Well, fuck you too, mat.
The idea is simple. At home parents might punish their child for bad behavior by putting them on the Naughty Step. It's basically just a designated place for a timeout so the kid knows he or she is in trouble and can calm down. The Naughty Mat is a way of making that threat portable. You go somewhere, your child starts acting up, you unroll the Naughty Mat, and they have to stay on it until you say otherwise.
There are so many problems with this idea. We don't know what kind of giant, cavernous cafeterias the creators of this tip are used to eating in, but most restaurants tend to use up all their space. If you aren't close enough to hear the woman next to you asking for a divorce, that place is losing money.
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You can do better, Ted.
To be fair, they do say you should "find a quiet corner" to put the mat down in. But what if your table isn't near a corner? Do you just strand your kid near some other patrons and hope no one will think that's weird? Sure, you have "explained clearly" to your spawn why they have to stay on the Naughty Mat, but how about explaining this bizarre behavior to the rest of the people in the restaurant. While the site says that you shouldn't "feel embarrassed" because "other people will be grateful you're not allowing bad behavior to continue in public," they don't mention how everyone will feel about having an abandoned child stand really still and stare at them for a few minutes.
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