To not take my 3 and 5 year olds to restaurants

[Meerkat6373]

We haven’t taken our 3 and 5 year old boys to a restaurant in months because it was a disaster last time. Constant messing around at the table, trying to get down, knocking stuff over by accident. Fair enough we tried to do it without tablets and took loads of books, stickers etc for the table but they just wouldn’t listen to a word we said. If we’d taken tablets maybe they’d have sat good as gold but I’m trying not to go down that route. Not for any judgey reasons but I’m concerned screen time actually makes their behaviour worse.
We took them to a pub yesterday and nothing has changed. I was actually mortified by how out of control they were, despite us trying a million strategies to get them to behave well. We’ve tried reward charts, sanctions, modelling behaviour, praise. Nothing works!

Pizza express at lunch time or early dinner is usually full of families.
if you’re not bothered about eating out then it doesn’t matter but if you’d like to just look for child friendly places.
Go early kids so kids aren’t tired or too hungry, go somewhere that’s quite quick service, go to a booth or a corner table so you feel less conspicuous, get the colouring books out or kids menu and crayons, simple games like that the dot boxes one, bribe with ice cream. Don’t use screens - it’s a hard habit to get out of.

Yeah my chap didn't really settle down until he was around 5. We go early so it will be quiet, try and opt for a place with a booth, no dessert if not behaving. It will get easier with time and practice.

We used to practice in greasy spoons. I have 2 girls and they were a nightmare so it is not a boy thing. Once they were so awful a woman congratulated us on telling them off (saying so many people don't nowadays) and I think she was being nice but I just thought she was joking.

In retrospect I'm not sure I'd bother until they were ready if I had the time again but as a sahm the constant drudgery of cooking and clearing up gets to you after a while and I was determined to eat something I hadn't cooked even if it was only egg and chips.

Same here. We only went to a cafe the other day and it was a disaster! I think we've given up eating out for a while!

I agree with you OP that screens are not the way to go. My son is 5 and has been going to cafes/restaurants since he was 2. We started off in very child friendly places. Places with quick service are also much better as it's the waiting from ordering to food arriving that can be hard. Yours maybe just aren't ready yet, they are still young and some kids aren't so comfortable in that kind of environment. With my son, I've never tolerated him getting out his chair/running around/shouting etc. - and made it clear that if he wasn't behaving we would leave Immediately. That approach worked for us but all children are different.

With my son, I've never tolerated him getting out his chair/running around/shouting etc. - and made it clear that if he wasn't behaving we would leave Immediately. That approach worked for us but all children are different.

The issue I always had with mine with that approach is that they generally didn't want to be in the restaurant in the first place so it wasn't really a good threat!

I did too

We went to a restaurant once in my whole childhood in the seventies and it was a nightmare, I hated it but that was mainly because restaurants did not really like kids back in the seventies. We weren't poor but my parents did not think it was worth the money or the hassle. Pubs were worse, I recall going once into a 'family room' that looked like a prison call. At least there are places to go now.

This is exactly what we’ve done - since the kids were born we’ve done fairly low key places (Wetherspoons, Brewers Fayre, Harvester etc) - places that wouldn’t have been our pick pre kids but where I don’t feel anxious if they need to be taken out. At 3.5 and 5 now we can take them to slightly nicer places and they’re well practiced in behaving (usually!) We’re not going to Michelin starred restaurants (not that we could afford them!) but can now be fairly confident that they’ll be behave with enough non-screen distractions in a ‘naice’ local pub or cafe.

Maybe try somewhere super quick - coffee and snack rather than lunch/dinner so attention spans don’t get exhausted?

Are their table manners crap at home? Or are they just feral in public?
Start somewhere child friendly and low pressured. Where there is a park or soft play that they can go to after if they behave well.
Also, make sure standards at home mirror those when you are out. Real cutlery, no tv, no getting down from the table.

I’m one of those people who carted her kid everywhere from the day she was born. I’m foreign, for context. I’m not going to sit here being holier than thou, but what difference does it make eating out, or eating at home? They still need to wait, use cutlery, make conversation, not make a mess, no playing at the table, use a napkin, don’t speak with food in the mouth etc.
I’d look at how they behave at mealtime at home and work on that. But I don’t agree with not taking them to eat out.

What are they like at home? The idea is to practice at home repeatedly.
Then take them out to a cafe for a quick bite. Practice that.
Then move on to a restaurant. And no starters, mains, and leave.
If they can use cutlery, sit at the table without screens at home, then you can slowly transition them to doing this outside the home.

Lots of good comments here. My additions:

• we have had good and bad experiences eating out, sometimes it’s unavoidable. Husband is more bothered & impatient than I am, and that causes 50% of the stress. If it doesn’t work for the adults, the kids will pick up on that, and act up more. So be mindful of that when deciding if it’s worth trying.
• Activities we found that worked: water colouring books, find it books, felt/velcro puzzles, etc.
• After ordering or between courses, taking the kids for a 5min walk outside or through the restaurant to look at pictures is good.
• We include the kids in conversation and play finding/spotting games, (find 5 red or 3 round things) etc. quietly counting wrong or being corrected is a great attention grabber/reset.
• Bringing raisins as pre/between course snacks helps too.
• bribery works too. Cake cake cake!

