Should kids have iPads at restaurants?

This is a judgment-free zone.

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Summary for busy sapiens

• Research suggests benefits to family meals, like family connection, healthier eating, and opportunities for meaningful interactions. 

• Devices (like iPads and phones) can get in the way.

• Should your give your child a device at every meal? No. But there’s no evidence that children’s occasional use of devices at meals will cause harm.

• In making decisions about this, consider the frequency with which you eat out, other opportunities for interaction with your child, and (most importantly) your own preferences.

• Note: If you’re looking for a deep dive into the research on this issue, read on! If you’re just looking for tips and considerations, scroll to the end.

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11 min read

The first indications that brunch was a mistake are immediately apparent when I arrive at the restaurant. As I walk through the front door, my son balanced on my hip, an overflowing diaper bag slung across my arm, I’m greeted by the sounds of pulsing, electronic music. The hostess is wearing a crop top and oversized wire-frame glasses. A table to the right is drinking espresso martinis. Oh no, I think.

I’m meeting an acquaintance for the first time. She does not have kids. My husband is out of town for the weekend, so I’m alone with the baby¹. We sit down at a table overcrowded with highly breakable tableware. Do you have high chairs? I sheepishly ask the waiter. 

We’re barely twenty minutes in when the many poor decisions I’ve made that morning come into focus. A toy car is careening into a neighboring foursome’s high-heeled feet. Sticky PB&J remnants cover the table, floor, and crevices between my son’s fingers. I’ve worn a white shirt. It is smeared with avocado. I’ve given up on the high chair, instead holding my son in my lap. He screams and tries to noodle his body onto the crumb-littered floor. 

So, what do you do? My brunch partner asks². I’m a psychologist. I study technology and, uh, parenting, so I—oh no, wait, don’t touch that! I frantically grab a table knife out of my son’s hands, then fish through my bag for a distraction, only to discover I’ve run out of snacks—so I…sorry, what was I saying? 

I wipe a thin layer of sweat from my forehead and look around. I’m convinced that all the other restaurant’s patrons—trendy, childless, nibbling on Himalayan sea salt flaked avocado toast—are staring directly at me. I’m sorry, did you say you study parenting?! They say with their eyes. I can feel their judgment seeping into my pores and surfacing all my insecurities. A better parent than me would never be in this situation. 

As my son wiggles through the gap between my arm and leg, his jelly-stained shirt bunching up around his armpits, and lets out a shriek, I’m struck with a thought: Would this have all been easier if I’d brought along an iPad?

An iPad? At a restaurant? *Gasp*

And so brings us to this week’s topic: Should you let your child use a tablet (or phone) at restaurants?³ We’ll focus on young children (ages 1-6, or so), since the considerations may change as kids get older.

When my son was creating a scene at the restaurant, I felt the sting of other people’s eyes on me. But judgment, it seems, is not limited to chaotic public toddler behavior. It also extends to the choices we make to reign in that behavior—specifically, whether we choose to give our young kids devices at the table. 

Here, for example, is a brief sampling of what The Internet⁴ has to say about giving kids devices at restaurants:

• A CNN parenting column: “I try to be restrained in my judgments of other parents…But I find it hard to maintain this objectivity in one specific area: When I see parents in restaurants with their kid(s) zoned out on an iPad or phone, I start to get judgy.”

• A Washingtonian column: “If You’re Going to Give Your Kids an iPad at Dinners Out, Don’t Bring Them to Restaurants at All”

• A Family Education article: “It’s Time to Ditch the iPads When Dining Out”

• A scary Reddit person: “That’s the laziest parenting opinion i’ve ever seen. parent your kids and keep them quiet at the restaurant without plugging them into a screen. if you can’t do that, you’re a sh**** parent.”

Okay! Okay. Everybody calm down. Let’s go ahead and sidestep the advice columns and resident Internet bullies, and, instead, approach this question with logic—a good, old-fashioned combination of research data and common sense.

What are people so judgy–er, worried–about?

