grateful for the fact that Colin never made a scene like this. Was I just lucky, or did I do something differently? Better?

This is an actual picture of 3-year-old Colin joining us for an extended family lunch.

He's happily sitting on a regular chair, enjoying coloring, "reading" and playing with toy cars. 

We had been practicing restaurant visits early on. The first time we didn't stay long, just in case he got bored or tired. Instead he loved it. He interacted with the staff. He had fun to watch the pizzaiolo throw dough into the air. He played with his toys. He enjoyed his food. When it was time to leave, he left. 

Back to to ice cream girl. When I was ready to leave about 15 minutes later, I ran into them in the parking lot. She walked by her father's hand, still crying loudly. She had probably forgotten why she was so upset, but she couldn't calm down. I felt sorry for her. As is so often the case when children and dogs “misbehave”, it's not really their fault. It's the parents and owners who have failed to set boundaries for their charges.

This girl is 3 years old today and has learned she needs to make a scene to get what she wants. She will continue to do this as a 4 year old and 5 year old. Let's not talk about how she's going to be a teenager and have her parents wrapped around her finger.

Thoughts?