Reply to Why do you let your kid run around at a restaurant?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It doesn't depend on the restaurant, as a PP pointed out. I don't care if I'm stopping in for a bowl of pho, kids shouldn't be running around, pestering customers, crawling under tables, handling items on other tables, and tripping servers who are carrying scalding hot bowls of soup. [/quote]

There is a continuum.  To the extent we are talking about truly running around unsupervised then I agree, it really doesn't matter how nice the restaurant is because the danger of a kid tripping servers or running into customers is the same no matter what.

But if we are talking about a lot of the other things that have come up in this thread - such as noise and other disruptions that fall short of a safety hazard -- than it does make a difference.  My kids will be on a shorter leash depending on where we are and what time of day we are eating.  If we are at a fast casual place eating early, a moderate amount of noise and non-safety related commotion isn't really an issue in my mind.  The restaurant is usually filled with other kids and a degree of boisterous behavior is to be expected. They would still get yanked if they were making a lot of noise, a big mess, or otherwise interfering with other diners (which in my mind, in this setting doesn't include normal kid noise).

If we are at a nicer (relatively speaking, we aren't taking them to fine dining) sit-down place, particularly if it is not really early, I will be much quicker to pull them out  A little bit of noise is ok, especially as many places these days are incredibly noisy with adults and lack of sound proofing, but anything beyond that isn't appropriate.  Same thing goes for other sort of behavior, like making a mess.  (My two year old is going to make a mess, but we draw a line between whether he is trying and misses his mouth/plate v. he is intentionally making a mess.  We will let him do the former since it is the only way to learn and we normally tip more than 20% to account for extra mess, but if he is goofing off we take him outside.)
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