There's absolutely nothing wrong with iPad at the table at a restaurant after a child centric day

I think there are several reasons

1. ignorance- they hear the screen=bad message but lack the knowledge and critical thinking skills to contextualise the discussion.

2. they are insecure in their parenting (and themselves in general), therefore they find anyone doing things differently to them knocks their confidence which makes them angry.

3. they are forced to keep up the rules with their children who question why they can’t have screens, and they would rather not have to keep having the argument (so they resent everyone else for not following the rules they made up, thereby making their life more convenient).

' I will never understand why people on here and elsewhere on the internet respond to a post which is openly asking for constructive feedback'

You've answered your own question, the op has asked for opinions, so what 'will you never understand' about that?

There is a time and place for tech and gadgets and sat around a table with family eating is not it.

This thread feels like it has descended far beyond what the OP actually was asking about, which is allowing kids to have tablets for a very small amount of time at the end of a day when they have had lots of quality time with parents and screen-free activities.

It's sad to see so much judgement and condescension. Screens and technology are made such a scapegoat, and parents who use them being demonised or criticised automatically is ridiculous. For a start, screen time comes in many forms - to say that a child playing an educational game (as the OP stated) or doing digital art, or reading an e-book is purely harmful and inappropriate is frankly ridiculous.

Parenting isn't a snapshot; it's a big picture. And if you think for a second that you can understand that big picture by simply seeing a child looking at a phone or tablet then perhaps you need to re-evaluate, because no mere mortal has that power. So if you believe that you do and are entitled to make judgements as a result, something has gone seriously wrong somewhere.

Plenty of parents over the years have managed to ignore, neglect, or otherwise damage their child long before these devices were around, and plenty now manage it while sitting on their high horse believing they are better in some way because they wouldn't allow their child to watch a video after a meal. If these people take the same harsh and judgemental attitude towards their children as they do to other mothers and probably beyond, and also teach their child to treat people this way by example, then I would argue that in the long term that is far more damaging than a few videos on the iPad.

I will never understand why people on here and elsewhere on the internet respond to a post which is openly asking for constructive feedback, therefore showing that the OP is being thoughtful and is open to opinions, by trying to tear that person down, make them feel like a bad parent or talk to them as if they are stupid. Again, if doing that makes you feel good and better about yourself in some way then perhaps you need to re-evaluate. There are enough people in this world putting down mothers and women in general without us doing it to eachother.

The fact you thought to ask the question shows that you care and are reflective, @moomoomouseey so please don't let some of the negative responses here make you think otherwise or cause you to doubt that. I'll bet you are doing a great job!

Oh do unclench. If you want to start a spag pedant thread go ahead.

This judgy thread is about lax parents not being arsed to parent. Kids should be able to sit and interact with actual people when they are eating. Thing is many parents find their dc boring and they cba interacting with said dc. Still, as long as they've had non stop child centric activities so what if no-one has any social skills.

The earliest memories I've got of being taken out for a meal as a child in the 70s were to cafes, the kind of places where you'd get served reasonably quickly and so not over-extend my youthful attention span. When I got a bit older we did go to "proper" restaurants (such as they were in a 70s suburban town) but we always went early, never hung around for too long and were absolutely expected to act like everyone else in the place.

That being said when my dad took my brother and I out by himself then, yes, we'd often be abandoned in a pub's crappy "family room", or even in the back of his car with a bottle of coke and a packet of crisps, while he had a few pints with his mates. And, yes, I judge the hell out of him for that.

But you have no idea what they are watching. It might be the Sound of Music.

Unless there is some abusive behaviour going on that you witness, people who even give a second thought to how other people parent are just dicks. Ignore them. Screens are just the modern equivalent of books/sticker books/colouring etc. Activities like reading, drawing etc can now be done on a screen. It makes you no better or worse than anyone else who brings things to a restaurant to keep children entertained. I live in Spain and many restaurants are close to a play area, so parents can take their kids there and they play when they get bored. They also use screens too and no one here even bats an eyelid.

I was born in the mid 80s. I guess I grew up in a very different setting to your kids because I don’t recognise your depiction of 90s/00s parenting at all! My parents and my friends’ parents were very engaged with us all. DH (same age) remembers his Dad pitching cricket balls for hours and hours for him and his brothers. We did have more freedom in terms of playing out than a lot of kids do now but it was very much choice to go out, not being sent. We weren’t allowed much TV but when we were it was very much specific shows - Blue Peter, a BBC adaption of The Borrowers - we’d all tune in as a family and watch together. Not just YouTube video after YouTube video. Obviously no tech in restaurants and I don’t really recall bringing colouring etc either, though maybe we did and I just don’t remember.

