Q. How should I handle an 18-month-old who cries at a restaurant because he wants out of his high chair to sit with me or someone else at our table?

A. If you're 90 percent certain a child is going to cry in a restaurant, then I recommend that for the time being you take your meals at home, in the car, or at picnic areas. If you insist upon fighting this unwinnable battle, about the only thing you can do — and should do for the benefit of other patrons — is take the child out of everyone's earshot ... as soon as the protests begin.

Q. Do you believe in sending children to military school? Our young teenage daughter has twice snuck out of the house in the middle of the night. We are shocked and hurt by her lack of respect for us and house rules. My husband would have sent her to a military school and still threatens it. We opted for six weeks of grounding with all technology taken away.

A. Military school is not a rational response to a child sneaking out to be with friends in the middle of the night. (Since you did not tell me she and her friends did anything illegal or immoral, I'm going to assume that the thrill of sneaking out was as far as it went.)

I think this is more of a safety issue than a misbehavior issue, which is why kids should know that a disproportionate percentage of people who are out in the middle of the night are not the sort one wants to invite for dinner. If your peripatetic daughter left the house with delinquency in mind, Dad's attitude would be more justifiable, but under the circumstances, he needs to take a deep breath and watch some Marx Brothers movies. Six weeks of grounding and no technology is sufficient to make the point; besides, it's much cheaper than military school.

Flashing Cured at 3: The mom of a 3-year-old boy was, by her own admission, "horrified" at his habit of putting his hands in his pants. One day, at day care, he exposed himself to the rest of the class. Mom says his teacher started making him wash his hands when he violated himself, so the parents began doing the same at home. The problem is now 90 percent better. Good.

Having said that, I think this was much ado about nothing. A 3-year-old boy who sticks his hand down the front of his pants and gets a huge (i.e., horrified) adult reaction will almost surely begin to entertain himself in this fashion increasingly often. Ignored, the child will find other things to do with his hands in short order.

Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents' questions on his Web site at www.rosemond.com.