Let’s set the stage. Generally, there are a few areas of concern that come up when we discuss (i.e., yell at each other about) kids’ use of devices at restaurants:

• Regulation Skills. With constant entertainment available via a device, there is concern that children will never learn to keep themselves occupied in public settings. They’ll learn that they can always rely on Bluey to keep them busy, never developing important skills like how to regulate their emotions (i.e., frustration, impatience, boredom) and behaviors. They’ll never experience the stroke of creative inspiration required to crumple their straw wrappers into tiny basketballs and shoot them into their sibling’s milk.

• Family Communication. Burying their heads in devices, children will not engage in conversation with their families. They won’t experience the rich, back-and-forth interactions with their parents that are so crucial to development. Family relationships will suffer via missed opportunities for communication and connection.

• Unhealthy Eating. In certain circles (*cough* academia *cough*), we tend to hear concerns about device use during meals leading to poorer quality meals, including overeating and greater consumption of unhealthy foods. In fact, much of the research on this topic focuses on these issues.   

It is based on these concerns that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends device-free meals. But are these concerns founded in the data? 

Well, we’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news? There’s essentially no research directly addressing the question of young children’s tablet or phone use during restaurant meals. The good news, though, is that there are a few other strands of research that we can use to inform our answer.

Here’s what we know.

Family dinners are good.

For the past thirty years or so, researchers have been really into the concept of family meals (i.e., families eating meals together). Like, we’re talking thousands of studies on this topic. 

The supposed benefits are unlike anything else I’ve seen⁵: better family relationships, higher self-esteem, greater consumption of healthy foods, increased vocabulary, higher academic achievement, lowered risk of: obesity, depression, behavior problems, eating disorders, alcohol and drug use, teen pregnancy…and the list goes on. 

And there is some science to back up these claims. An oft-cited 2011 meta-analysis of 17 studies finds that children whose families share 3 or more meals together per week are more likely to be in a normal weight range and show healthier eating patterns. An updated 2018 meta-analysis also finds associations between more frequent family meals and children’s nutritional health. And another from 2020 finds that frequent family meals are associated with healthier eating, plus suggests associations with better family functioning (i.e., family connectedness).

If you, like me, are the type of person that likes digging into the methodology of social sciences research (and, I’d venture to guess that many techno sapiens are), you likely know there’s a big but to these meta-analyses. Here it is: they rely on observational, rather than experimental, studies, so it’s difficult to separate out the casual impact of family meals on these outcomes. The reason? The kinds of families who have meals together likely differ in many other, important ways from those who do not. So, is it the family meals that increase family connectedness? Or is it that the type of family who likes to eat meals together is already more likely to be connected?⁶

Even so, when we look at the basic research on child development, it’s hard to argue with the potential upsides of family meals for young kids. Decades of studies highlight the importance of high-quality parent-child interactions for everything from children’s language learning to self-regulation to healthy attachment. These high-quality interactions are often described as “serve and return”—a child “serves” the beginnings of an interaction (speaking, pointing, crying), and a parent “returns” the interaction by responding promptly, consistently, and appropriately. 

Eye contact, back-and-forth conversation, and responsiveness to our children’s bids for attention are often central to family mealtimes. When we’re busy, mealtimes can serve as an important—or even the only—time when we can engage in these meaningful interactions as a family.

The takeaway: Family meals are probably not quite a magical solution to all of society’s (and your family’s) ills. However, there are likely numerous benefits to eating meals together as a family, including great family connectedness, healthier eating, and opportunities for meaningful interactions between you and your child. 

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Devices (probably) get in the way.

Alright, so we’ve established that more frequent family meals are a good thing, though likely not the panacea that the Internet would have us believe.

So, what happens when devices come into the picture?

The majority of research in this area has examined the use of TV during meals, and much of it is focused on nutritional health-related outcomes (i.e., eating healthy foods). The best meta-analysis we have on the topic suggests that, when it comes to the quality of children’s diet, having the TV on during meals may “undo” some of family meals’ positive effects.⁷ Recent work examining the use of other devices during dinner similarly suggests associations with less healthy meals.

Research focusing on non-nutrition outcomes is sparse and, honestly, not very convincing. It’s mostly single, cross-sectional studies which suggest, for example, that more device use during meals is associated with lower “mealtime ritualization” (i.e., treating the family meal as an important routine in the home) and parents’ perceptions of family closeness (but for fathers, not mothers—not clear why this would be the case).

