mtsgsd

The restaurant thread nearly got me started on all the bad parenting I've seen. I thought I'd start a thread on horror stories instead

The retaurant examples I have would take all day, but what's the worst example you've seen of child behaviour because of lax parenting? A couple of mine date from way back when I was a dept. manager in a home center;

I'm talking to a female customer at the end of an aisle, while her child methodicaly rips the carded packages off of the pegs. When he finishes a peg he moves to the next one. After a full row of this, I finally paused and asked her if she could make him stop destroying the packages and the display. She glared at me and declared he was doing nothing wrong and she certainly wasn't about to pay for any of it (I didn't ask her to).

I find a very small child (6 or 7?) walking down an aisle swinging a hatchet back and forth thru the air with both hands! They were pegged way out of reach, so someone must have left one lying where he could get it. It was fun getting it away from him let me tell you. We had to page the kid's parents to the front of the store. They didn't even realize he had wandered off, and weren't concerned about the hatchet.

Daval

My daughter is generally well behaved but once about a year ago totally snapped when we were at a mall. She just went psycho and had a full blown tantrum when we wouldnt buy her a barbie. She was screaming, yelling, kicking and trying to hit. She's never done this before so it kind of freaked us out. You could tell that she just couldn't stop because of the level she had worked herself up to.

What I did was grab her and hold her to my chest rather tightly - not hurting her, but keeping her to me tightly in a hug. She gradually calmed down (took like 10 or 15 minutes) and we had a talk. She claimed she doesnt know why she got so upset and was a bit freaked herself.

She only did that like 3 times in a 4 month period. thankfully the other two times were at home. I think it was just a 'stage' she had to get through because she's been fine ever since and we've not changed anything in how we raise her.

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spanky spangler

Heh, heh...when i was about 11, i set fire to a body shop and garage in North London ,and...err, is that what you wanted?

cchris

Daval

I too had a similar experience when my boy was younger and yes they do go through "stages".
Thankfully he didn't want a "Barbie" at the time though.

Seriously,sitting down for a "talk" does wonders.

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denim

Two anecdotes:

I went to a Friendly's (ice cream and burgers restaurant, only slightly better than fast food) and was having a meal.

A few booths away was a mother and two boys. The younger one misbehaved enough to be told that he's forfeited his desert. Fine so far.

Unfortunately, both the older boy and the mother got desert. I saw what happened before it actually occurred: the younger boy had the mother's sundae in about the time you'd expect. I was tempted to say something to her, but not being a parent myself, felt it wouldn't be appropriate. This was several years ago. I can only hope she learned at some point.

OTOH, this past Passover, I bought a ticket to the second Sedar night at my synogogue. The form had a space for special requests. I requested a seat away from all children.

I got there late. Strike one.

Across the table was a mother and boy-child, around 8 or so. Strike two.

This kid wouldn't shut up. I spoke to him. I spoke to her. Nothing. She'd go so far as to look uncomfortable, but resolved. Strike three.

Rather than make a major fuss, I walked out. If I'd been on time, I could probably have fixed the seating before it became fixed in cement.

mtsgsd

That reminds me of a "good" restaurant story. My wife and I are at a favorite family restaurant wher the owners are friends of her family. A man with a small boy (maybe 7 or 8?) that we have to assume is a grandfather are waiting for breakfast accross a narrow room from us. The kid is deliberately trying to antagonize the man by doing anything he can to get a rise out of him. He finally finds the most fun by waving a coffee cup around and pretending to throw it at 'grandpa'.

They have plate glass windows next to them and behind grandpa. All the guy says is "don't do that" in a tired voice over and over while the kid laughs at him and I do mean AT him. Then he switches to a knife, then a plate, back to the cup etc. We're talking about warning the owner that he's about to lose a window when a coffee plate comes sailing our way and lands on the floor.
Ok, that's it but just before I get up the waitress shows up with the food and the old man, noticing the glares from us tells her to package it for take out instead. We decide to let it go since they're leaving but then we had to listen to the kid crying and moaning about how he wants his food NOW.
It was hard to be mad at a guy who was clearly at his wits end, but that's the closest I think I've come to chewing out someone for their kid's behaviour.

