About a month ago, I decided to venture to the movie theater to see the much anticipated release of this summer’s blockbuster film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, for the second time. During the middle of a glorious punch line, the child directly to my right, in an outburst of childish excitement, shouted and spilled popcorn all over my Donatello t-shirt (Donatello is the purple ninja turtle). My annoyance wasn’t that the outburst happened, mainly because my reaction was almost the exact same, my annoyance was with the fact that the parents either didn’t notice or simply didn’t care, a trend that seems to be getting all too common.

I fear that I may not be the only one who’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle experience was ruined that fateful night. How can we contain these appalling instances that are plaguing the world of movies? And yet I fear it may not just be the movies. I can recall many examples of venturing to the park one afternoon and being interrupted by the helpless yells and cries that we have come to accept as the default behavior of children. But, in reality, it’s not the kids fault for not knowing that he is extremely annoying and must be quiet, it’s the parents’.

When these outbursts are not contained we fall victim to awkwardly sitting in through a theater filled with childish cries. But that’s not all, these children not being controlled will morph into the adults that talk through movies, speak loudly interrupting your airplane nap, and will eventually end up being the ones running the world. Children are impressionable people, and its important that we give them a positive impression for them to grow and mature with. These children will eventually shape our society and in turn our world, we need to take the steps necessary to forge these children into the best people we can.

We have appointed guardians to deal with this sort of thing so it doesn’t happen. Parents need to stop allowing their children to simply run free and not be held accountable. Upon a recent google search, I found many websites that show exactly how to “control your child.” Even a few wikihow pages with guided pictures of what to do and what not to do. There are obviously resources out there for parents to learn how to handle their children in public, but it seems like some of them just don’t care. Parents shouldn’t need a guide that tells them that reining the kids in during public events is proper. It should be almost common knowledge, something we give to parents along with the book entitled “Parenting.” It’s a basic idea that you should just control the children so they don’t run rampant.

One of the key points brought up on the internet resources for parents is “how to control your children, without controlling your children.” This is a semi-hypocritical statement, because it seems that parents are trying to control their children’s actions but have the children not know that they are being controlled. That’s almost a paradox, because you’re essentially trying to manipulate the highly volatile and corruptible mind of a child. Parents don’t have to manipulate their children to make them behave and we accept children aren’t going to be perfect when they’re out in public, we’re just asking for a little more control.

Parents may argue that they’re doing the best they can or how they can’t tell the children what to do all the time, but when I was young, which wasn’t even that long ago, speaking out in a movies theater or kicking the airplane seat would result in removal from the movie theater, or a swift talking to and a confiscation of my favorite toy. Those punishments worked and need to be reinstated.

This isn’t the first instance of children ruining things; planes rides, every car ride, the state fair, sporting events, spring break, restaurants, wedding dresses, parties dresses, the mall, beaches, valley fair, and last but not least, pools. Yes the movie theater isn’t the only place that has fallen victim to the epidemic of loud children. Our world is full of children that don’t know the social protocols for collective gatherings. Perhaps children simply are acting out more today than in the past or perhaps parents should just lead the way for teaching children the proper etiquette for our world.