There’s nothing I love more than occasionally eating out, for a while our family had to avoid doing so. We found it such a chore to try and get all three kids settled and happy out in public waiting for a meal.
We always found ourselves holding our breath and crossing our fingers it would go well. It was not exactly relaxing. We often had to ask for our food to go because our kids were acting out which was kind of embarrassing.
After reaching out to other moms on the Parents’ Voice Committee I found many awesome tips on how to survive dining out with your kids. With these in mind, we’ve started exploring dining out with the kiddos more. Hopefully some help you out as well!
1. When choosing a restaurant, choose wisely. Choose somewhere that has a child-friendly atmosphere where some noise from your little ones will be welcomed and not bothersome. Also, think of a restaurant that delivers the food in a timely fashion. Consider the children’s menu before you choose a restaurant so that you’re sure to find something that your child will like as well as something you’re willing to feed them. It might be wise to choose fancier restaurants once your children are more experienced at dining out.

2. Next, pick the right time to go out to dinner. Go before they’re tired and hangry (hungry/angry). It’s wise to either pack little snacks (like cheerios or fruit, yogurt drinks) or give them a snack before you leave home if you aren’t going to order a quick appetizer or choose a restaurant that has something to snack on at the table while you wait.
3. Now how do we entertain them? So many choices. Sometimes restaurants provide activities for kids but they can be too advanced for younger kids, or boring to others. You need to arrive prepared. I recently experienced a restaurant that provided the kids with a little ball of dough when we sat down at the table. Seriously, this was our best restaurant experience ever.
We were there for almost two hours without having to get up and walk around once. Little ball of dough, big deal right? Big deal. It was awesome. The kids had a blast rolling it and playing with it the whole time. No other restaurant offers this, but a close second would be Playdough. Playdough is easily portable and makes only a little bit of mess (the pre-packaged playdough already comes in smaller quantities perfect for this. You can buy the really small containers at Halloween.
Lots of restaurants provide colouring or you can bring your own (having a notepad and pencil case is very handy), any kind of toy that can be played at the table (card games), electronics (ebooks, ipads, iphones), toys/games that only come out at special occasions are also key for this type of outing.
This is also a great time to play engaging games with them such as I spy, take turns discussing your day or other topics you haven’t had a chance to discuss. Another hit is I spy type books, crosswords books, hang mans and tic-tac-toe. These are easy to tote and can help pass the time quickly!
4. Restaurant outings are a great opportunity to teach your children manners when they are eating somewhere other than home. You can teach them how to order their own drink and meal from the server and ensure they are polite by using manners. It’s also a great time to discuss being kind in case they don’t like the taste of the meal they get
Another neat idea was to meal share, everyone order different things and share it amongst family members! This way you get to sample various choices off the menu.
5. One of the best tips I think is, ask for the bill to come at the same time as your food. That way you can make a quick exit if things start to go south.
Hopefully these tips are some help to you on your next dinner outing!
We would like to send out a quick thank you to Joanne’s Valu-mart for hosting the Parents’ Voice Fundraiser this past week. We enjoyed bagging groceries while accumulating funds for the shade sail project for Mill Dam Park. We really appreciate the support from the whole community with this endearvor. Thank you so much.