Teach Your Kids Movie Theater Etiquette

Listen, I am all for children enjoying a cinematic experience, but recently I’ve noticed more and more children who don’t seem to have movie theater etiquette. While it’s easy to be mad at the children, instead, I want to highlight the parents who are really grinding my gears. 

Recently, The Drive Home attended a rated R scary movie flick. A mother brought her two children. I really don’t even care about the age appropriateness of it all as long you sit down, shut up and watch the movie. The children were obnoxious, running around the theater at different times during the movie and even spilling an entire bucket of popcorn (that they didn’t even attempt to clean up). To be clear, I’m not throwing this tantrum about an occasional whisper or audible noise from a child. These things happen, they’re kids. I’m talking about blatant disrespect throughout the entire movie. 

We don’t have any children (besides our fur babies), but it doesn’t take a parent of the year to set some boundaries around public spaces. Frankly, there are many options if your child cannot see a movie without disturbing other patrons. Let me spell this out for you since some people clearly don’t get it. You could stay home, wait for the movie to come to streaming, or teach your child what is appropriate in a movie theater. If I can teach a resistant 4th grader to read, you can teach your children to shut up for 90 minutes. If you can’t do that, then this space may not be for you. 

I wish that movie theaters occasionally had an employee checking in on the theaters and to enforce movie theater expectations (no talking, no texting, no posting, etc.) We’re paying a pretty penny to see movies nowadays, so you better not ruin my experience. Remember, you chose to have that child in the first place. Choices come with consequences and if you cannot teach your child to be respectful to others, then you shouldn’t be allowed in the theater.