Reply to If you prop up an iPhone in front of your toddler at cava, I’m judging the heck out of you.

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Reply to "If you prop up an iPhone in front of your toddler at cava, I’m judging the heck out of you."

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't necessarily judge parents for giving their kids screens in public unless they do it with sound and no headphones. That one makes me mad because it's so rude.

But I agree with the posters who think it's just a bad social habit and is contributing to a culture where kids grow up not knowing how to function in common social settings without a screen.

It's easy to look at the parents with the toddler and think "I"m sure they just need a break, I get it." But when you are also seeing families with tweens and teens all the time and the kids are on phones and tablets and not interacting with their parents or siblings (or the wait staff or anyone else in their orbit) at all, it's depressing. [b]By 10 or 11[/b], kids should be able to order politely at a restaurant, and have pleasant conversation with the family. Even if the conversation isn't exactly to their liking, they should be able to tolerate it and not need a distraction for the duration of the meal. But how will they ever get there if they always get screens when out at a restaurant? It appears to me that a lot of kids are not learning this skill and it's leading to a very checked out, lonely generation of people who have limited social skills and don't know how to function in public. It's concerning.

I'm willing to put up with some disruptive little kids in family restaurants to avoid that. It's Cava, not the Four Seasons. If your kid is a little annoying, it's okay. I know you're doing your best and your kid will learn.[/quote]

5 or 6.[/quote]

I think 5 or 6 is too young to expect ALL children to be able to order and quietly converse with parents. Kindergarteners have a large range of attention spans and comfort with adults who are not their parent or regular teacher/caregiver.

My own kid, who never got screens in restaurants, struggled with ordering her own food until she was about 9. She was/is shy and while she was capable of deciding what she wanted, she'd get shy when the waiter appeared and ask me to order for her. We gently encouraged but didn't push, and now she's very good at this as a tween.

I also have zero issues with a 5 or 6 year old coloring or looking at a book while at a restaurant. The nice thing about these activities is that you can dip in and out of them more easily, so it's an easy thing for a younger child to do while waiting for food, when conversing with adults or older kids at the table might just be too much for them. Again, when my kid was this age we would often bring a pad of paper and some gel pens and sometimes my kid would draw on their own, and other times we'd use the paper to play games as a family. Like a favorite was to fold a piece of paper in half and one person would draw the top half of something and then flip it over and someone else would draw the bottom half without looking at the top, and then we'd open it up to see what they'd frankensteined together. This is an easy, fun game to play with a kid this age to keep them engaged (or distracted from hunger) but that doesn't make it impossible for the adults to enjoy themselves.

I wish more people would realize that it IS possible to engage with kids in public places without it being a miserable experience for you. You just need some more activities and skills. If you expect your kids to complain and annoy you at all times, you will miss out on opportunities for them to actually be fun, engaging dining companions.[/quote]

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