A shift operating apparatus for an automatic transmission which designed to prevent movement of a shift operating device from a parking preparatory condition from being moved to one of the plurality of other gear positions during shifting from one of the other gear positions to the park position. The shift operating apparatus can include a shift operating device moveable between a park position and plurality of other gear positions other than the park position, a parking position detector for detecting when the shift operating device is in the park position. The shift operating device can be adapted to be moved through a parking preparatory condition when shifting between the park position and plurality of other gear positions. A restraint device can be configured to restrain a motion toward the plurality of other gear positions when the shift operating device is in the parking preparatory condition when shifting from one of the plurality of other gear positions to the parking position.