Dining out with the little darlings

Harriet Baskas Travel writer

Have you had “the talk” with your kids?

Not the one about the birds and the bees — the one where you tell your kids exactly how you expect them to behave in a restaurant.

Make the ground rules clear (“there will be no loud burping, belching or yelling and no kicking your baby brother under the table ...”) and that restaurant meal across town or across country can be a fun, memorable adventure for the whole family.

Skip “the talk” and the kid-tested tips below, though, and you risk ruining not just your family’s meal but the dining experience of those around you.

You might even end up being forever known as “that family whose three-year-old bit the waiter and made the Maitre d’ cry.”

Many parents try to lay down the law mid-meal amid toppled water glasses, upended soup bowls and disapproving looks from other diners. But Leo MacLeod of Portland, Ore., says he learned early on that it’s too late to discuss manners once the family is seated at the table in a restaurant. When his kids were young he’d give them “the talk” in the car before bringing them into a restaurant. “This avoids embarrassing them in a public place by chastising them. That wouldn’t be respectful of the kids.”

“A good approach,” says Susan Huston. She holds etiquette classes for adults and children in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas and says the goal of “the talk’ is not to scold but to “explain to children that when they are in a restaurant there are many other people around them who wish to talk, eat and enjoy their dinner.” It also lets kids know that “they will be expected to behave, follow a parent’s requests and instructions and put on their best manners.”

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Ideally, says Huston, kids have learned those best manners at home during regular family meals and perhaps during a few “pretend” restaurant meals with practice menus, a few unfamiliar foods and a table set with “better dishes and more forks, knives, and glasses etc. ...”

What else works? Try some of these road-tested tips for dining with little darlings:

Don’t skip “the talk.” Meals at your house might be raucous events where everyone talks at once and is allowed to reach across the table. But even in kid-friendly restaurants, young diners should be reminded — before they step through the door — that eating out is a special occasion worthy of “inside voices” and extra good behavior.

Do your homework. Don’t torture a hungry kid by making them sit in a stuffy, white-tablecloth restaurant with nothing to do while the adults sip cocktails and chat away about work, politics and that scandalous affair the neighbor thinks no one knows about. Find family-friendly restaurants that have kids’ menus, highchairs, crayons and coloring books and a wait staff that clearly love kids and is incredibly patient. Word spreads fast about the kid-friendliest spots in town. When your family is on the road, seek guidance from a hotel desk clerk or concierge, other families or the folks at the local Visitors and Convention Bureau hotline. And don’t be shy about just stopping by to “visit” a restaurant before making a commitment.

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