My Trick for Eating Out With Kids

We play this only in alphabetical order!

I have two children, ages 6 and 10. We have played “the animal guessing game” for years! When they take a bath and want company, in the car, on the back porch, at restaurants. It’s simple: one person thinks of an animal, and the other players ask questions (mostly yes or no, but sometimes a little more) to get down to the animal. Like 20 questions, but no limit. Does it fly? Do we see them in our neighborhood? Is it small? Furry? Etc. they LOVE it and ask to play nearly every day.

We love a game I don’t know the name of. One person is the judge and the rest are contestants. Each contestant chooses someone to compete for them and shares with the table (a celebrity, historical figure, animal, character from books or movies, even a family member but everyone at the table must know them). Next, the judge announces a competition (a race, game show, baking contest, ANYTHING). The contestants are chosen BEFORE knowing the competition. Then each contestant explains why theirs should win and the judge picks a winner. The winner gets to be the judge next. So fun.

Love this!

I have a big purse that the kids called the church bag. It has markers, colored pencils, activities books and plain paper. Art work for days!

An oldie but a goodie—my name is Alfred and I sell avocados (you can add in a city (Albuquerque) if your players are old enough to know a lot of locations). Always a fun way to go around the car or table.

Bookmarking this!! My one year old is a gem at restaurants but recently we went out (to an outdoor cafe at 11:30) for lunch and the restaurant took about an hour and a half to bring our food 🤦🏼‍♀️ Obviously our babe got whiny and the table next to us (with 5 pre teens!) kept shooting us dirty looks. It was awful and even though I knew deep down I shouldn’t be embarrassed, I wanted to run away without eating.

We like to take initials we see around us and make up funny phrases those initials could stand for. There’s a tire shop we always drive past called NTB. “Not these brains!” “Never trust banjos!” “Noodle the beans!”

We always called that one, “Johnny had a ball of string in his pocket” and we’d go around the car adding things to Johnny’s pocket. It worked from 2nd up to 5th grade pretty well and I often won even though I can’t brag about my memory at all. Nice to know I could beat the elementary schoolers.

I love playing “Teams”, which is basically competitive people watching.
The goal is just to build the best “fictional” team.
See someone you’d like on your team?
Announce it to the other players: “That cute baby/That lady with amazing style/That person who did a slamdunk, on my team!”
You can also add people to *other*players’ teams: “That rude customer is on YOUR team!” or “That kid seems like she could be your friend! She’s on your team”

Once started, the game never ends (teams never actually compete in anything). You can randomly add new team members at any moment, which is part of the fun.
A friend and I have been building our teams for years :)

We play what we call “The 5 Things”. One person lists 5 words (ex: blue, mermaid, cupcake, strong, buckel) and the other person has to come up with a story using those 5 words. Imaginations are great!

Our best family tip, with a nine and a seven year old, is BRACKETS. At this point we have printed blank brackets that we bring to the table and pick a topic – movies, snacks, best book characters, whatever. It’s enough structure and silliness for the kids but also fun as parents to hear their preferences and thought processes, and the winners can be surprising – apparently my homemade applesauce narrowly beats cheese and crackers as the best snack (I picked cheese and crackers!).

Speaking of Lucy, any chance we could hear an update on her? Always fun to hear about her!

I personally hate this game but my kids like it, haha!

I will play “I spy” with them because I like that we are observing what’s around us. My youngest tries to play it on car trips and doesn’t understand why it doesn’t work as things flash by the window.

Standing in a long line at Disney with my then-five-year-old, I remembered a weird game from my childhood. My son loved it, and has since named it The Stinky Game and it goes like this: One person starts by saying they saw the grossest concoction of whatever (“I saw a big bag filled with slugs covered in cockroaches and rotten milk”), and then follows by saying, “I one it.” The next person says, “I two it.” And it goes on until someone says, “I eight (ate) it.” And then the rest of the group says, “Ewwwww!” It’s so dumb, but my son loves it, and we can kill a chunk of time playing The Stinky Game.

