To ask what age your kids were before you could have a civilised meal in a restaurant?

[WildWombat]

Without mess, tantrums, having to take colouring to keep them quiet while you wait... It's feeling very far away for me at the moment!

@MarshaBradyo
Not all responses are smug. It's fine to say 'my kid was always easy in restaurants' that might well be true and is totally valid. The smug responses are the ones who say 'well I bothered to actually parent my child so they're well behaved in restaurants at only two years old'. The fact is kids have different temperements so while sometimes good parenting can mean your kid eats well/behaves in restaurants/sleeps well/shares nicely etc from a young age some kids despite good parenting will just take longer. It's smug to assume that if your kid responded well to normal parenting that others whose kid found it harder have been shit parents.

Sorry if this is another smug one, but we never had much trouble taking ours out for meals as young children, they were mostly delightful and not difficult to occupy. If it's something they experience frequently from babyhood they do learn how to behave. Mind you, they're 20 and 18 now and taking them both out for dinner is more hassle than it was when they were toddlers - they bicker, they swear loudly, they have no patience! Much more wearing.

The responses were making me smirk and gag in equal measure 😂😂

DD was nearly 4 when we were able to eat out nicely.

Some adults don't behave (just ask waiters!)

Eating out involves more waiting around than eating at home. Children have shorter attention-spans and their emotions are usually more on the surface. Accounting for those things is always going to take parental planning and preparation.

I like to think that the tables with beautifully behaved children have parents doing much swan-like paddling out of view.

In my experience, it isn't restful for the adults.

However, we enjoyed the challenge of taking ours out from 4+ . We did have much with us to fill in the gaps and spent time beforehand rehearsing the conventions. (Children like knowing the rules and when you think about it, the way we behave when eating in formal places is a bit like a game.)

At primary-school ages ours both enjoyed bringing along a special topic of conversation for the table. (This was always interesting - even when not completely appropriate for the setting 😀- dinosaur poo figured more than once once.)

At weddings we relied on this experience and took materials for quiet play under the table during long lulls. (We also took snacks as wedding waits can lead to child starvation!)

About 3 or 4ish. Although I still took colouring up until about 5 unless there were other kids going that they could chat to.

Wow, lots of posters are very lucky with their angelic children 😁

This isn't my experience at all. FWIW my kids are ok (well, two out of three) and they're all preschool/young children age.

But most families I know can't take kids under 8 out without electronic devices. And even then, it's to a quick restaurant with food the kids particularly like. I don't think the responses you've got are representative of real families.

About 3 for the eldest. 4 for DS1 and just for DS2 who was 3 in August.

This. I think if you avoid eating out with them when they’re young then of course they will struggle with the new experience. It’s like anything. We never stopped eating out so all our children have eaten out right from being young babies.
The same with holidays. Always taken ours abroad so none of this “worried about taking young children abroad / on a plane” ours have all flown from a few weeks old and we have really good flyers now who don’t find planes difficult at all and actually really enjoy the flights and are well behaved on them.

2-3 years old for DD1 now aged 7. However her 19 month old sister can't even use a plate most the time and is much wilder so I doubt it will ne that early for her!

My first - honestly from a tiny baby. He was always fabulous, loved sitting in restaurants, right through baby and toddlerhood and childhood.

My now 8 year old was a bit ropey there for a year or so as a toddler but again great.

My 2.5 year old - I think she will be about 30
before we dare venture anywhere to eat with her! For a start, she hates all food, always has done so you couldn’t even get her excited about/bribe her with a meal. She hates having to sit anywhere and will loudly let us know that. It’s just not worth the pain.

Yeah it’s not the smugness of having well-behaved kids, but believing that it’s your parenting / exposure / whatever that’s made them that way. I’m sure there’s some element of it but having known an awful lot of kids and parents, it mostly just comes down to the child’s nature. Which doesn’t really help the OP, as there’s no silver bullet to make the little horrors civilised!

And yet we’ve all been somewhere and seen shocking behaviour from feral kids running around, screaming, banging and dropping cutlery and spitting food etc and gormless parents sitting doing nothing about it.

It’s completely disingenuous to say that some bad behaviour from children is nothing at all to do with parenting and all to do just the luck of the drawer or ‘temperaments’. If that were the case then teachers would not be able to control a single child in a class - but they do. They sit still listening and doing school work - and the children largely comply. Why is that possible then?

3-4 I think! My just turned 5yo, I would still take a book/colouring etc. although if he's not in the mood he will refuse to engage with them. My oldest is 10 and is absolutely fine unless the two of them start bickering. They absolutely love eating out so tend to be well-behaved. Nb eldest is autistic and finds certain other situations very stressful (e.g. packed and noisy tourist attractions) but restaurants don't seem to bother him!

From newborn though we did use the colouring packs if they were offered to us. They were v easy children though.

Quite happily at 4 and 6, although I tend to outline expectations and don't linger for too long.

We don't go out to restaurants very often though so it's a big treat.

The best thing I've found to do is to tell the kids that children aren't meant to be in the restaurant so if they act like grown ups they won't be spotted.

If we are with childfree BIL and SIL who do like to linger after a meal then I tend to make sure I take the kids out for regular wiggle breaks, particularly with my eldest who has ADHD and ASD.

The people who go out and let their kids behave like that generally go out to restaurants and cafes all the time and simply don't care what anyone thinks. The people who don't, make haste and get out of there quick!