These studies suffer from the same limitations described above. The types of families who frequently use devices during dinner likely differ in other, important ways from those who do not. 

However, it is very hard to imagine that the use of devices would not get in the way of family interactions during mealtimes. When our kids are glued to an iPad, unless we’re actively watching or playing what’s on the screen with them, we’re generally not engaging with them. After all, that’s kind of the point of breaking out the iPad at a restaurant--our kids are blissfully distracted while we have a modicum of adult conversation and perhaps even a few uninterrupted bites of Kicked Up Chicken Milanese⁸.

And when we take a broader look at the research on children’s device use (not specific to mealtimes), that is generally what we find. Parent-child interactions seem to suffer when there are screens in the picture. This is true whether the person using the device is the kid or the parent (summary of this research here).

One good experimental study of 152 families, for example, found that when children’s shows were on TV during playtime, parent-child interactions decreased in both quantity and quality, compared to playtime with no TV. Why does this matter? Remember, those serve-and-return interactions are crucial to kids’ development, so the fact that devices might get in the way of them is important.

We also know from the research that it’s generally not a good idea to use devices to calm down our children when they’re upset. Specifically, these recent studies suggest that use of devices to regulate our kids’ negative emotions may actually result in them having more difficulty transitioning away from the device, more negative emotions, and greater risk for problematic media use.

So, if mealtimes, especially in public settings, are an important time to learn regulation skills in the face of frustration, boredom, and waiting forever for your french fries to arrive, it seems plausible that devices could interrupt that learning process. 

The takeaway: There is some evidence that use of devices during family meals is associated with less healthy eating, and a small amount of (not very convincing) evidence that it’s associated with worse family functioning. There is also evidence to suggest that parent-child interactions suffer when kids (and parents) are on devices, and that use of devices to calm our kids down may not always work in the long run. 

But there’s a lot we still don’t know.

As always, the research here only get us so far. We know that, in general, eating more frequent meals together as a family has benefits, and that devices can get in the way. 

But how often do these meals need to occur? Does every family meal need to be device-free? If we’re giving our kids many of the benefits of family meals in other contexts—tons of high quality interactions, lots of opportunities to learn self-regulation skills—does an occasional device during dinner really make a difference? What if it’s a special occasion? What if dinner’s our only chance to catch up with a friend? What if it’s been a very long day and we just want a few minutes to chat with our spouse, without a thrown soup spoon flying dangerously close to our faces?

And here, I think, is where we can use a little more common sense and a little less judgment.

Should your give your child a device at every meal? No. But will handing over the iPad at an occasional restaurant outing cause irreparable harm? Also, no. 

Where does that leave us?

We’re left where we often are as parents in the digital world—wading through the grey zone between shoulds and should nots, while everyone else seems to be looking on, somehow, with an infuriatingly clear idea of the right thing to do for our child. Ultimately, questions of whether, how often, and in what ways you might allow devices at restaurant meals come down to you, your child, and your family. Not to some CNN columnist, or some avocado toast-nibbling restaurant patrons, or some scary guy on Reddit. You.

So, if we start with the research evidence, add some common sense, and subtract others’ judgments, what do we end up with? 

Here are some things to consider:

• Frequency. How often are you eating out? If this is a regular occurrence for your family, it might be serving as important family time, and would be better without devices. If it’s only once in a while, this may be less relevant. At the same time, if you’re regularly eating at restaurants, you may want to give your child opportunities to practice the skills that come along with that experience, like tolerating boredom and frustration, and engaging in conversation. In many cases, it may make sense to have some restaurant meals be device-free, and others, if you choose, with the trusty iPad. 

• Other Activities. What is happening outside of your family restaurant meals? Is your child getting lots of high-quality interactions with family, opportunities to practice self-regulation, healthy meals? Consider the decision to provide a device at the restaurant in the context of the many other activities your child does throughout the day.

