Last weekend one of my friends coordinated a birthday brunch for her husband and all of our friends, including the kiddies. My friends believe that you need to get kids used to the idea of going to restaurants and training them to behave at the table — and the younger they are, the better it is to train them in their opinion. Agreed, parents should expose their kids to these types of settings early in their lives in an effort to help them with their socialization skills. If only, right?! Kids are kids and water will be spilled, silverware will be dropped and banged on the table, crying outbursts will happen, running and chasing will also be part of the menu. Needless to say, not my idea of a good time, so our strategy in those situations is to generally leave the kids with a sitter while we go and enjoy a meal with our friends.
When my husband and I go out to restaurants we like to sit peacefully and enjoy our meal and a glass (or two) of wine and that’s hard to do with a toddler and a baby in tow. Just not my thing. So for this occasion and a few others before, we opted to go out sans kids. While we do enjoy taking our kiddies out to restaurants, and they actually behave pretty well, we don’t always see the need to inject them into such scenarios and feel they will enjoy themselves more at this age by doing more kid-friendly activities. What would you do in this situation? Would you feel guilty about leaving your kids with a sitter while your friends bring their kids along? Tweet me your thoughts at @yeseniaalmonte.
Eating out with kids — a do or a don’t?
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