It's the meltdown moment all parents dread, when a young child has a tantrum in a public place and refuses to calm down.

Do you ignore them and hope they will run out of steam – to the annoyance of people nearby? Or grab their hand and march them away while muttering apologies to bystanders?

Now a frustrated seaside cafe owner has triggered a heated debate on the subject after posting a warning to customers who fail to ‘discipline’ screaming children.

The Facebook page where Suffolk cafe owner Kim Christofi. The page has since been taken down

Kim Christofi was accused of ‘hideous insensitivity’, discrimination and even cruelty when she warned parents too ‘scared’ to act that she would intervene for the sake of other visitors who want to enjoy a quiet cup of tea and a slice of cake.

Writing on her business’s Facebook page after gently admonishing a child at her kiosk in Felixstowe, Suffolk, she said: ‘Can we make ourselves perfectly clear to all parents who are too scared to discipline their children about tantrum screaming?

‘We will give you five lenient minutes to ask the child to stop screaming and then we will ask the child ourselves.

‘If that means you too having a tantrum about our having to speak to your child and hurling threats about not returning – that’s really okay with us. We have a duty of care to the rest of our customers.’

Within hours, more than 1,000 people had shared the post or added their own comments – many criticising Mrs Christofi.

C Rachael Twoms wrote: ‘Why don’t you take a lenient five minutes to have a word with yourself for being hideously insensitive and condescending?’

And Sally Grant said: ‘Thank you for your kind and understanding post. I’ ll make sure my family (including our autistic daughter) never darken your doorway.’

The Facebook page – which normally features photos of mouth-watering cakes, sausage rolls and other home-made food, or shots of smiling customers braving the elements – had been taken down yesterday to end the onslaught.

A seafront kiosk in Suffolk has attracted controversey after telling parents to control their children

But the debate continued elsewhere on the internet – with many supporting Mrs Christofi.

Boyce wrote in one forum: ‘I fully support the owners of this kiosk and long may they continue.’

Jamesb said: ‘I applaud the decision. Too many parents these days seem too scared to tell their children to behave and have no respect for the people around them.’

And Carolina added: ‘This woman was accused of discrimination, assault, cruelty, all sorts, just because she’d had a quiet word with a child asking her to quieten down.

‘Several people threatened her with physical violence if she ever dared speak to their children – mostly using foul language.

‘There was then a “lynch mob” decision to try to bring her business down, encouraging people to leave one-star reviews on her page, which many did.

‘Lots of these reviews were from people who had never even been to Felixstowe, let alone to this café – hardly fair!’

The modest kiosk in Martello Park, a leisure and recreation area, is rated 16th out of 68 restaurants in Felixstowe on Tripadvisor, with customers marvelling over the food, friendly service and blankets and hot water bottles made available on cold days.

The debate was triggered on Sunday after Mrs Cristofi shared her experience online.

Speaking yesterday, she insisted the business was ‘child friendly’, with ‘toy boxes, free jugs of Ribena, free ice cream and sun factor cream freely available’.

But she insisted she had to act when a child became ‘very upset, threw a tantrum and it went on for some time’.

She added: ‘In this situation we initially do not get involved because we anticipate that the parents will step in.

‘Unfortunately, the parents did not and that led me to go and have a quiet word with the child, gently and sensitively.

‘To completely ignore this hysterical screaming would have been quite frankly unkind and uncaring to the child.’

She added: ‘The situations I am describing are not children having a bad day. We are talking about children smashing up the toy box, throwing things around and, in this situation, we expect parents to step in.

‘We have a duty to all our customers and we are in a public place.’

Child psychologist Professor Judy Hutchings, director of the Centre for Evidence Based Early Intervention at Bangor University, last night sympathised with Mrs Christofi – but advised it was usually best to approach parents first.

‘The key thing would be for an adult to speak to the parents and ask if they can help or ask them to move away,’ she said.

‘If you address the child then that is over-riding parental responsibility.’

Have you had a bad experience with noisy children while out and about? Let us know what happened at femailreaders@dailymail.co.uk



