School - Psychology: Ask Dr. Wayne

How to take your child to a restaurant
by Wayne C. Piersel, Ph.D.

Video transcribed:

Let's talk about you can go to a restaurant, with your spouse, your children - one, two or three children, and hopefully survive, and actually enjoy it. By the way, there are two answers on how to do this. The first one is easy - don't do it. The second one we're going to talk about is how to do this, and again hopefully be successful.

We're going to call it planned activity training, or PAT, for short. You already do this; you probably do it fairly informally. When you go some place with your children, you kind of think of what you're going to do. You make in your own mind, an informal plan of what you're going to do if something happens, you probably even have some vague goals. I want this to be much more detailed. Let's step through it now.

You're going to go to a restaurant, let's say with your spouse and three children (it could be more or less obviously). What you're going to do is sit down, before you leave, and make a plan; hopefully in writing. Where you're going, how long its going to take, what are the major hurdles (I call them speed bumps actually), like waiting to get a table, ordering, waiting for your meal, expecting your kids to sit in the chair, quietly without squirming, getting up, climbing, fighting, complaining. You're going to think about what you're going to do if certain things happen; a speed bump happens, a tantrum occurs, you're going to be thinking about "what's in it for the kids". What's in it for you is to go out to a restaurant and have a meal or a cup of coffee, and not have to cook and just relax (the relax part might not happen).

What's in it for your kids? They don't think long-term. So we need to have something called a reinforcer for this. Something they get out of it along the way. So here's how it goes. You develop the plan. You carefully think about what you're going to do, how long it's going to take, and the different hurdles. You've got to get in the car, you've got to get to the parking lot, go from the parking lot to the restaurant, let the server or maitre-d know you're there, wait to get your table, and have it all thought out, you've got to plan. Here's the key. We're going to tell the kids about this. I don't expect your kids to remember the whole thing. You're going to talk it through before you leave the house. As you're on the way to the restaurant, and get to the parking lot, you're going to repeat just a small part.

"Now, remember kids, when we stop the car, daddy and mommy will open the door and get you out of the back seat."

As you pull in, you're going to have them, at their own level, repeat this. You son will say "yeah, I gotta wait till dad comes." That's okay, its in his (your child's) words. What you want your children doing is thinking about the immediacy and what they need to do. I'm not talking about what you don't want them to do. It's what they need to do. Obviously as they go along, there's going to be one other thing, you're going to keep talking about what they're working for. For my own son, it was the dessert. Kid's meals have a dessert. We call it a reinforcer in psychology. You want to keep mentioning this, as you go through this plan.

Now we're to the parking lot, you've mentioned to your son or daughter, "Remember now, if you follow all our rules, what are we working for?" Let them say "dessert", or whatever it is. It could be a hot-wheel for your son, it might be stickers for your daughter, in addition to the dessert." Repeat to them, "you need to remember until mommy and daddy do what?" They can say "get out of the car and take our hand," using their own words.

You walk into the restaurant, you let the person know you're there.

"We've got to wait."

You've also in your plan, included things to occupy them, because kids don't wait. I don't wait. Nothing that can be strewn across the room, nothing with thousands of pieces, just so we have something to occupy them. Also, if I get a little ansy as your son, remind me what I'm working for. I'm working for my dessert, or the hot wheel. What we want here is the child thinking about what's in it for him to do this. It's not fun to wait. It's not fun to miss your cartoons. We don't want him to get distracted and thinking about running around. Once he gets distracted and gets off on another line of thinking, bringing him back is going to be difficult. Or bringing your daughter back from distraction. So we're actually using the plan to distract them onto our plan. That's why we hold out that reinforcer; that dessert, that hot wheel, those stickers.

As we get to the table, we're going to order drinks right away. Remind them that straws come out of the glass; the straws go away. Remind them that if they get out of their chair, they get one warning, the second time they go to the car for a time out. That could be in your plan by the way (a parking lot time out). The rest of the family stays there. All along you're using this plan for the activity to help your children get through it. And if you follow this, pointing out as we go through the evening, what they're working for. Remember, you're working for the coffee and the chance to relax, right? They're not working for coffee and a chance to relax; they're working for the hot wheel, the sticker, the dessert, or whatever else you have built into your plan. Now why do you write it? If you write it (the plan) you'll see the holes in it, number one. If you write it down, the next time you go to a similar restaurant or activity, you won't have to re-invent the wheel.

Remember. Its simple, its basic, its structured. We have stated the rules clearly. We have built into it the reinforcer, and the consequence. and we use those to keep our kids on track.