... to think my almost 11 year old DDs should be able to sit in a restaurant and converse with their parents/grandparents without electronic games/phones/stuff to do?

[sandyballs]

DH thinks I am and wanted to hand over his i-phone to 'keep them amused'. They are nearly 11 FFS not 5. To be fair they do normally behave nicely in restaurants but last night they were bloody awful, it was embarrassing. It was MILs birthday and the DDs wriggled and moaned and pulled faces, one got under the table . I had to separate them.

They're off to secondary school in Sept so surely they should be able to spend a couple of hours in a restaurant chatting to the family without behaving like a couple of arses.

It depends...

YANBU They should beable ot behave and converse with their Grandma on her birthday. I would be cross too and I'd ask them how they think their Grandma would have felt when they were being silly in the restaurant.

However, was it very late? If they were very tired I would have expected them to join in until after the main course. I think then I would have let them have their phones etc to stave off the potential tired induced silly behaviour.

we took our ds (6) out for dinner the other night...we were in the restaurant around 2 hours

he was brilliant, he chatted to the adults, sat nicely and said please and thank you

i was pleasantly suprised at how well he coped.... so at 11 I would definatly expect them to be able to cope

I think in this day and age with working parents, extended family not being close by, activities for kids 6 days a week, etc etc less and less time is being spent sitting down at a table for a meal as a family in general meaning kids dont get used to it at home

That sounds like a good compromise really, half and half.

I was at work all day yesterday and the DDs were with the grandparents, the stroppy DD has just said 'we were stuck in all day and bored and we had to let our energy out somehow".

To be fair to them, how often do they sit down and have two-hour conversations with adults? Maybe they need the practice.

But crawling under the table is terrible. YANBU to be furious. Also, I want to kill anyone who says: 'Oh, my days.'

why the difference when we're out, except the timescale I suppose.

Er yes, a meal at home probably takes 20 minutes tops. A meal in a restaurant you're lucky to completely finish inside an hour, and methinks you were in the room a lot longer than that.

Plus they are over-excited due to it being a birthday.

Someone asked "What did people do in the past?" Truth is that eating out was a huge treat & most families didn't go that often, and certainly not with children under 12 15 18?

Also it's having 2+ of them; I would rely on most of my 4 to behave for up to 1.5 hours in a restaurant if there on their own, but put the mob of them together & I know our time is very limited before pandemonium breaks out.

YANBU. It would be extremely rude for them to use any sort of device at the table and at their age you are right to expect them to be able to sit for a meal and join in conversation

YANBU.

I have never let my 2 DSes have anything at the table. It never occured to me to take colouring books, reading books or gadgets when we ate out when they were smaller.

I would still be furious with your DDs, too, if I were you OP. At least one of them admits she was badly behaved. Hope they are better behaved next time you take themm out.

What is the difference between 'colouring pens and an electronic device (on mur#te) bi#oth keep the child occupied. So if you want supreme manners, you expect them to sit there regardless and not have any source of entertianment! Other than that, you allow them to have something that will keep them occupied.

Again, those resturants such as Charlie Chalks that had ball pits etc for toddler/pre-schoolers to keep them amused, whilst a god-sent back then, retrosprctively just compopunded a culture of bad manners.

And NEVER sit children together when out - you split them between adults.

oh FFS - new kb and the keys are too small ...

Should read electronic devices (on mute)

YANBU and you are doing your kids a favour by having reasonable expectations of them.

We had a family dinner out recently with grandparents. DS age7 was expected to behave without props. He was allowed his DS when we got to coffee (by then shattered an hour past usual bedtime).

We went out to a large family meal about a month ago and there were nearly 30 of us. Not everyone knew everyone.

I have to say it was very hard giving my kids the evil eye warning them to behave with their phones when they are sat next to and near their cousins whose ages were from 12 to 28 playing constantly with their phones.

I am glaring at my sons and they are staring back at me and Dh mouthing 'well everyone else is!!!!' Difficult.

YANBU I would have expected dd to be able to sit and participate from the age of 7. I'm not overly strict.

Depends on the child,I could always take anywhere and she would be fine, I was even a little smug looking at other children in restaurants :(

DS is another matter and Ive come to realise its a much nicer experience for everyone if hes allowed his ds or similar (with sound off) He finds it boring sitting for long periods.

My DSS (13) does have his own Iphone and if the time from ordering to meal arriving is quite long then he migt get his phone out and play some games (usually starting a competition between the three of us ) but at a family do he wouldn't unless there was a group of other kids all doing the same. As for sitting on the floor under table, erm yes, blue touch paper for me too, he'd be grounded for a week and no DS or Xbox or phone for the duration.
My DSS also uses "oh my days" and "random" as well as "sick" "bait" and "fail" quite regular, I just ignore unless he's really yelling them at me for something and then punishment is doubled

For us, once we allow them to do the electronic thing at restaurants once, they want it every time. So we've had to go cold turkey on them in public... once they got that message they made the most of the situation.

Having said that, we do usually take something for them to do (but ours are 8, 6 and 4 - so slightly younger age group) - partly because we want to have adult conversation without them trying to understand it all, eg. talking about travelling they don't know where places are, cities and sights etc.

Our latest "restaurant activity" is a thing called Rory's story cubes, 9 dice with pictures on them... you roll them and have to make a story from the pictures that come up (tree, lightening, alien, hands, compass etc). Quite a challenge for kids and adults, almost like charades without the need to stand up in the middle of the room, LOL.

Ours can have 3 dice each and make up their own stories, or we have all 9 and take turns. For extreme story telling you keep rolling the dice to keep the story going (which gets very wacky).

So yes, YANBU and they need to learn the basic art of conversation and behaviour, but you also need to be realistic about their attention span/interest in adult conversation and have a plan for their entertainment (either electronic or something else).

"Back in my day" I do recall reading books in restaurants, so I guess that is as unsociable as electronic.

How long were you in the restaurant, OP, before they went under table?

Well I'm going to take a different stand on this one I think YABU.

Your OP should have read "I was working all day and my dd's (10) were with their dgm. They were stuck in and bored all day. We went out to eat at night but I did not book the restaurant and it was full. We had to go elsewhere by which time they were tired, hungry and clearly slightly hysterical. Should I expect them to sit still, chat and be generally pleasant and adult in their behaviour or should I Have allowed their ds's before and after the meal.

I know what I would have done.

I actually agree with LeQueen!