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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I let my kids play ipad before the food arrives, then we convert to eating and family conversation. My rule is that the ipad can't be louder than the voices we can here at the next table (meaning, the ipad sound must be quieter to the other table than their voices are to us). Seriously, so many restaurants in DC are so freakin loud. 40 year old Karens who never got married HAW HAW HAWING as loud as they can to attract attention. Frat bruhs bruhing with their 8 bruhs in the bar 8 feet away from the dining tables. A child on an ipad is not the biggest disruption in DC dining.[/quote]

Your point is taken IMO, but:

1) A child not being the[i] biggest[/i] distraction doesn't mean they're not a distraction and

2) If you let your kids play iPad, then it sounds like you planned to bring it, in which case, bringing headphones seems like a reasonable ask, and good etiquette to model for your kids. I won't get into the etiquette of bringing an iPad in the first place, and I do understand some kids have sensory issues that preclude headphones, but just saying.

This does bring up another question, though-- assuming typically-developing kids, if you (general you) allow devices without headphones in public, [b]when do you stop allowing it? [/b]Presumably you're not generally okay with teens and adults using them without headphones?

I feel a lot of people are saying their kids are too little to use headphones or whatever, but when does it end, in your experience? Or is this all such relatively new technology that this generation will simply continue not to use headphones into adulthood?[/quote]

My feeling is that it's weirder to have headphones on at a table. You're disconnected from the environment around you. As a parent, I can still talk to my child while they're on their ipad. So, I only see headphones worsening the problem. If the iPad is less loud than the next table then I don't see how it's contributing to a negative sound environment in any way.[/quote]

That's... an interesting perspective, and I mean that sincerely. I may just be coming at this from the POV that bringing your TV into a public place (public TVs notwithstanding!) is already "weird" and arguably impolite to your fellow diners. Talking to your child while they're on an iPad in a restaurant... IDK. I'm not being judgy here, it's just... I don't find that [i]less[/i] weird or less rude than headphones. Kind of like... you are already intending to occupy their attention with an electronic device so it seems a bit artificial to avoid the visual confirmation of that fact. I mean, even if you don't think the sound is distracting, you're saying you'd rather other people be subjected to the sound than have to see your kid wearing headphones (and you have to get your child's attention in a non-verbal way, I guess).

In order to... what? Like, why is it "weird" for a kid to have headphones on in a restaurant? Because it calls attention to the fact that you are giving them a device? Which you are? I feel like that ship has sailed, though I'm willing to hear your perspective, if that's not why it seems "weird" to you. [/quote]

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