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

[moomoomouseey]

Imagine a day, filled with child friendly activities on holiday. Think beach, biking sandcastles, swimming together, pool, diving, playgrounds, reading books together, drawing, child centred show in the evening, fun fair, trampoline jumping.. etc etc..

At the end of all this, you go out for a meal. You bring crayons and paper etc and other toys, but after a while, your children are restless and bored but you want to enjoy your meal. You get out the iPads with headphones and let your kids watch for a bit/ play educational games, while you enjoy your meal in peace.

Some judgy judgerpants walks past and thinks you're a bad parent.

Kids are 2 and 4 or 3 and 5.

Fair enough in your situation you have exceptional circumstances here compared to average eaters who are not tube fed. You have to do what is best in this situation if you are a carer.

Or just leave your kids at home if they are incapable of sitting around a table and being civilised for an hour and you are incapable of parenting them. It really lowers the tone of the environment when you have to hear the repetitive annoying songs on the ipads.

I guarantee most other diners will be hoping they are not seated near you when they spot the kids on the ipads.

What an utterly ludicrous OTT response. 🙄 Makes me very glad my children aren't at school any longer.

Holiday or the company some are with must be pretty boring if they’re concentrating on children being quiet on their tablets at dinner.

This. ^ There are some batshit posts on this thread!

.

But you don’t know the situation of any of the people you’re judging. You don’t know anything from a snippet of their life. Everyone is just doing the best in the situation they are in.

Even if it’s just parents and children knackered after a long day so getting some food and a chill what’s it to do with anyone else?

Did this “judgy mcjudgypants” say something? Or are you just making assumptions about what she thought?

When you’re feeling unsure about a parenting decision it’s easy to project those feelings onto other people- “I’m not sure about X” becomes “they are judging me for X”.

The trick is to own your decisions. If this was genuinely the right thing to do in your situation, who cares what a random stranger thinks? OTOH if you on some level are worried it wasn’t the right thing to do, address that rather than what a random
stranger may or may not think about it.

In parenting, there will always be someone who would do it differently. You’ll make your life a lot easier if you accept that and focus on how you want to do things.

I think if you persevere, as we did for years with our now 8 year old, then children learn to behave in a restaurant and contribute toward the discussion and are generally a pleasure to dine with. I always come prepared with lego, stickers, pens, cards in case my child gets really restless but by then we're usually ready to go anyway.

Apart from on long haul flights I think giving your child a screen is just lazy parenting.

I guarantee most other diners will be hoping they are not seated near you when they spot the kids on the ipads.

Provided they're using headphones/earbuds I shouldn't think other diners could give a toss unless they decide to indulge in a bit of judgeyness like some on this thread

I'd say it had more to do with a bit of peace and quiet to relax. Presumably you don't talk 24/7 when you're on holiday?

In this example nothing wrong with it at all. That’s why people shouldn’t judge (and I don’t either). We allow our kids screens or IPADs after we have finished eating if it’s a particularly late meal or quite adult centred. Of course our children can order, play games with us and chat with us which they do a lot but sometimes (especially on holiday) we want to chat ourselves as adults or if we are with company who don’t have children and the conversation is a little less child centric after eating. Baring in mind our kids have eaten out with us since being babies and twice a day on holiday but there is a time and a place I think where they can be helpful (always with headphones)

I agree.

I think it's awful to teach children nowadays that they must always be occupied.

Learning to behave in a restaurant seems to be a thing of the past.

I see the perfect parents are out in force on this thread. Spouting their usual bollocks about lazy parenting because people don't parent exactly like they do.

Did you win a parenting award for your excellent parenting?

Do many women pop out "perfectly behaved kids" at birth?

Or is there a bit more involved by way of these "perfect parents of MN" contributing somewhat during their up bringing to having well behaved children as they grow older.

I suspect their well behaved children are not always well behaved at all times, even though the perfect parents like to think they are.

I'd rather see a child on an ipad than listen to some performance parent banging on and on.

Sometimes DC is angelic, reading quietly, colouring, organising sugar cubes, etc. Sometimes they're full-on rage screaming carried out of the restaurant. People who only see one snapshot may judge based on that, but we need to remember that the snapshot we see isn't ever the full reality.

This. I wouldn't judge you for it, either.

Gosh and the lack of joy in it all! Whizzing them out of a restaurant by the time they have finished eating, everyone having to play incessant board games or only going to McDs until they are old enough. No thanks! I will take my kids to long lingering meals with family and friends and after eating if they get bored (after ordering, interacting etc and taking in the whole experience) they can huddle round an IPAD on mute/headphones while we keep dipping into the food, gossiping, laughing and generally showing them the joy of socialising. I won’t judge!

OR how about taking them to the meals and including them in the socialising..?

How is it any more lazy than throwing stickers at them to keep them occupied?

iPads can be a tool to help a young child when they are restless in a restaurant. No different to Lego or stickers.

I'm not judging whether they are or not...infact I'm not even sure a "perfect parent" exists, be it on MN or otherwise.

I just find it a bit judgmental in itself to assume that these parents are "perfect" just because their DC can be capable of sitting still quietly or holding a conversation without a device under their nose.

If using that way of thinking, to outright assume a parent of "perfectly behaved kids" is "a perfect parent" is it then acceptable to call a parent of a kid that is playing up a shit parent to shitty behaved kid.

Quietly watching an ipad in a restaurant doesn't make that child a shitty behaved kid nor does it make the parent a shit parent.

I would just like to point out younger kids do need distractions more when waiting for food than older kids. My 7 year old doesn't need to watch a phone etc and he's fine without, but when he was 2 or 3 or 4 he wouldn't sit and wait nicely so we always used it. So it's not starting bad habits. As they get older you can explain they don't need it now and in time they'll get use to not having it