• Planning Ahead. Do you have a plan? It may be worth thinking through the decision in advance. If you decide not to use devices at a given restaurant outing, you may want to set yourself up for success by bringing along some other kid-friendly activities, ordering kids’ food early on in the meal, and thinking through how you will handle any Stage 5 Meltdowns. (Note: If you do end up handing over the device once in awhile, even if you planned not to, that is okay. Your child will be fine.) 

• Setting Expectations. Have you explained the plan to your child? If you sometimes give them the iPad at restaurants and sometimes don’t, without any explanation, you may inadvertently set yourself up for incessant begging (see: how to avoid inadvertent reinforcement). Instead, try creating a routine. Maybe, once a week, you have Special iPad Dinner Fridays (presumably you come up with a more creative name than I’m capable of), but all other meals are device-free. Or maybe you bring out the devices only after dessert is finished. Or maybe you do no devices at all at restaurants, and that’s your routine. Whatever it is, explain it to your child and stick with it as best you can. 

• Being a Role Model. We knew this one was coming, didn’t we? Ugh. It’s true, though. Research suggests that parents’ own use of devices can significantly interfere with parent-child interactions. Plus, it’s really difficult to enforce a no-devices-at-dinner policy when our child looks over to see a device in our hand. (See: tips for reducing phone use). 

• Your Preferences. Perhaps most importantly, consider what you want to do when it comes to your child and device use at restaurants. Think about your preferences and values. Think about your child’s strengths and needs. Think about what works for your family. 

There will always be people ready to judge—whether we choose to break out the iPad, or to let our screaming, device-less child smear avocado on our shirt. Let’s try our best to ignore them. 

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In case you missed it

• Should I be on my phone near my kid?

• Screen time for toddlers

1. He is actually 14 months old, so the Internet tells me he is a “taby” (toddler + baby).

2. I should note that my brunch partner was incredibly patient and understanding. Also, she was pregnant with her first child, and I fear that I may have scared her.

3. We’re focusing this question on restaurants because that is where much of the debate (and judgment) seems to be centered, though I, of course, recognize that not everyone is eating at restaurants regularly. Much of the research we talked about here could also apply to meals at home.

4. The Internet also has some suggestions for what you can do to entertain your kids at restaurants without devices. One suggestion I came across: bring a deck of cards. To be fair, this was probably directed at older kids, but I cannot fathom the chaos that would ensure if I handed my son a deck of cards in a restaurant. He’s already prone to grabbing all the menus and windshield-wiping them across the table, so cards would be next-level. Another suggestion from the Internet bloggers? Role play. The author notes: Your family might act like royalty or trolls or Disney characters throughout dinner. If you are a grown adult who is willing to have your entire family sit down at a restaurant, speak in British accents, and pretend to knight each other with butter knives, more power to you.

5. For more info on (and enthusiasm for) family dinners, check out www.thefamilydinnerproject.org.

6. One way around the limitations of these cross-sectional family meals studies would be randomized controlled trials (RCTs)—assign some families to eat meals together, some not to, and see what happens. We do have a version of this in the form of interventions that seek to increase the number of meals families eat together. The problem with these studies, though—as this review nicely lays out—is that the interventions also target other behaviors (e.g., educating families, encouraging them to exercise together, giving them vegetables every week), so we don’t know if changes in outcomes are due to the family meals or to changes in other behaviors.

7. It’s not exactly clear why having the TV on during meals would “undo” some of family meals’ positive effects on healthy eating. Researchers have proposed various reasons, none of which I find especially convincing. They include: exposure to unhealthy food advertisements (not sure whether it would matter that these happen during dinner); reduced parental modeling of healthy eating habits (i.e., kids are no longer paying attention to how much you seem to be enjoying your asparagus); and decreased sensitivity to internal fullness cues (I find it a bit hard to believe that, without TV, most children are taking slow, mindful bites of their chicken fingers).

8. I recognize “Kicked Up Chicken Milanese” is an extremely niche reference to one of my favorite local restaurants. But let me tell you: this milanese does NOT mess around. There’s chicken cutlet, of course, but there’s also burrata, pesto, and prosciutto (!), topped with an arugula salad, and served with side pasta. If you ever find yourself hungry and in Fairfield, CT, highly recommend.