I was in a restaurant recently and there was a family there with their kids and it was a complete mess! One kid was screaming and throwing food all over the floor, the other kid was crying, the Dad was shooting daggers at the Mom and the Mom was near tears.
Instead of taking the kids out to handle the situation the family stayed there and made everyone else as miserable as they were. It was so bad that I was hoping that Management would come and ask them to leave.
I am a firm believer in taking kids out to eat at an early age and teaching them how to behave in public but there are certain rules that I always followed. We used to take Allison practically everywhere we went and I taught her early on what was acceptable behavior and what was not.
We would talk about using your inside voice and about saying please and thank you. At the tender age of 3 or 4 Allison was ordering her own food and drink and did not require the use of a booster seat or a kids menu.
It was so funny because sometimes she would order her food and the Wait Staff would look at me for approval only to have me say, “did you get her order correctly?”
While we waited for our meal to arrive we would talk or we would color; anything to keep her occupied. We also used to take her to organized dinners and I would see people looking like oh no. Only to have them come up to me at the end of the evening to tell me how well behaved she was.
You see I believe that exposure is the best teaching tool there is so I chose to expose Allison to the finer things in life at an early age. Sure, there were times when we would have to slip away to the ladies room to have a “chat” but those times were few and far in between.
My daughter loved putting on her pretty clothes and going out with Mommy and Daddy so she was generally on her best behavior. I would also give her a special treat for behaving properly because I believe in rewarding good behavior.
Talk to your kids about what is acceptable and what is not. Teach your kids that there are consequences to actions and take them out to put these tools to the test.
Look at it this way if you never expose your kids to eating out or other outings how are they going to learn the appropriate behavior?
