Hotel restaurant and iPads etc

[mckenzie]

We are on holiday and staying in a hotel with breakfast included.
Settle nicely at a table this morning, in the shade, over lookimgbthe gardens, watching the birds on the ledge. A family then take the table next to us.

The older child (I'm guessing age 5) is given an iPad and starts playing a game with noice so we can hear ping and pong and clapping and other computer type noises.
The younger child (I'm guessing 18 months) has a phone propped up in front of her and is watching a video of some sort so we can hear high pitched animated voices and weird music.

AIBU to expect the family to think of others and provide said children with headphones?

We all live together and no ones needs are more important than the next

^^this

It's interesting that on a parenting website there is more judgement of people with children than anyone else.

I have had numerous meals on holiday h my DC with someone sitting nearby smoking. I have been woken up by people playing loud music at midnight. I don't like it, it annoys me but y'know know we have to share the planet. But these are adults so probably have the right to annoy me and I'm just being miserable/ unreasonable, DC OTOH

PSML at the 'make your children behave, enforce barriers' brigade. You have clearly got a short memory or have never had a 2/3yo (or yours was frankly very docile). It can be really stressful with kids that age, so cut a bit of slack.

But yanbu to find it irritating OP and TBF I wouldn't allow sound in an Ipad in a public place. I'd choose it personally over smoking but hey ho.

This happened to me a while ago, not at a restaurant but in a hospital waiting room. The father had his own phone going, 3 toddlers all with iPods or phones or whatever they were. I had a raging headache, it was so inconsiderate. I'm not the type to say anything, though.

I agree with a lot of the others, it is so sad that these things are just ingrained from a young age. I feel like they are going to end up entitled, thinking that it is a "right" to own a phone. There are so many other things to do as a family, like what ever happened to dinner conversation? So, so sad.

Whoops I forgot to say, there's nothing wrong with these things in small doses, but it seems like a lot of kids expect them. I have been around people that let their kids sit in front of it for HOURS. Probably similar to people my age that had parents who let them sit in front of the TV, only less likely to cause carpal tunnel.

YANBU. There have been so many threads on this lately but I totally agree.

Absolutely agree that tablets/ phones etc need to be on low volume or have earphones.

However, those objecting to tablets and phones altogether have never met my 6yo ds. He's a good boy and certainly isn't allowed to get up and wander around but if he's bored he fiddles incessantly, with everything on the table. He's also very loud and excitable. Of course we engage him in conversation too, but it's an altogether more relaxing experience (for us and other diners) if he has his tablet. We do 'parent' him and in all other situations he's great. But sitting still and relatively quiet at a table for longer than an hour is a huge challenge - for him, and us. Believe me, nobody laments this situation more than me. I used to enjoy meals out!

However, those objecting to tablets and phones altogether have never met my 6yo ds

I think it's interesting tbh the responses around this. The thread is specifically about electronic noise being annoying. And it is just used as an opportunity to wade in and pass all sorts of judgemental comments about the way people parent. Not entirely relevant to the thread as far as I can see. But it's what a lot of people like to do.

The reality is many of those criticising parents for the use of devices have never had to 'parent' as much as some of those they are criticising. They are not having to be right on top of everything and watching their beyond toddler age child every second they are out of the house for signs that a meltdown is imminent or just to keep them safe. Lazy parenting it is not.

Was about to say the same, Increasingly. This thread was started to address the noise phones/ipads make, now it's all judgey on how to raise your kids.

FWIW, we don't allow our DD to have any screens at the table, at home or out, but that's our call and what other families do is none of my business. But I agree with PP about the sound issue - all devices all come fitted with volume buttons, so if your kids can't tolerate headphones is it really too much to ask to turn the sound down a bit so the rest of the restaurant isn't subjected to whatever they're watching? I don't think that's U.

We bought two late pads for ds2 and dd which are tear off place mats with activities on them
I don't particularly like seeing young children on iPads especially with the noise they can bring sometimes.

I am a bit old school on this. My 2 are teens now so only had the i phones out and about with them more recently. They never had them when they were little. I hate them now having them at the table. They have done it a few times and now we are not allowing it especially when we go out. It makes them ignore everything around them and not take part in conversation with older relatives who are keen to speak to them. My worry about giving them to very young kids at meal times is that when they get older they will be so used to them that they will need to have them and lose the ability to interact. Breakfast is a fun part of the day for wee ones they can choose their own food and I totally understand parent can be shattered in the morning esp if the kids haven't slept well in a new place but I think the ipads would be better kept in the room for some quiet time or maybe watching a film before bed xxx

How do you know they aren't at the end of their tether, have other stuff going on that they simply need 30 mins time out.

user147, how do you know that the people around them aren't at the end of their tether, have other stuff going on, and have carved out half an hour to have a nice coffee in a cafe, only to have it ruined by the BEEEP BEEEEEEEEP PING! of games on a tablet being played at the next-door table?

Consideration works both ways. You don't seem to understand this.

