According to Broken News Daily, an Australian shopping mall has banned screaming children from the play area that is located within earshot of the mall's food court. This new rule was sparked by customer complaints on noise. More interesting was the long list of comments about why this is a good thing, many quick to point out that bad parenting at the core of this issue. Begging the question: Do only good parents have quiet children?
Children scream when they are happy, sad, hurt, confused, lost, when another child smacks them, or takes their turn. They cry and scream for various reasons -some of which seem largely unwarranted from the adult perspective. There are children who scream because they are spoiled brats and have not been instructed well by their parents, but there are others who are frankly too young to understand, or suffer behavioral disorders that have nothing to do with how they are parented.
For a mall to build a play area where food court patrons can hear the sounds of children playing (and yes, that is what it is), yet tell parents screaming is 'not tolerated', is a bit obtuse. No one likes to hear children scream. Parents should 'attend' to screaming children. However, a mall is either kid-friendly or it is not. They'd have better luck taking out the play area altogether...or better yet, ban children from the premises.
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