Macheath

I actually have a bad behaviour story from my own childhood.

This I will remember for the rest of my life. My parents and I were travelling in the north of England, I was about four.

We were in the dining room of a local hotel and I had a chocolate milkshake in front of me and mud on the soles of my boots. At first I started blowing into my straw, the bubbles of milk in my shake gradually rose to a cresendo not unlike the sound of a cappucino steamer. Growing bored I then began picking at the mud on the sole of my boot, proudly displaying mud on the tip of my finger for all patrons to see. My parents became increasingly mortified.

Eventually my father took action and dragged me up the stairs in order to spank me. My hellish cries as we went up the stairs were something like "PLEASE DON'T HIT ME!!!!". Undoubtedly every single person in the establishment heard my banshee shreiking. To this day I am certain that my plaintive yells embarrased my father more than the spanking ever hurt me.

clavus

My three-year old managed to get some quality time with a marker at a friend's house. My wife was in charge at the time (thank God it wasn't me) and her attentios were elsewhere.

That evening, I asked him to tell me what he'd done. In his words - " I colored on the walls. I colored on the door. I colored on the door handle. I colored on the carpet. I colored on the bed. I colored on the blanket. I colored on Alice..."

Daaaaaaaaaaaamn. Its hard to be serious when you are laughing so hard on the inside.

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clavus

My parents and I were having lunch in a pretty nice restaurant. There was a child somewhere in the crowded room who insisted in singing the same three notes in his little high-pitched voice, LA! LA! LA!"

This went on for about ten minutes.

Then my dad busted out with his finest high-pitched falsetto imitation of the child, LA! LA! LA!" My mother was mortified. After a beat, I chimed in.

For the next few minutes, every time the kid sang, he was immediately imitated (loudly) by my dad then by me(even louder). My mom turned crimson, but the singing stopped.

My dad is the coolest guy in the world.

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denim

Sounds like your dad has a sensa uma!

Smoky

I will confess a bad behaviour moment from my childhood, but I think you'll find there is a wonderful quality to it.

We were in the waiting area of a large restaurant, and being back in the day when you could pretty much smoke in church if you wanted to, a lady near me was puffing away.

At the time I was about 5, and had just been diagnosed with athsma, and was of course very concerned about it and full of all the "do's and don'ts" the doctors had given my parents.

So in my nice childlike way, I walked up to the lady and at the top of my voice yelled

"Lady, you shouldn't smoke it's bad for you!!"

Bad behaviour, good intentions. =)

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Cynthetiq

thank god for going around in the city... i don't see many tykes around... and when I get around Long Island.. I seem to avoid the situations by going to not kid friendly restaurants at not kid around times.

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raeanna74

I work with children all the time. I've heard and seen some terrible stories. One family of 3 children that I cared for in a day care were physically abused. Social Services allowed the kids to go back home every weekend. I cannot understand why considering what the mother had put the kids through and did to them every weekend. When they came back to day care on Mon mornings they had the most behavior problems. The middle child a girl would hide in her cubby all morning. If you even spoke to her she would burst into tears. All these things were reported to social services which was in the same building as we were. The worst part of it all was that the little boy who was only 4 had no lower legs or feet. His mother had gotten angry with him and shoved him down on the ground then mowed over his legs with a mower. His thighs were covered with scars. I cannot comprehend allowing her to have those children in her custody every again. How can you put your child through that and have any love left for him in your heart. I've encountered some of the biggest idiot parents.

Another idiot was the father that I called when his son was harrassing girls in my 4th, 5th and 6th grade class. The boy had grabbed one girls chest and crawled under skirts numerous times. The principal had spoken to him and yet he continued. When I told his father about his good ol dad said it was probably the girls making the stuff up (even though I had witnessed it) and that his son would never do anything like that. He said I was overreacting and that It shouldn't be that big of a deal. Nothing like accountability here. It was so frustrating. I simply had to exclude the boy from some activities because the situation got to be so bad and no one would do anything to help me protect the girls and yet the girls parents were upset even and complaining to the school and to me. The school turned a deaf ear to the situation and left me to handle it.

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krwlz

Wow, that sucks, trust everything to school politics...It will all turn out simply horribly.