Pants-Free Parenting: Reward kids for good manners, remember they are still learning

I made the mistake of taking my children out to eat after dance class. I thought it would be easier than rushing home and getting something in the oven than listening to them whine about how hungry they are for 30 minutes before inevitably refusing to eat. At least this way, we could all have French fries.

At the restaurant, while waiting for her food, my daughter bit into a packet of ranch sauce and spit it out all over the table. My son decided that he 'want to run away, OK?” and proceeded to toddle around the restaurant at full speed. When we finally trapped him in the booth, he ran back in forth between my husband and the wall waving a French fry like it was the flag to his little country, where the motto is 'Make your mom crazy.”

'Fwench fwies!” He yelled never eating a single one. 'Fwench fwies!”

Both kids begged for ice cream. Then, both children refused to eat said ice cream. My husband and I scarfed it down on our way out the door.

'That was fun,” my husband said.

'At least there are no dishes,” I told him. 'But we probably can't come back here again.”

Taking children out to eat is like Russian roulette with your sanity. Things could go well. Your children can eat and you can eat. And then you go home, put them to bed and there is nothing to clean up. Or, what is more likely, is you can spend 10 minutes making sure you order them what they want, only to have it arrive and have them reject it as 'too yucky.” And then, they spend the next 20 minutes crawling under the table, hitting their heads on the table, crying, then doing it all over again.

When my daughter was younger, I would hand her the iPhone and let her zone out while I finished my meal in peace. A few broken iPhones and a little brother later, I now just carry pens and paper in my purse and hope that's enough. It rarely ever is.

While I was in the bathroom with my daughter a woman stepped out of the stall and smiled at me. She had been sitting a few tables over from us and had witnessed the entire sound and fury of our dinner experience. 'You should have probably just put them to bed,” she said and then walked out without washing her hands.

News stories are flush with tales of horrible parents and their monstrous offspring being kicked out of restaurants for ghastly behavior. The comments of those stories are always rife with parents saying, 'Well, I would control my children. Parents these days don't know how to set limits!” Or 'Stay home!” I sympathize to some extent. He who has not been subject to the whims of an indulged toddler tyrant can cast the first stone. And yet, few are the stories of adults and their behavior. The diners who don't tip. The ones who scoot their chairs into yours. Once I saw a woman accidentally drop a plate and then kick the shards under the bench where she was sitting so no one would see. I saw you, lady at the Cheesecake Factory, and I will never forget!

In our cultural indictment of children, who can't behave in public, we so frequently forget that in this great, big world of ours, children are just learning. Adults, on the other hand, know better.

A few weeks ago, my daughter was on a playdate with her friends that included a trip to Target. While she waited in the cart with her friends for their mom to get coffee, a woman approached them and complimented them on how well behaved they were. My friend later reported that the kids weren't actually being that good. But the woman was kind to them anyway, she chatted with them while my friend got coffee then, she then gave them each a dollar saying, 'I think it's good to tell children when they are being good, not when they are being bad.”

I love that woman, whoever she is. I love her for her kindness to my children and the children of my friend. I love her for making this big, crazy world just a little more friendly. I hope she is the one I meet the next time I become brave and take my kids out to eat.

' Lyz Lenz is a writer, mother of two and hater of pants. Email her at eclenz@gmail.com or find her writing at LyzLenz.com.