Originally Posted by
Athena53
My general rule with my son was that you don't put kids into situations where it's impossible (given their level of maturity) to behave reasonably. That's why you don't take 3-year olds to the opera, for example. We never had the opportunity to use a hotel lounge, but if he couldn't sit still I would have picked up my coffee and taken a walk around the lounge with him. And if he wouldn't stay quiet, we'd be outta there. He learned quickly, and was generally well-behaved when he had to be.
There are some people who dislike kids so much it doesn't even matter what the child is actually doing, they'll complain. Recent example: I took my son (age 11) with me to mainly adult dinner in a nice-but-not-formal restaurant. As I knew the conversation wouldn't interest him much
I had him bring a book and he read most of the meal. Two couples of Well Intoxicated Crabs at a table near us kept commenting (loudly) on how rude it was for a child to be reading at the table. Let's see, he was silent, minding his own business, staying in his seat and having absolutely no impact on their meal:
and they still found something to complain about!