Behave or else! Unruly kids in public stir debate

She says she does not usually respond well to other people’s interference, “unless it is a sympathetic look.”

Parents in Port Melbourne, Australia, also were upset last year when a sign appeared on the restaurant door at the Clare Castle Hotel stating that children were welcome only if they stayed in their seats. The establishment has since changed hands and dropped the policy, which new owner Michael Farrant says makes no sense in a neighborhood filled with young families.

“I like the kids running about,” said Farrant, a father of three, including a 2-year-old. “I know what it’s like with a little one. Sometimes, there’s no controlling them.”

Separate spaces
Still other business owners are creating separate spaces for kids and families, in an attempt to accommodate as many generations as possible.

All Booked Up in Suffolk, Va., is among bookstores that have separate sections where kids can play and rest. Many ballparks have alcohol-free “family sections.” And a few restaurants have added separate dining areas for parents with children.

Zulema Suarez, a professor who studies parenting, applauds attempts to strike a balance.

“There needs to be a give and take,” said Suarez, an associate professor of social work at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y. “Children don’t need to be allowed to run wild and free, but they do need to be allowed to express themselves.”

Too often, though, our cultural emphasis on freedom and individual rights gets taken to the extreme, becoming “a kind of selfish entitlement that undermines our ability to function as a civil community,” said George Scarlett, a professor of child development at Tufts University in Boston.

“The rights of any one individual — whether he or she be a parent, child or stranger — do not negate the rights of others.”

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