What are your favorite kid-friendly restaurant distractions?

I always keep crayons and paper and a coloring book in the diaper bag along with a mini puzzle pack.

Today, of course, Jodi wanted nothing to do w/ any of them. lol (She was really hungry, lol, and then wanted to watch everyone else at the table behind us.)

My personal pet peeve is the parents who let their kids run around in the restaurants screaming and unsupervised....

What do you do to entertain your kids in restaurants?

I'm not at the point where I have to entertain yet. DD gets entertained by the people around her. We took her out today with us for a Mother's Day brunch and I swear she almost didn't want to eat because of all the people that she saw.

I'm sure it will come to the point though where I will evemtually have to entertain her.

Cooper can pretty well entertain himself now (4) by coloring w/ the paper and crayons that the restaurants normally provide. Elizabeth is a little more difficult (19m). We will ask for crackers for her to eat, I usually have some kind of noise making toy in my bag and in desperate situations I will pull out my cell phone and let her play (eat) with that. You can't imagine what it looks like!

quote:

Originally posted by Elizabeth Guth(Ocalamom Host):
What are your favorite kid-friendly restaurant distractions?

I always keep crayons and paper and a coloring book in the diaper bag along with a mini puzzle pack.

Today, of course, Jodi wanted nothing to do w/ any of them. lol (She was really hungry, lol, and then wanted to watch everyone else at the table behind us.)

My personal pet peeve is the parents who let their kids run around in the restaurants screaming and unsupervised....

What do you do to entertain your kids in restaurants?

Well this general topic is definitely one that needs to be discussed. My husband and I are the type of parents that if we went somewhere our children went with us. We were blessed to only have my family live locally nearby but we did not have our kids to give away to the grandparents to raise. So we did not dump our kids on my family because we wanted to go out. We learned to take our children with us and learned how to do deal with them in public places so that they did not bother the others around us. Because we did this we have had many people compliment us on our children and their behavior. One such time was while we were on vacation in Mississippi, a gentleman at another table paid for our meal and we did not know a thing about it until it was time to leave and pay. We were told by the waitress that the gentleman decided to pay us the compliment because while he watched us interact with one another it brought back memories of his own family that he was away from. So it proves that you are always being watched by somebody. To this day as my kids are now in their late teenage years and early adult lives, they are much different than the average young people you see in public in the ways that they behave in public. So hang in there young parents because all the efforts you make do pay off later on in life!

I agree -- Jodi is my shadow everywhere I go!

I have to agree with Craftee65. If you expect certain behavior from the very beginning, I believe that you get it. Of course there are times in every child's upbringing, where it doesn't go exactly as planned, but my children have always behaved in public, as they knew that anything else would not be tolerated. We receive compliments all the time and I never tire of hearing it. If everyone just took the time to teach polite, public behavior, the world would be a much nicer place. Is that old fashioned? Maybe - but I don't care. There is no excuse for rude, unsupervised children running around any public place.
Ok, I'll step down off my soapbox now.

My kids are normally VERY good!!! We get lots of compliments from people. Not to mention even our friends love our kids because of the way they act. They have those HORRIBLE days that you wonder if they just woke up in the mood to drive you CRAZY.

There are 2 things that I cannot stand 1. Is a kid(s) who is running crazy, being loud, talking nasty, etc. You have to wonder what kind of people they are to just sit through it while they order the bar drinks THAT DRIVES ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2. The people who get into your business because you are dealing with a child who no matter what is in OVERDRIVE to drive you crazy and wondering how long the trip will take............LOL

Hello there! This is one topic that I as well can totally relate to! It feels so good when strangers tell you that youre kids are so well behaved!! I have actually been with friends to restaurants and they let their kids act wild, its pretty embarrassing and you worry that your kids will pick up from them..Well we dont have to worry about that because we stopped going out with them but man...how can people let their kids run the roost? Anyway Its nice to see so many parents on here have kids who behave well and of course time to time they have cranky days but not everytime LOL. Arent kids just great!?!