Have you ever had to deal with parents that won't take their misbehaving child out of the theater?

I worked at a movie theater for three years and I have dealt with this many many many times.

Here is how to deal with this. Find a manager and inform them. Ask them to wait a few minutes to confront the offenders after you return to your seat. This way the annoyance doesn’t know you are the narc. This is common and every employee has dealt with booting loud children.

Normally I would give a refund and a pass to another showing. And if they wanted I would offer to let them go into a movie that wasn’t so disruptive for children.

But please don’t take this shit into your own hands. I have been punched multiple times getting between customers fighting and trying to diffuse the situation.

It is sort of like being worried about showing the doctor the rash on your junk… They have seen worse.

edit:: And I was punched by a 60 year old lady who was watching The English Patient. I was cleaning up the buckets of popcorn while the credits were rolling. That was the job description. She pushed me into a wall and then hit me. And then she had the balls to to complain about me to the manager.

My manager was all, “That sounds like assault. I’m going to call the police.” She left quickly.

^ wow @JP. seriously, people are insane at times. My keyboard is fucked. sorry. Capital s and a seem to be an optional extra now.

@rockfan, good for you doing something about such disruption. I agree with @JP, that a quiet word to the manager would be a better and safer option than challenging them directly.

I went to a restaurant for lunch the other day. It was in a house with timber balconies and we were sitting near the window eating our lunch. It was a nice place. Three kids were running around the restaurant and along the balcony screaming and shouting. I got up in the end and told them to stop running and shouting. I’d had enough. No idea where the parents were, but if I’d seen them, I’d have told them to control their kids too. Rude, inconsiderate tossers.

I’ve never had to deal with this in a movie theater but it’s a timely question for me because I am on vacation and the other night I was in the pool with my ten year old daughter. We were floating around and hanging out (she’s very calm). There were kids throwing balls (more like slamming balls) at each other and other kids were pushing water at each other. We just stayed away from them. These were older kids like 12–14. At one point, one boy started pushing large waves of water into his friend’s face and we were right behind the friend. I started yelling “Excuse us, Excuse us, please don’t do that here!” My daughter was shocked, I think, because I yelled at the boys but I wasn’t in the modd to have massive amounts of water thrown onto my head. I was considering asking something similar to the OP. I was considering something like “would you ever yell at another child if they were throwing things in a pool or on the playground?”

This is exactly why I only go to the theatre at 10am on Tuesdays.

Most memorable incident was actually at a high school band performance. There was someone in the audience with a crying child who just. wouldn’t. leave. People in the audience kept asking her to take the child outside, and at one point the band director even whipped around and shot the hairy eyeball in her general direction. It was so weird and rude. In that situation there wasn’t really any authority figure we could get to handle it.

You did the right thing.

Excellent answer, @johnpowell.

The hubster and I were once having dinner at a very pricey, exclusive restaurant. The couple at the next table talked nonstop, discussing some personal matters in very loud voices. We couldn’t ignore these people; they spoke so loudly, Paul and I were unable to have a conversation in normal tones.

Paul handled things tactfully; he found the maître d’ and explained the situation privately. What did she do? She approached the couple’s table, pointed to Paul, and said that they’d been disturbing “this gentleman.” When we finally left, the crass woman screamed “Thanks for leaving!” at us.

Yes, we got a profuse apology from the manager and a free meal. But, could the maître d’ been any more of a hack? She handled that situation in the worst manner possible.

Well, I haven’t been to a theater for years, but I see parents who ignore their children’s bad behavior in public, or worse, encourage it.
People are so damn inconsiderate and clueless any more.

The theater I like to go to is in a small town in Connecticut and the crowd is generally more mature. There are never kids in this theater. There’s another, huge theater not far from there that has a huge snack bar, arcade and crowds of people all ages. I try to avoid that one unless I want to see something that’s only playing there. Usually the movies I see are not rated for little kids. Once in a while we’ll see a hit kids’ movie like Jungle Book. I’ve found the people in this area are pretty considerate. I’m thankful I’ve never encountered any lunatics yet.

In Kansas City they have a bar / restaurant / gambling place / arcade place. I, personally, wouldn’t take my kids in there, but a great many people do.

Not really. It’s never a good idea to confront people, just get the manager right away and let them deal with it. This is why I wait for the dvd.