He's also very loud and excitable. Of course we engage him in conversation too, but it's an altogether more relaxing experience (for us and other diners) if he has his tablet. We do 'parent' him and in all other situations he's great. But sitting still and relatively quiet at a table for longer than an hour is a huge challenge - for him, and us

He's SIX.

Loud and excitable is easily dealt with "DS, you can't make that amount of noise here, it's adult space too and you can't make that amount of noise or we have to leave, now."

If he struggles past an hour, take things he can play with or go places where you can spend an hour and little more.

You have to teach him how to be in spaces he shares with others. He can't possibly learn that with his head buried in a tablet.

Had you taught him this at aged 3 or 4 you would not have created this rod for your own back.

Eh? Really Annie, have you read any of my posts. Where did I say that? If you read them I say EVERYONE should show tolerance! I also said when mine are used out with the house they are v v low.

Where have I said that the child's need / want to use devices are more important? Please enlighten me?

Loud and excitable is easily dealt with

Hahahahahahahahaha

How do you know they aren't at the end of their tether, have other stuff going on that they simply need 30 mins time out.

How do you know that other people don't need the same for different reasons?

A parent needing '30 minutes time out' doesn't trump other people's needs.

My Dc are well behaved, can hold a conversation, can eat a meal without a tablet, have restricted use of electronic doing 'term times' and will, I hope and expect, grow up to be well rounded individuals.

We look forward to holidays, relaxing and doing things we dont have time to do the rest of the year. So when we go off for our 2 weeks in the sun we relax the rules, tablets and phones can be used as much as is wanted. We check our hotel is family friendly and has wifi.

I dont like earphones at the breakfast table because I think its important to be able to talk to my children and if I can converse with them over any 'electronic' noise then I think its at an acceptable volume.

If a fuddy-duddy came over to me and said their was noise pollution coming from our table I would reply although never have as I am a tolerant person with one of the following: "I have paid to use the wifi and I will use it. If you want silence you should have ordered breakfast in your room. I find your clothes cause visual pollution can you please go change. I find your stinky smoke smell is polluting can you please eat elsewhere. I find the muzak in the elevator annoying but I dont ask it to stop.

I think adults are way more intrusive and annoying in restaurants than some beeps or pings from 'Asphalt 8' or 'HooplaKidz'. So YABU.

If a fuddy-duddy came over to me

Nice

Hissy you can get off your superior high horse where you think you can sneer down your nose at how other people parent.

His personality is loud and excitable. Lovely, but exuberant, outgoing, extrovert. He doesn't have a quiet voice and never has, despite our efforts. His cm says so, his teachers say so, his family say so. Short of giving him a personality transplant there's very little we can do about this. Do you actually think that we haven't constantly (since he was a baby and old enough to sit at a table) tried to get him to share spaces with others by actively encouraging him to be quieter?
Thanks for the patronising lesson in parenting though. And we do take things he can play with - a fucking tablet! Turned down quietly or silent. I don't see why it's any concern of yours how we keep him quiet, just as long as we do! Since babyhood he's been more interested in fiddling with table condiments than quietly drawing pictures with crayons or his own toys.

Wow Fresh, I hope I never sit next to your family on holiday, being the old fashioned fuddy-duddy that I am. Why would I want to listen to your kids' you tube videos over my breakfast? Why do I then have to find myself reinforcing our 'no gadgets at the table rule' to my kids just because others can't be arsed to speak to their children while on holiday?! You make your life easier, you make my life harder. Cuts both ways.

Well what else should I call a person that I think is intolerant of a little background noise and wants to spoil my holiday that I have paid for with specific access to the internet.

So if not fuddy-duddy what? pompous?

the only really alternative is the child getting stroppy and screaming/running around

Rubbish. There once was a time before electronic gadgets when parents actually performed their parenting role properly! We used to take colouring pads, puzzle books, small toys such as cars, when we went out for meals and actually interacted with our children. Ours certainly didn't get stroppy and start screaming/running around - not a single time.

Trot on yourself LittleLionMansMummy

I wasn't sneering, it was absolutely meant in the best way, but
Your reaction is overly defensive and tells me all I need to know.

what, out of interest, do you think you would have done 10 years ago, when tablets and the like didn't exist?

Loud and excitable is easily dealt with

Hahahahahahahahaha*

it is at SIX years of age FGS.

How on earth do the "my children could never be expected to behave unless they were glued to screens" masses think that any parent coped until around ten years ago and these things were invented.

Yes iPads and the like are incredibly useful devices but people seem to have lost sight of the fact that they are an incredibly new invention and that until even less than a decade ago children were quite successfully parented without the need for them to have a tablet glued to them.

It's simply not true that children are incapable of behaving without a tablet or other such screen. Children's behaviour certainly hasn't improved over the past ten years in fact if anything it has deteriorated to the point that most children seem to feel the need to be glued to a screen rather than Communicate with those around them.

If people choose to allow their children to have screens then that is their prerogative, but let's not pretend that it's the only way because it really isn't.