Another poster has made the point on this thread that there’s a world of difference between the tech that your kids would’ve consumed as children and what we have now - which is kids playing games and watching videos that are literally built to be addictive, on personal devices that often rarely leave their side (I work with kids - NT kids - whose parents literally bring their iPads to school pick up so they can have it straight away).

@Allfur
Whenever we've been away my son has often found it a bit overwhelming, particularly the first day.

New environment, swimming pool, new parks, often late nights. So a slightly overwhelmed toddler, plus tired and eating in a restaurant 3x per day every day for a week.

Sometimes at the end of the meal we would let him watch something for 10 minutes to give us a chance to actually finish our food.

The right show can be calming they are not all overstimulating. If you were to watch TV in the evening - like many adults do - would you say this was overstimulating for you?

Why are all the activities over stimulating?, and aren't screens over stimulating?

With an AI hotel while there is no wait you are spending usually a week in an unfamiliar environment and eating in a restaurant 3x per day, often with active and potentially overstimulating activites between

On holiday everything can get a bit much so I can understand using them more on hol - much harder to have a quiet meal in the room

Like the difference between comics and literature?

I think it's all valid and all learning.

If the kids going to learn, they're going to learn. If they're not they're not.

Very well put!!!
Without meaning to be all Barbie movie about this, you can't flipping win! Judged if they're making noise, judged if they're entertained (but not the way someone else would do it)....

Quite. And I try hard not to judge. Including the use of “are sat” in a judgy post…

If you don't give your kids screen time these days I think you're giving them a huge disadvantage.its as necessary as reading, writing and arithmetic now.

There is a massive difference in structured screen time and the endless, ridiculous YouTube videos and games that so many young children are addicted to nowadays.

Just googled, we got them when they came out, I was 10, brother was 7.

I'm 45.
My parents owned a chain of upmarket restaurants when I was growing up, we ate out nearly every night. In posh places.

We had Gameboys on silent at the table in the restaurant during dinner (uncle got them from china, we must have been 8 or 9?) before that we had little electronic games, or pencils and paper.

I'm am personally more likely to judge the person sniffing their disapproval than the parent with the iPad.

I don't have a very good job, but brother is head of data analysis at a very well known company and earns a small fortune. My mum still fondly talks about fostering his love of electronics at a small age.

If you don't give your kids screen time these days I think you're giving them a huge disadvantage.its as necessary as reading, writing and arithmetic now.

If you are sat in a restaurant with your kids clued to their phones or tablets everyone around you is judging your very lazy parenting and your bad mannered kids.

You may be, but most people have interesting enough company to occupy our minds- we don’t waste time worrying about what other people are up to at their tables.

I'm projecting? You are implying that anyone who allows their child to use a device is not being brought up properly.
Ipads were also around 10 years ago.

I can assume that your children had this adaptability at 4 years old to sit quietly on demand. However, not all children are the same. I think the difference is that most people didn't take their children out. It's not a common occurrence for us (covid stopped us being able to 'train' our babies in this environment and cost of living), so you are right - it's a very different world to 10 years ago.

The thing is, you have absolutely no idea about anyone's circumstances. I honestly doubt you would be this judgemental to me in real life

Very well said.

'On the occasions people went for meals post 1980s, people would stick their kids in the bloody playbarn/play area of the pub or restaurant. Giving a kid a tablet to play with is not much different. It's occupying a really energetic child who needs their brain stimulating, and needs to be occupied. There is fuck-all wrong with letting a child have a piece of tech for an hour or two several times a week. FFS!'

It is completely different. Letting them play in a play area, fine. The clue is in the title. Play area. When they sit at the table to eat then parents should teach social skills. These are very simply to engage with those you are eating with. If your dp was bored would you be happy with him scrolling on his phone? No. Because it is bad mannered. As I say go to a drive thru if you cba to teach your dc this very basic stuff.

If you are sat in a restaurant with your kids clued to their phones or tablets everyone around you is judging your very lazy parenting and your bad mannered kids.

I’m not an endorser of iPads particularly, but this post is actually making me feel quite defensive of them - mostly because I think the prejudice is knee-jerk and not substantiated.

