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.

But sometimes it can be too much to distract someone and they end up in complete sensory overload. So if hiding from the world with a tablet means they can get though that bit of the trip with no meltdowns then good on them!

I’d bet pp’s kids don’t have a clue what’s going on at each table, actually. Because they don’t have kids themselves. I was an awful sanctimonious childless young person who noticed the things I’d never do if I had kids. Until I grew up and had my own family. Life isn’t quite as you imagine when you’re young and you’ve got the answers to just about everything. So for the pp with the observant teenage kids - just wait until they are parents. Perhaps they’ll be less judgmental.

Yes. Agree with this. We've done similar with our girl over the years. With most social expectations, we have to be explicit and practice.
And yes, we still can't go out for a long meal prioritising our needs, but we never expected to, even before we understood additional needs were in the mix.

Oh whatever, make excuses all you like. Ever considered that it’s just rude not to acknowledge the person that’s serving you?

I’ve missed out on nothing. We went out less but paid a babysitter and enjoyed longer meals without the DC for the short 3 years they were toddlers. We can now easily spend 2 hours in a restaurant with them socialising and no screen in sight.

The evidence on damage caused by screens is overwhelming, MH issues in children and teens are sky high and the association is clear. Once they are allowed screens for one occasion, it’s a slipper slope and too easy to become a regular habit for all occasions. I’m glad it’s worked out for your children and they socialise well but it’s a risk I’m not willing to take. If your children are already young adults, this evidence would not have been so apparent when they were young so I do wonder whether you would have made the same choices if they were toddlers today

Obviously haven't read the book, but this seems to suggest screens are bad for mental health which is the point I was making?

I mean, do what you have to do.

However if you plan a day that will exhaust your kids, personally I'd take them home and give them a quick pasta tea instead of the added stimulation of eating out.

In a hotel without a kitchen I'd get takeaway chips or sandwiches or something.

Well PP said her son was disabled and used the iPad to communicate, so that would be pretty obvious. Of course you can't tell in all case (which is why I said 'generally'), but as an outsider you can generally tell when someone has additional needs as opposed to having lazy parents.

No- as long as someone is taking to them politely and everyone says thank you when their food is brought and their plate is cleared, it isn’t remotely rude.

Waiting staff have enough to deal with without having to talk to every individual person in every party in the place- they don’t care, they want to get their job done with the least hassle.

Literally no one is interested in chatting to other people’s kids when they have 25 clears to cover.

And I don’t need to make excuses personally, my ds will chat to any old bugger- he is perfectly capable of ordering for himself… I just don’t see the point in making life harder for staff unnecessarily.

I think you have a very specific idea of how a person with SN presents @JudgeBurrito.

Very often it's not, in fact, 'generally obvious to outsiders'. Especially not to an outsider who is simply (and briefly) sharing a restaurant with a child on a device?

Sometimes it's not even obvious to insiders. My DC's teacher was surprised by their later diagnosis for example.

I absolutely would. I can safely say that having short bursts of screen time occasion has done no harm. And it meant that me and my husband had the occasional meal out where we got to converse with each other. I don’t regret a thing. We’ve got kids anyone would be proud of - I’m entirely secure in my parenting to say I wouldn’t have changed that at all.

But a restaurant where other people are trying to enjoy their meal isn't the time or place to 'train' them to be patient. As I said, my 7 year old will now wait. Whether that's a restaurant, queuing, waiting his turn. He's fine! But using screens when he was younger was easier for everyone.

You didn't train your toddler to sit and be patient, either they were naturally fairly placid and happy to sit still, or, like my child, they just learnt patience with age.

Personally I wouldn’t feel bad for a millisecond about the scenario.

My SIL said she was shamed when she was flying back from Australia and relied on iPads to entertain her three young kids at the airport. If ever there was a time it's when you have been up for almost 24 hours with kids who have been strapped in and then herded around an airport and are tired and bored but you have to sit and wait.
iPads weren't a thing for my kids (born in early 2000s) and no phones til secondary. I knew during those early years that eating out meant going early and not lingering - that's just the way it was. They were very well behaved but there is a limit.
I wouldn't think anything if I saw a kid on their iPad at a restaurant- not during the actual meal though. Afterwards if parents are enjoying coffee/dessert fine.

