Parents should welcome some help

WHAT was your favourite method of being chastised by mum and dad when you were wee?

Was it the classic wild-eyed threat to turn the car around if you didn’t pipe down right this moment?

Or perhaps it was the hissed promise of parental retribution issued if you were misbehaving in polite company?

My personal choice is certainly a clip round the back of the head for looking just a wee bit too suspicious. An all-time classic.

The correct answer of course is there was no enjoyable way to be disciplined as a child.

None of us liked it, unless you were that strange boy in class who enjoyed torturing ants just a little too much.

I distinctly recall the burning embarrassment of my pal’s mum shouting at me after eight-year-old me threw a wobbly over losing a game of Nintendo Super Soccer.

Just who did this woman think she was, I distinctly recall wondering during the subsequent snottery boy-rage.

My mum and dad would be furious, I imagined, that someone had stepped onto their turf.

It turned out my parents were happy to operate an open-discipline policy.

And they were indeed furious – with me.

It wasn’t just my parents I upset by being an entitled wee nyaff, I was told, but someone else.

There was a community of friends and neighbours I could annoy with my childish ways. I didn’t like it at the time but now I can appreciate a bit of well-intentioned discipline.

So why is it controversial for a café owner to make it clear she’s going to step in and tell your children their tantrum isn’t on?

It’s probably because there’s a bit of parental pride being hurt.

Just how would it look if you can’t control your children but someone else can?

Wouldn’t that be extremely embarrassing?

Would people question your parenting skills? What will the village elders say? To which I reply: stop being so bleeding precious.

Cafés are for a natter over a bacon roll, not a high-stakes Pokemon hunt by a gang of marauding urchins.

I’m all for children in coffee shops and restaurants, and I don’t even mind them making a bit of noise – as long as mum or dad explains it’s not appropriate to start screaming like an escaped rhesus monkey. So if another adult steps in to tell your child to settle down, perhaps you could put aside your pride and graciously thank them.

Not only have they helped out, it’s also a lesson learned for your errant bairn AND you. And surely we’re old enough now to appreciate a bit of well-inten

tioned discipline?