[scaryclam]

I've seen exactly this with some friends and their kids. If they're at a more adult place to eat the kids are allowed to watch cartoons so they don't get bored and start wanting to leave before the meal's even started. The rest of the time they're limited in their screen time, read books with their parents and go out to all sorts of fun places like nature parks etc.

It's lazy to judge parents just because you see a 30 minute slice of their day

[elteto]

We improved this by always carrying color pens and a minimal playdoh set (couple of colors and tools). First they paint, then they do playdoh, and then, if the meal isn’t over they watch cartoons.

We have almost completely eliminated devices with this tactic because by the time they are done with those two the meal is almost over. And if it isn’t then we also sometimes tell them that they must just wait or engage in conversation with us.

We are lucky that they like painting and playing with playdoh, though.

[csense]

When I was a kid, we carried a game system to restaurants and we usually played while waiting for the meal to arrive.

The game system was a notepad and pen. The game selection included Hangman, Tic-Tac-Toe, and dots-and-boxes.

[subsaharancoder]

We made the mistake of letting our first born watch Mother goose club on the tablet during meals, the upside is she always at her food but then we realized that absent the tablet she would throw a tantrum and refuse to eat and if we left the house and didn't have the tablet that was another mess. We made the decision to get rid of the tablet as well as any electronic stimuli during meals, food time is food time with conversation. We invested in books, playdoh, puzzles, crafts, bug catching kit etc and 2 kids later we have no complaints.