The truth when I was growing up ( 80’s) is that there also wasn’t the same restaurant/ cafe culture in this country as there is now. Families didn’t eat out as much, there were more adult-only dinner parties in homes, ( or inter-family home meals where all the children played away from the table after dessert.)“Fancy” restaurants tended to be more adult-only spaces and family restaurants were places where sheets with noughts and crosses and that join-the-dots-to-make-squares game were handed out in handfuls while staff pressed onto us those traffic light 🚦 drinks as distraction the minute we were seated ( weren’t they awesome!) that have way too much food colouring for parents to consider now. So children have always struggled ( or just not been included full stop). In my grandparents’ day they actually ate in the nursery even in the home except for Sunday lunch. Children not being immaculate dinner guests is no new phenomenon.

What is new is our tendency to not have as much childcare and to take them with us more as a family to increasingly upmarket places as we embrace dining as a whole range of cuisines that slot somewhere between the options of Spaghetti House or eveningwear at The Dorchester that were more or less the kinds of options out grandparents had when eating out. I think it’s wonderful to take children out to eat to places more challenging than Nando’s or Pizza Exoress. Ours have infinitely more developed palates than I did at that age. Ours will try shellfish, truffle, olive - and really enjoy it. But if and when they need a bit of assistance when small, what harm is a bit of iPad time when it reinforces the message that they can’t cause disruption to other diners? It’s all part of a bigger picture of infiltrating them into adult dining far sooner than other generations did. We have been fortunate in having foodie dc ( and the one who isn’t is quiet); but I’m not about to judge parents for keeping their children quiet when introducing them to dining out.

Gotta love the way the smug and condescending posters (who say you're a terrible parent if you give your child a tablet or smartphone to play with or look at) are looking at the past with rose tinted glasses and making out parents 20, 30, 40+ years ago were much better.

What a load of old cobblers! Most of the parents of my children's friends back in the late 1990s and early noughties, (before all this portable tech kicked in) would push their kids off out of the house as soon as they came in from school - until darkness, and THEN they'd stick them in front of the TV! (And most of the time during the school holidays.) Most of them didn't do anything with them, they mostly just thought of them as a nuisance and many of them certainly never went out with meals with them - unless you include McDonald's.

And when I was a kid back in the 1970s - my parents and most of the parents in the street (and in the school,) just used to push the kids out into the park, or on their bikes, on their roller skates, on their skateboard, out with their friends, out to the swimming baths etc. They didn't really do much with us.

My dad would take me swimming quite often when I was about 6 or 7 to teach me how to swim, and he taught me to ride my bike, but for the vast majority of the time, kids just entertained themselves. On the occasions people went for meals post 1980s, people would stick their kids in the bloody playbarn/play area of the pub or restaurant. Giving a kid a tablet to play with is not much different. It's occupying a really energetic child who needs their brain stimulating, and needs to be occupied. There is fuck-all wrong with letting a child have a piece of tech for an hour or two several times a week. FFS!

Kids are flipping hard work some days (even the 'good' ones,) and if you have been looking after them/entertaining them during the day, there's absolutely nothing wrong with popping a tablet in their hand for an hour The really sneery condescending smug judgmental posters on here, looking down their nose at people giving children the tablet to look at or play with for an hour or two are really grinding my gears!

Get over yourselves. You're so judgmental. Don't try and make out that you're a better parent because you allegedly don't do it/didn't do it Just pack it in!

When me and DH wanted a break from our kids now and again. when they were little (as most parents deserve - and need,) we'd let them play a video game. I suppose we're absolutely fucking appalling parents as well, are we? I wonder why our nearly 30 y.o. DDs are intelligent, funny, clever, hard-working, law abiding, post graduates in £50,000+ a year jobs then?! With their own home and successful careers?!

Give me strength! This fucking place sometimes! 🙄 I don't know anyone else in real life who is all pearl clutchy and judgy over someone giving a child an ipad to entertain them for a bit!

No, she won’t understand. People like this really do believe that if disabled people can’t behave exactly like them, and have exactly the same needs as them, then they should stay at home.

I get told that various venues and activities are not suitable for me/my son by posters on here regularly- some of the places that are apparently unsuitable for us are supermarkets, busses, swimming pools and shopping centres. Its not remotely surprising that restaurants are also unsuitable.

Goodness me people do talk some drivel on here.