Ultimately if people (other than parents) want to see kids off screens, we need to accept kids will behave like kids, even in public. Find the places that have that ethos. I find if the restaurant staff are older they’re friendlier and more understanding than teens/ young adults.

My daughter is a dream to take out! Always has been, but I have another on the way and I know that there may be an every chance he’s not the same. Just do what’s right for you and the family. I did use screen time at the start now the tablet is collecting dust as she’s rather talk and colour and read or play with toys she’s 3.6 yrs old. It’s just one of them. I could never take her to a library from 1-2 as she wouldn’t sit down and read a book with me lol. There all different you’re doing nothing wrong xxx

@BuddhaAtSea for us, the difference was that the children were more excitable if we were out somewhere. Dinner at home wasn’t particularly exciting and there were routines in place- the meal was generally at the same time every day, they didn’t come to the table until the meal was ready and served and there weren’t loads of other people around/music playing etc. A restaurant was a lot more exciting and new for them. There are other people around, and you have to wait a while for your food to arrive. Or maybe the hand dryer in the loos is particularly fun and you want to keep going back to the loos to have another go with it. Or a customer over there has a dog or a baby that you would like to go and look at.

Plus at home they weren’t going to impact on anyone else if their voices/giggles got a bit too loud. Mine were great at home- lovely table manners.

The big difference is the waiting!

At home, I don't seat my kids at the table, wait for 10 mins, take a drinks order, wait 5 mins, bring them drinks, ask what they want to eat, wait 20 mins, bring it out to them.

They play until I say "kids, dinner is ready"

Now at 6 and 9 the sort of thing they occupy themselves with at home is quite restaurant compatible, card games, books etc, but at 3 what they wanted to do was build a train track etc..

How are they at home? Do you all eat together round the table. ? I’d practice at home first. And when you go out aim for places that’s are fairly quick seating/service first. Like a Toby carvery for example. Plan the outing, so maybe a group activity something like card games while waiting for food (you play too) and colouring after so you can chill a bit.

We wanted to eat out sometimes and so with my eldest (ADHD,ASD but at the time we just thought high energy and wild) we did use screens, he didn't sleep, he ate well, we like nice food, life was very busy with a child we didn't get know had asn. And a couple of episodes of being or later a mario game on his switch got us through. We obviously never went anywhere crazy fancy.

Later with my youngest she has never needed a screen to sit in a restaurant or cafe. Infact she loves everything about it to the extent that at 4 a cafe date with mum a d a trip to the book shop is her favourite day out.

All kids are different. At 7.5 my eldest now will sit at a table in a restaurant with a notebook and pens and write stories or journal or categorise Pokémon cards or just talk to his sister. He shifts about in his seat a bit and we have a screen for emergencies if we've a long wait for food.

It gets better us what I'm saying whether you use screens or not.

Did you engage them in a game, book, colouring-in at the table?

We would only take them to pub type places at that age but even that was only because we found a strategy that worked. We would take a ‘high value’ toy for each that they only had access to in such a situation. The best was a Thomas tank engine portable kit, where the case became half the track and you packed in extra track, trains etc into it. We had ‘special trains’ on rotation they only ever saw in that case and we would also cycle special extras such as the aquarium into the case. Butterflies that were silent but beautiful and hovered at most 20cm above the table. Stuff like that. The only issue we had was that they were all so busy playing with their special toy that they were never interested in eating, which was fine.

What happens at home for meals?

Ds was about 6 when we finally began to enjoy family meals out. Then his sister came along and we were back to square one again. We resolved to take them for meals out in the summer (beer gardens with play things) or places where they have a soft play. Dd was much easier to entertain with crayons, stickers, arty things but ds was never entertained by those things and preferred fiddling with cutlery, salt and pepper pots etc. And when there were two of them they just wound each other up incessantly. I'm afraid we did cave in to tablets when they were at their worst, though we preferred to knock the meals on the head altogether for a while. Ds was diagnosed with adhd last year, which explains a lot in hindsight! We sit down together as a family once a week now, both fine for short periods - ds is now a teenager, dd is 9. It does get easier, but some kids are just high energy and aren't satisfied with reading quietly or drawing etc however much you try. Their attention span and patience levels improve naturally with age in most cases.

Different kids are different.

Mine have gone to restaurants their whole life (we moved around a lot, so never had trusted baby-sitters). If it was an adult dinner (ie they were there because I didn't have childcare) then they had tablet and headphones (generally evening), if it was because we wanted to go out and eat, then they left their ipads behind and we hung out (generally lunch time). Although I hated places with crayons and the inevitable fight over whichever colour they both decided they wanted.

I was lucky that they were reasonable about this - I never had issues with them leaving the ipads behind, because my rule has always been that the moment there's fuss, I will start implementing harsher rules around ipad use. As long as we are all reasonable, I will be reasonable too.

This worked from a young age, but again, I suspect I was just lucky with mine - if I'd got my cousins kids, they're absolute whirlwinds and I don't think I'd have been successful.

As a mum to a 5 and 3 year old i completley sympthasize... 9 times out of 10 its a disaster ... i dont enjoy it because im on edge!
We have a local restaurant with a kids play corner and thats the only one i feel happy to take them to at the moment 🤣

At home, are they expected to sit at table and eat. Do you eat together and expect them to sit there for a suitable amount of time and eat and behave?? If not, then start there. It should help.