Screaming Children Banned From Restaurants

Branda Armes, owner of the Olde Salty restaurant in Carolina Beach, N.C. has posted a notice “Screaming Children Will NOT Be Tolerated”.  Currently there is a growing intolerance for cranky, crying, noisy children in restaurants and in airplanes.  The unanswered question is how to make a difference.  Are more rules or laws the answer to parenting challenges?

If you are a parent, one of the questions that can drive you absolutely nuts is this:  How do I figure out what to do when my child has a meltdown in public?

It’s even more discouraging when the answers everyone gives you only complicates things even more.

Parents in crisis

I believe that Americans are struggling in today’s economy to find their footing.  The stressors are many and resiliency is compromised.  Parents are looking for immediate solutions with their children more than ever because they are already feeling compromised by work pressure, family pressures, financial pressures and relationship pressures.  So children become easy targets for parents to vent their frustrations.  After all, something has got to go right and shouldn’t we be able to at least control our children?

Of course the net result is that if we vent our frustrations on our children is that we make things worse because our children are a reflection of us.  If we disconnect, become agitated, fail to listen and overreact, we will promote the very behaviors we don’t want from our children.

When asked “and where would you prefer to be seated today: screaming baby or non-screaming baby” we are asking the wrong question.

We need to find our resiliency so we can help expand our children’s resiliency.

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Resiliency Tool Chest

• Make sense of the situation
• Acknowledge whatever feelings you experience
• Use the A…OR Plan

Adapt:

On planes, adapting may seem difficult but we have headphones, iPods and music and even eye masks to screen out the source of irritation.

Overcome:

Overcoming the irritation, might involve reaching out beyond us to lend a hand to a struggling parent. Emotions are contagious so if a parent becomes more tense and fearful of the response of other parents, their child will feel the parent’s distress.   Children interpret a parent’s distress  as  a crisis because mom or dad are so upset.

Remove:

Yes, in restaurants parents can remove their child for the short term as can the irritated adult at another table take a few minutes break.  There is no way to totally remove a child in an airplane but there are many things to distract a child.

Distraction:

Fast food restaurants have wisely prepared for children by providing a play structure, either to burn off some energy before the meal while waiting or more often as a highly desired reward after the meal. The success of this approach is a good reminder to parents to be prepared with activities that can be done in a chair that are highly desired and great distractions.

Distraction is a marvelous tool for helping children cope with agonizing waiting periods.  Just think what would happen with all the adult frustration if they became sources of positive distraction.  Remember the silence when children watch a magic show when the magician has some object that is here now and one minute later can’t be found.

We have amazing tools that we can use to handle frustration if we are mindful that there are solutions to our frustrations.

What to do

So take a deep breath.  I really want you to get this:  Working harder to exert control does not prevent children from having meltdowns.  Simply follow the plan outlined above, and you will be on your way, easily taking your first steps to cope with adversity in a more rewarding manner.  It is not in the laws or rules we make, but rather in understanding and connecting with our children, most of whom in the moment of meltdown are feeling overwhelmed and need guidance to make it through the situation at hand.

Here is what  parents are saying:

Tara Kennedy-Kline owner of Tara’s Toy Box says we are asking the wrong questions:

“I would like to know when the restaurants, airplanes and heck ANY public place for that matter are going to start banning the obnoxious parents who scream and yell at their children incessantly thereby making my outing infuriating and unpleasant.

I am so tired of the contradictions of the general public: “make the children be quiet…but don’t discipline them or we’ll publicly humiliate you and take them away”… “shut them up, but make sure you do it in a way that makes me feel ok with it”. “Don’t yell at your child…but it’s okay for me to open my big mouth and tell you what I think of your kid”…”do something to calm your infant…but it better not include breastfeeding them because that makes me uncomfortable!”

PUHLEASE people! The problem lies in the overwhelming number of control freaks who believe they are the only ones who know how to do it “right” regardless of whether they have children or not.

It’s time to start acknowledging that intolerance is the thing that should not be tolerated. Why not offer a hand instead of a glare and a smart alec remark? Perhaps you, the screaming baby and the likely completely embarrassed parents will have a more pleasant trip. ”

renee walker • Early Childhood Educator shares from her personal experiences.   “… parents need to stay aware of the impact their parenting, or lack thereof, can have in social situations.  I swear my first child was the absolute worst in the whole world.  He cried to shatter glass..I am not exaggerating….we lost friends during that time. They just couldn’t handle being around us with this baby that screamed all the time. I don’t blame them at all either.

Heck, I didn’t even want to be around us. When he was a baby…going out anywhere was simply not an option.  I remember once being in the grocery store with a cart full of groceries and he decided to wig out. I put his little kicking screaming body up over my shoulder, hung onto one foot and tried to keep shopping.  But it got to be too much so I just left the cart there..hauled him out to the car and started crying too.

I know now looking back that he had suffered a very traumatic birth and that his head got pretty mangled. I think he was in extreme pain.  As he got older he constantly had headaches and bloody noses. Then suddenly the headaches and bloody noses stopped.  And along with that so did his contrary behaviour.

He is now 23 and an absolutely lovelie, kind and gentle man.  Point is…one never knows what is really going on with a parent and screaming child.  No, I don’t think it should be someone else’s problem but I also have a lot of compassion for those parents.  Kudos to the parents who are able to hold it together and take positive action when their baby is screaming.”