If your kids use screens in a restaurant

[bravefox]

... at least have the decency to bring headphones or put them on silent.

Took my two out for a bite to eat after clubs this morning, would have been quieter to sit in an arcade. If you must let your kids use a tablet etc while they're waiting fine, but please don't make the rest of us listen to it.

YABU: deal with it
YANBU: turn the sound off!!

My 2 year old regulates by jumping up and down whilst flapping his hands as well as spinning around and around and around. It’s constant and because he has other difficulties, his need to regulate is much higher than others.

My 3 year old usually has to go on her trampoline to regulate. Without that, she’ll need to walk around on her tip toes for a good 10 or so minutes. She will also spin but it depends on how much regulation she needs. Most of the time, that won’t be suitable in an enclosed space like a restaurant where waitresses and waitors are walking around with plates of hot food.

My children don’t have tablets but my daughter will use my phone and that gives her the time she needs to zone out and focus on a show. She rarely watches a show properly but will keep on rewinding it to hear a specific part. The sensory feedback of the particular sounds is what helps calm her down. Watch this video below which illustrates how difficult it is for many children when in a busy environment. Just to add, my cousin is 22 and is Autistic. When we were younger, he and my auntie never went to restaurants/cinemas or anything like that because he just couldn’t cope. We always had family gatherings inside so he could always be included

If a child isn’t fully participating in the social experience with an iPad, how are they fully participating in the social experience with a book or if they are engrossed with colouring?

I don’t see the difference between using the iPad as a distraction tool the same as colouring or a toy. No matter what they aren’t going to fully participate socially because they are children, especially if we are talking about very young children who typically need to be distracted more.

THIS!!!!

This is an extremely good point. Something I’ve never actually considered before

Ok, so let’s have the parents doing colouring in or playing with a toy instead of on their phones ignoring their children if it’s really the same thing?

Became you can engage quietly with a child or a colouring book, they don't need to be "engrossed" to the point they can't engage. It's a more creative activity that encourages chat and it will also be put away when the meal comes. Children on screens glazed over staring at them are usually left with the tablet during the meal.

Of course there’s no difference.

But the sancti-mummies would have it that parents using an iPad to distract kids during a longer than expected period of sitting at the table in a restaurant , are lazy and bad parents.

Despite the fact they might give parenting their dear offspring their fucking all, at every other time.

Until Gds was over 3 it was out of the question to take him anywhere he’d have to sit still before and after eating - he was a human hurricane. In summer pubs with fairly big gardens were fine, but that was it.
By about 5 he was much better and at 7 now we can take him (almost!) anywhere.

However I'm reminded of a little boy, of maybe 4 at the time, son of friends’ friend - we were having lunch at the Savoy shortly after Christmas. Little boy had been given a Superman outfit, had apparently hardly taken it off since, and he was wearing it for lunch. He was very well behaved, but kept looking around, as if expecting something or someone,

His dad had apparently told him it was a very smart place and the Queen might be there so he’d better be on his best behaviour! 😂

You can also engage quietly whilst a child is using an iPad. They can also be used creatively.

You can also remove an iPad once the meal comes.

Genuinely disagree. I think I am entitled to not hear cartoons all around me at a restaurant or on a plane. The answer that Alfie's parents make the rules for Alfie isn't really an answer. It's a social norm not to play TV loudly in public, the other kids are right to ask why rules don't apply to some kids. "because Alfie's parents say so", although accurate, doesn't seem that satisfying.

Welly wanging in church was my fear...

You really do not want to be hit on the back of the head by a Welly in the middle of a sermon...

Except no one else wants to listen to your child's tablet. It's extremely selfish to have the volume up in restaurants etc.

I have this at my work. Mums shoving a mobile in a baby’s hands with some show which goes “yay!” In multiple kids voices.

Colouring in is different to using a tablet as kid can talk whilst colouring in. As I remember doing this.

Remember going to Berni Inn, Pizza Hut etc as a kid in the mid 80s and they did have menus and other things to colour in, dot to dots on.

I agree that it should be headphones or volume off. But beyond that, it's up to the parents.

My biggest pet hate … and also people who do wear headphones but you can still hear the tinny music anyway !!!

That I think you will have to live with. They're wearing headphones. Ear defenders (sponge things) might be useful for you?

Come to think of it, I don't recall hearing 'tinny music' anymore? Headphone quality is superb now.

Kids can talk and use iPads too.

Yes we use headphones. I was responding the posters who are outraged by tablet use in general inc with headphones.

So kids never talk when using a tablet/mobile phone?

I’m not being funny but you’re talking about nearly 40 years ago. Do you expect technology to not progress and the world to be exactly where it was 40 years ago?

Really surprised nobody has commented on my earlier post about placing some responsibility on the restaurant for not policing this!

ItstheGaggggg, Technology has moved on swiftly, yes, but consideration for other people around us is just as it always was - much wanted and appreciated.

I have no issue with parents dealing with their children exactly as they want to, as long as I'm not forced to listen to it. It's really not a big deal for headphones or silent screens, everybody's happy then.

I’m sure you‘ll be able to see that my comment was in response to a poster who wasn’t talking about the use of headphones….

I'm ND and I don't go out to eat anymore as the level of noise - whether from screens or from free-range children left to occupy themselves - is absolutely unbearable. The craze for decor being all metals, marbles etc. rather than noise-absorbing fabric furniture doesn't help.

People on these threads always cite screens in the context of allowing ND kids to go out to eat, but ignore the fact that their use without headphones may mean that ND adults can't go out to eat.

100 percent this.

Some ND children also find it unbearable to cope to be out having a meal and having some other child's tablet playing the same line from a film over and over and over again. It's selfish and I will tell anyone I don't care who to turn it down.

More people should. I don't see why a child or an adult should be able to listen to their inane drivel at a volume loud enough to disturb others whatever the reason.

They may be able to have policies but it would be minimum wage workers attempting to enforce it and frankly, they don’t get paid enough.