Taking Your Child Out

5 Tips for Taking Children Out

When taking your young children out, it is important to prepare them ahead of time.

Tip 1: Parents need to be in agreement with each other concerning the behaviour expected and rules that will apply when junior is taken out.

Tip 2: Have a special bag of interesting (different) things when visiting a restaurant or coffee shop.

Tip 3: It’s important to prepare your children for the outing. Give them a “heads up” in advance. For example say “In 10 minutes, we are going to…” or “In 5 minutes, we need to have our shoes and jacket on”.

If going to the park, say… “We are going to the park… remember…

“At the park there will be other children. You will need to take turns”

Or, if going out to dinner…

“We are going out to dinner… just a reminder that …

we sit on our bottoms etc

we use our quiet voice when talking

we remember our manners… say please and thank you”

Tip 4: If you start early, preparing your children for the outing, they will remember the rules. And always remember, to avoid upsets, consistency is key. Rules that apply at home apply out as well.

Child eating

At meal times, encourage your children to sit on chairs properly, keep mouth closed when chewing, talk quietly. Consistently applying such behaviour expectations at home will make it so much easier to apply them when taking the child out.  If children are respectful at home, they are much more likely to be respectful when out.

The same procedure can also apply to visiting friends or family and enjoying a meal together.

Tip 5: When it is time to get ready for an outing give your children warning and allow them adequate time to finish what they are playing at and allow sufficient time for them to get ready.

It’s a great thing to be able to take your children out for dinner and be confident that they will know how to behave. It makes going out much more of a special occasion, and the event will be much more enjoyable for everyone.

So, adequate preparation is key.

Remember, we as adults like pre-warnings and so do children.

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