Is Your Children's Behavior In Public A Reflection On You?

My Two girls, minus their brother.

What I mean is, when you go out in public and your children act up and act like little hoodlems, does it make you look like a bad parent?

I don't feel that it does. At home, I try to run a tight ship as much as possible. I let them have freedom at home, but within the rules and expectations that we have set in place for them and that we remind them about them when needed. Even when we are in public, I expect my children to act and behave appropriately. But I guess I'm not doing that great of a job, because my kids feel that it's perfectly ok to jump around in a booth, sit on the table and make tons of noise while waiting to order our food. Granted, it took us a half hour of this going on and on and me standing in line at our local Wendy's to order food. I finally got pissed off and left. I got in the car, went to the drive thru and got our food in three minutes. Yep! This Wendy's was catering to ALL of the people in the drive thru, and I mean, all of them. No one got their food who had placed their orders at the register until a half hour after doing so. Guess you can't call them a fast food restaurant anymore! I won't be going back to that Wendy's to sit inside anymore, ever again! It's not worth the hassle and stress that it brought me and my two girls that day.

I can't take all three kids grocery shopping either. They open and close ALL of the doors in the freezer sections. They walk in front of other people, run up and down the isles and more. I get stressed out by the time we are half way through the store. Sometimes so much, that I let them pick out a $5.00 or less toy, candy or container of cookies and let them carry it through the store with the promise to buy it for them if they behave. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. I have gotten to the register and had three crying and upset children because they didn't behave, so I took their goodies away! Oh well, not my problem. They should have behaved and not acted up in public! This is the way I feel! They should listen, stay near me and behave. But of course, this is a place in which they seem to get bored while I grab groceries, even if I try to play I Spy with them or have them help me grab things on our list.

So, what do you think? When you see children acting out in a restaurant or grocery store, what do you think about the parent(s)? I am usually always alone out some place in public with my kids. I even had someone tell me that they thought I was a single mom!