Everyone who has been a parent knows how difficult it is to keep a toddler still in a restaurant or other public area with a large crowd. However, this is never a reason for allowing the child to misbehave and bother the other guests or customers. One father told an advice columnist about his mischievous child and the waiter who tried to ‘correct’ him. Clearly, this father believed that allowing his youngster to ‘explore’ the restaurant was not a big concern and chastised the poor waitress’ approach toward the naughty boy.

He was seeking for sympathy, but instead received ‘an award’ for lousy parenting. This is how he began his letter: “Last week, my wife and I went out to supper with our 4-year-old kid. It was a medium-nice restaurant, not fast food, but also not overly fancy.” I’m not sure, but I got the feeling from this dad’s description of the area that if the restaurant isn’t too nice or pricey, his son can run around freely and do anything he wants.

“Because it’s difficult for my son to sit through an entire dinner, we let him explore the restaurant a little.” We ordered him to stop running after I observed our waitress giving him the hairy eyeball.”Considering the youngster was running around the tables where people were eating, urging him to stop was the least they could do. Furthermore, children must learn proper etiquette in public places; otherwise, parents will find themselves in the position of other people reprimanding their children.

“He was pretty good about it after that, but he did get underfoot when she was carrying a tray, and she spoke to him fairly sharply to go back to our table and sit down.”From this father’s perspective, we can’t tell how unpleasant the waitress was, but we know she wasn’t happy with a four-year-old getting under her feet while she was attempting to do her job and serve people.

But who knows? Perhaps she was being overly harsh and exaggerating. “I felt it was completely uncalled for, and she should have come and spoken to us personally instead of disciplining someone else’s child,” the father went on to say. After becoming enraged with the server for telling the child to sit still so that everyone may eat in peace and quiet, the father stated that he went so far as to speak with the restaurant’s manager.

“I left a 5% tip and spoke briefly with her manager, who gave noncommittal responses.” My wife agrees with me, but when we wrote about it on Facebook, we received a lot of negative feedback.” We got to hear the advice columnist’s response once we finished reading the entire narrative. So she articulated what we all think about the situation. “Yes, it’s your fault.

It is entirely your fault. Of course, it’s difficult for a 4-year-old to sit still, which is why most people stick to fast-food restaurants while practicing their restaurant manners. It’s why one parent frequently responds to a fidgety kid who wants to “explore” by taking him outside the restaurant, where he can get his wiggles out without walking laps around servers balancing trays of (sometimes really hot) food and drink.”Nicole Cliff, the columnist, went on to say:

“There is no such thing as a child ‘exploring’ a restaurant. You didn’t intervene to get him back into his seat. It was only to tell him to’stop running.’ Because you were not parenting, a server did it for you. She was correct. You were mistaken.” We are not perfect parents, but most of us do our best to govern our children’s conduct, even if it takes a lot of extra effort.

“Your son will not be able to eat at a’medium-nice’ restaurant again until he can behave a little better.” You can practice at your leisure. You can get some practice in at McDonald’s. You can try a genuine restaurant again, but keep in mind that one of you may need to remove him out if he has the urge to run an obstacle course.” Cliff despised the tip and the manager’s involvement in the incident, so she said:

“I doubt you’ll do it, but I urge you to go back to the restaurant, apologize to the manager for complaining about your server, and leave her a proper tip.” What are your thoughts on this father’s story? Do you sympathize with him, or do you believe he failed as a parent and should reassess his methods of teaching his son right from wrong? Please share your ideas in the comments area below.