Survival Guide: Fussy Child at Restaurant

Between family and married friends, there’s a good chance you’ll end up in this situation sometime in your life. While your own children would be easy enough to deal with, it can often be awkward to discipline other people’s kids. This means a potentially ruined meal. As most upscale restaurants have entrees starting at the price of a private jet, this is unacceptable.

Of course, you have the option to simply tolerate it or walk out – collectively known as “wuss tactics.”

Those of us with a spine, however, may opt for more drastic measures. These can range anywhere from a gentle scolding to a low-degree felony. While I can’t rightly condone violence, I’m also not naïve enough to claim it doesn’t get good results.

Stage One: Make the Child and Parent Aware
Some fussy children don’t mean to misbehave. They may simply need to be made aware that their behavior is improper. It may also remind an absentee parent to put down their iced tea, grow a pair and dole out some discipline.

Stage Two: Attempt to Correct the Behavior
Entering this stage means that both the child and parent have been made aware of the problem and have no interest in correcting it. As far as I’m concerned, not dealing with a fussy child is a tacit agreement that others may step in and discipline them for you. As this argument may not hold up in court, try your best to be gentle.

Stage Three: Be a Bigger Dick than the Child
As bad behavior escalates, it will become clear that you may have to leave your zone of comfort a bit. At times, it’s best to deal with the problem head on rather than beating around the bush. Gently remind the child that – while you have no intention of harming them – you probably could. Pray the child behaves at this stage, as later stages may result in scarring – both physically and mentally.

Stage Four: Resort to Drastic Measures
By this point, it should be clear that the parent is visiting their own fantasy world and has no plans to return to deal with their offspring. In their place, you must deal with the problem yourself. Depending on how you react, it may be best to find an escape route first.

Final Stage: Vengeance
Eventually, it’s not even about stopping the bad behavior anymore. Sadly, solving the problem in this way will undoubtedly lead to jail time. But rest assured, the others on your cell block probably won’t mess with you when they hear what you did.

If you take one thing from this, it should probably be to keep an eye on your own fussy child. People paid for a nice night out, just like you. Consider this before you let your little one kick and scream for an entire meal because they don’t like the way their sandwich was cut.

Of course, if that’s not incentive enough to be a good parent, remember that if you don’t discipline your child, someone else probably will.