I disagree. I have teens. They were all perfectly capable as young children of sitting nicely at the table without screens to entertain them. It's bad table manners for a start.
Yes, the parents have to interact with them to keep them occupied but that's what happens when you have young children to parent. Whilst waiting for food to arrive we coloured together, played Uno / Dobble, did drawings etc.
Once the meal is finished, we left quite quickly before they got bored and my DH and I enjoyed a drink together once the kids were in bed.

I don’t think it’s lazy parenting. I have nieces and nephews who are amazing parents but they do automatically reach for the tablet when we are out for family meals. I think they just do that because it’s what a lot of others do and perhaps aren’t familiar with the research that shows how damaging screens can be.

Also disagree with screens at tables. Just gives the wrong message to kids. It's deeply antisocial and doesn't teach them that they need to converse, engage and interact with the world around them. It's also just lazy. And rude. So yes, I would silently judge.

I have three kids, late primary/early secondary. I know it's not easy...but that's life. We have the screen battle daily. But they know they will never win at the table. That's a time to talk.

I'm also a teacher and can spot the kids that have been brought up on screens a mile away as they have less social awareness, skills, manners and emotional intelligence.

But you are still just entertaining them in a way that falls short of sitting up and conversing quietly. I realise not all young dc will be capable of that but if I’m completely honest, I’d rather the guests at table beside us had their children on an iPad with headphones than had a game of dobble going on.

We are not huge users of iPads but our dc have either been either quiet ( happy just to doodle with a pencil) or young to join in the conversation appropriately. But I realise we have been fortunate in that regard and I think it’s silly denigrating a screen just because it’s a screen. There’s quite a lot of this attitude on MN. If you’re having to play card games it would be much more considerate to others to give them a screen. Do your training and non screen time in private.

@Calliopespa The key difference here is that we're interacting with our kids rather than letting tech babysit them. Obviously we wouldn't play a card game in a quiet restaurant and we kept the noise under control, but in somewhere like a Pizza Express where the background noise is significantly louder than a family of 4 playing a card game together I don't think it's an issue. We tended to colour and draw more than play cards anyway.
Once the kids were a bit older of course we expected them to sit and engage in conversation but when they're little, it's unrealistic to expect them to just chat away for ages whilst waiting and colouring / card games helped distract them for a few minutes until the food arrived.

There are many hours in the day to interact with your children, they won’t be miss out from being allowed to zone out in a restaurant for half an hour every now and again.

Personally it's a no for me.

Electronic dummy / babysitter.

Judging by MN, families go to restaurants a hell of a lot more than they ever used to, so if it's more of a routine thing, I can totally understand the kids sometimes occupying themselves quietly on a tablet, in the same way I would sometimes read my book at the table at home.

I grew up in the 90s in a pretty comfortable middle-class family, probably not that different to the stereotypical MN family set-up, but we only went to restaurants maybe a few times a year. Even on holiday, we were usually camping and generally ate at the campsite. Cafés at supermarkets/garden centres/shopping centres/attractions were more frequent, probably a couple of times a month. It was a bit more of a novelty for me, and it probably felt like less of a nuisance having to behave myself for something that didn't happen very often.

You can still interact with children when they are on the iPad.

It’s no different to colouring, especially since a child can sit there colouring with no interaction too.

I think so too. Colouring is fine provided it isn’t accompanied by loud questions about “ what colour do I do the train? Muuuum there isn’t a skin colour crayon”; and if it’s Pizza Express you could probably get away with a quiet game of cards as it’s a family restaurant. But another aspect of good parenting besides interacting is teaching dc that the whole restaurant doesn’t need to revolve around them being parented to within an inch of everyone else’s tolerance because they are too precious to ever be exposed to 🧟‍♀️😱 a screen.

Absolutely genius thing to do! No way would i think it’s anything else 😂