Roundup: Restaurant refusal of ill-mannered children sparks off debate in Italy

"When I was a child and I went somewhere with my parents, my father used to tell me: 'Do not move or I will mess you up.' But look at children now, they are just out of control," Marco Magliozzi, owner of La Fraschetta del Pesce restaurant in Rome, told Xinhua on Thursday.

La Fraschetta del Pesce has made the Italian headlines in recent days for a sign posted in its window saying that "due to some unpleasant incidents caused by a lack of manners, children under five are not well-accepted in this restaurant."

The move aroused angry reaction of a number of parents who on social networks denounced what they called a "speechless, absurd" behavior of the restaurant's owner against children. "It is unbelievable and not even legal," one of them wrote.

Magliozzi insisted, however, that there was a precise reason, namely complete lack of good manners, behind his decision which in fact does not "ban" but just "discourages" parents from taking their kids at his restaurant. "Children shout and run slalom among the tables, causing trouble to our guests. They throw water and food on the floor. I decided to post the sign after one of them crawled under the table of a couple having dinner and upturned the ice bucket on their legs," he explained to Xinhua.

What is more, he added disconsolate, is that parents seem not to care at all. "They do not say anything and let their beloved kids do whatever they like, no matter if respect for other people is totally missing," he stressed.

"Mine is a small restaurant where people go to eat fish, it is not suitable for families with small children. Have you ever seen babies attending opera at Milan's la Scala or such theaters? In fact not, because they would disturb the public. So what is strange in my choice?" Magliozzi pointed out.

Barbara Casillo, director of the Italian association Confindustria Hotels, explained to Xinhua that banning someone from entering restaurants and similar business establishments is not legal in Italy.

"Someone may be not allowed to enter only for reasons of public security, which is not about this case," she said.

"Yet, specialization can be a right way to attract or discourage a particular target of guests, which in fact is becoming a trend as well as an added value both for businesses and consumers," Casillo elaborated.

And there are also public places that have decided to be designed exclusively for families, which happens for example with Cavallino Bianco, a hotel in northern Italy which only hosts families with children. In this way, parents do not feel embarrassed if their children throw a tantrum at the table, and no one looks at them badly.

Yet, the position taken by the Rome's restaurant has highlighted an issue which has become more and more heated in Italy, that of impolite children.

"It is never a child under five who has a problem, but his parents," underlined Marcello Bruognolo, a psychotherapist based in Milan. "Any questionable behavior of children is due to an unconscious problem - for example a repressed aggression - of one of his parents that is transmitted to him because he is not independent. Educating children is difficult when adults are

not balanced from a psychological point of view," Bruognolo explained to Xinhua.

In addition, a five-year-old child is not able to understand the value of food thus he naturally rebels against the strict rules imposed by restaurants, especially classy ones. Taking a small child to a restaurant is an unnecessary choice made by his parents, who therefore have to be responsible for his behavior. It cannot fall on the restaurateur," the psychotherapist stressed.

Bruognolo told Xinhua that he agrees on the choice of the Rome's restaurant. Many parents in Western countries, he said, bypass education as secondary behind freedom, whereas it should be clear that good manners help children become balanced adults besides being very good for society.

In his view, in general parents should not take their children to places which are not suitable for them and should opt instead for spaces where kids can behave more freely. Also, kids should be taught what the necessary rules and good manners in certain places are.

But what would be most useful, Bruognolo added, is a "school for parents" because no child can be polite if his or her parents do not know what education means, a true lack in today's society. Endit