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Pubs
What are the things that you really like to see in pubs that welcome children and what are the things that really annoy you about pubs which claim to be 'child friendly'?
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Pubs should not be a place for children anyway!
This attitude most likely explains why the British have such an appalling drink culture! Most other European countries welcome children and the whole experience of going to the pub on a Saturday / Sunday afternoon is seen as being a social activity for all the family...not as so often happens here...merely a place where one goes to get legless!!
Like : Clean environment, clean clean clean clean clean. If you are going to have crayons pencils provide a sharpener or make sure it's done, variety of colouring quiz sheets. If you want to be really family friendly a couple of decent chairs in a small area for breast feeding. I don't eat my dinner in the toilets and I don't think breast fed babies should either! I found it difficult to hold kids to hand dryers ,badly placed soap machines etc etc Hot water taps that take the skin off small childrens hands get a mixer tap for heavens sake have these people ever taken a kid to the loo? A huge cubicle with space for a couple of kids and a lock on the top as well as the middle so it cannot be opened to flash your bits as some stranger waltzes in.
Dislike : chain smoking other parents, people who let their kids run riot, people using cloths- to tickle tables -that look that they just gave a bin wagon the once over! Tables crammed too close together. Astronomical drinks prices. No healthy choices freely avaliable.The same colouring quiz year in year out! Staff who are obviously working in the wrong place!
I echo completely Libertie's post. I love to go to the Mediterranean countries where children are welcomed everywhere, families all go out together and the children are almost always well behaved. To say children should not be allowed in pubs indicates that it's OK for pubs to be undesirable places.
However, I don't think pubs should have to provide anything special entertainment wise for children. Too many concessions are made for young children. They have to learn how to behave and not always think that special things should be laid on a plate for them. I hate to see children running around being a nuisance in any public place.
sense4all's suggestions are very good
I remember when we took our kids on holiday to wales... went to a pub and we had to sit outside under a "roof sort of thing" typical british summer- wind and rain, we stayed about ten minutes and went back to our accomodation, as we left we saw two huge dogs being let in to the pub,my kids were really well behaved whenever we went out anywhere, im going back 19 yrs and i dont think things have changed that much- unless you are having a meal then they let you take kids in, i could go on and on about this.....
Patricia. That same scenario has happened to us too. Offered seating in a cold windy garden because we had a 7 year old child with us. It makes me just so angry!!!
I honestly think that the Britain is the only place where this happens. In other countries children are recognised as being people. We also seem to have some of the worse behaved children too - I wonder why?
There seems to be a culture in this country to separate kids from adults. Nursery when they are very tiny - hours separate from their parents and spending time with loads of little ones. Parents not wanting to take children shopping with them, etc, and of course pubs frowning on children or not allowing them. How on earth are children meant to learn to socialise and behave in adult company? It makes me very cross!
Rant over......
My partner and I have only been out for meals where we are sure to be ably to accomodate out son whos almost 10 months old.
Non-smoking, well ventilated area is a must
Room for pushchair or pram next to table. I hate leaving it near the door and struggling to get a young baby into a highchair.
Highchairs now he is older and we can sit him at table.
Baby changing rooms that are seperate from ladies loos are a must. My partner share the nappy changing and sometimes our son is a handful and it takes two to change him.
I get frustrated when Im told that i cant have hot water to warm bottles. I have to give the bottle to staff for them to heat (often too hot) or the bottle has to be left in jug of hot water at the bar and we have to keep running to check if its hot enough.
Im sure my requirements will change as my son gets older but for now thats what i like to see
I am with nic nic. Pubs and Children should not mix, that's why we have Harvesters, Brewers Fayres and Wacky Warehouses.
There is nothing I hate more than going to pub and having pesky, smelly children running around the place. Ban them all.
You don't get kids in Bookmakers or sex shops (I know this is law as opposed to my eye witness accounts) so why should we have to put up with them in pubs.
Libertie you are wrong. Pubs, like ours, do not exist in MOST other European countries. Our closest countries (culturally) are probably France and Germany. France has the highest proportion of alcoholics in the world and drink more per capita than us. Also kids can drink at home at any age where in the UK it is 5 yeras old (unless for medical reasons). Germany ban ALL kids from drinking establishments FULL STOP.
Please tell me wherei n Europe this Saturday/Sunday "social activity for all the family" exists. For one reason I shall avoid the country like the plague. Or is it just another excuse to have a go at Britain???
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ward-minter
Id ask you to kindly refrain from the insulting way you are talking about parents who take their children with them for a family meal out in a pub.
As i said before a child / family friendly pub is different to the kind of establishment you may be talking about or may have come across in the past.
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I take great offence at you laballing parents who chose to take their children into a pub ! How dare you, you snob! Where on earth in this part of the "unreal world" do you live Ward-Minter? Bloody Buckingham palace???? What on earth gives you the right to call people such names and WHY do you seem to have this image of a society that is so much more lowly than you! I have read this sort of thing several times from you now and quite frankly, its very insulting! I don't mind anyone having a point of view of their own, but you have to be so derrogatory about it! And don't correct me on my spellings!!!!! I have more important things to worry about!
