Surrounded by children, do the rules of dining etiquette change?

Before yesterday, I hadn’t been to Crown Center for lunch in a while. And I’d forgotten the simple truth of what the food court can be like at noon.

The adults on their lunch hour stood out like tiny islands in a sea of children. One little girl repeatedly poked her head through the rails outside Fritz’s Railroad Restaurant, forcing my lunch companion and I to say hello. And when both of us realized we should stop swearing so much in casual conversation, it made me wonder if the rules of dining etiquette change based on the dominant age in the dining room.