We sometimes build an imaginary house. Anything is possible. I have had a top floor/roof garden, the kids imagine play rooms with automatic fridges/ovens that magically provide any of their favourite foods at any time, pools, slides… Also great for hikes to distract them from the fact that it’s just a liiiiitle bit longer.

I forgot about that game! My boys eat too much to afford going out, but they love animals so if we are waiting in line or something we take turns listing animals through the alphabet. I’ve been amazed at the animal names they remember!
I also bought a pack of Splash Uno Cards – originally for swim team – but now I carry them everywhere. They are clear plastic and come on a key ring. Found it a quick way to pass the time just about anywhere! Going to add “In Grandma’s Suitcase” to the mix :)

My favorite waiting game is called the counting game. It sounds ridiculous and simple but it’s a joy to win and a joy to fail: as a group, you are trying to count as high as you can. You cannot say two numbers in a row. You cannot go in a prescribed order. You can not use verbal or nonverbal clues. If two people say a number at the same time, you have to start again. I can attest that this weird little game is a hit with groups of teenagers and four year olds.

This summer we played an alphabet game non-stop. Super simple and it engaged our 12, 9, and 7 year olds equally. First person says a word that starts with A, next person B, next person C, and so on, around and around. Only trick is that you can’t re-use words, including on games earlier in the trip. It was weirdly so effective at keeping whining at bay (we played in on a hike, waiting in lines, at restaurants) and it also sort of stretched our brains to remember all the words we had used before. When someone slipped up we would all pile on “Noooooo! So-and-so said T is for totally yesterday!” The other great part is that we implemented exactly zero consequences for messing up. Just pick a new word! The ease of it and the simplicity felt like one of those sweet memories I’ll cherish once they’re all too old to need all that distracting.

My Husband’s late grandmother would play one where she would say “I’m going to a picnic and I’m bringing potatoes and doughnuts” (the first letter of each being the same as the initial in her first and last name). She’d then ask everyone else what they were bringing to the picnic. You weren’t “invited” to the picnic until you figured out the pattern, and then you had to keep going using foods or items related to your initials until everyone has gotten it and been invited. It’s probably for a slightly older crowd of kids, or adults, and only works once since after that everyone knows how it works, but it was a lot of fun.

I remember playing this as a kid but we had to say it in alphabetical order…I packed an apple, a banana, a cake. Mostly I remember playing it with my dad on long, late-night drives when just the two of us were visiting relatives…I think it helped keep him awake. Recently I introduced it to my 7yo when I needed him to stay awake after a late-night hospital visit. I love when COJ posts make me think fondly of memories that I had forgotten! :)

I love playing Would You Rather because it always triggers really interesting insights into how my kids think and what preferences they are developing as they figure who they are. Engaging conversation for everyone at the table!

Sometimes we’ll play a game where two people will start by saying ANY word (just one word and say it at the same time) then they try to say the one word that best fits the first two words that were said (or the word that “is between” the two) – so they count off and say another one. If the 2nd round doesn’t produce the same word then they can do another round, this time take the 2 words just said in round 2 and counting off to say the word that now best fits them, and so on. Or you can keep moving it around the table by turning to the person next to you for to move the round along. You can play for fun or make it a game (like ‘can we get to the same word before it makes it around the table and back to the start?’ or ‘can we get the same old in 3 tries’? or “which table pairing does the best?’) Its really fun to play and to see how people’s minds work!

My dad and I used to play a drawing game, where the first person doodled a shape, and the second person had to turn it into some kind of critter. We’d develop these amazing, fantastic monsters and characters, and sometimes we’d also come up with their back-stories. A few of these critters became part of the family lore, like the fearsome Roosamadoozle (who steals all the things you misplace!). This game came in soooo handy as a camp counselor with time to kill, and now I play it with my own kid. We still blame things on the Roosamadoozle.

We always play “who said that” at dinner. We quote grand parents, aunts, books, TV shows, etc.” If you keep it simple even a little two year old can play. We just make it something we know they’ll know and they love it!