Dinner table apps (the phone kind) that make eating out fun again. Parent approved.

Waiting patiently at a restaurant for food just isn’t in a kid’s wheelhouse. And answering the, “When’s the food gonna be hereeeeee?” for the tenth time isn’t in mine. Can’t we all just get along?

Instead of prolonging my irritation that the paltry selection of gnarly crayons and the back of a paper menu won’t stave off the kids’ complaints, I grabbed my iPhone and went to work searching for an app that kept the entire family busy during the restaurant wait making our dining out experience much more enjoyable.

Note: Now, before everyone jumps all over me about how awful technology is at the dinner table, believe me, I’m with you (and I’m nuts about table manners, see my article about that here). We don’t use this during home dinners, but when you’re out in public and need an emergency stop for impending melt-downs, I think these apps will be Parent Approved.

Heads Up!
.99 from iTunes

Created by Ellen DeGeneres, this application is the fun and hilarious new game that gets you naming celebrities, movies, singing and/or acting things out based on clues you receive from player holding the clues. The real way to play involves one player holding the phone on their forehead (so they can’t see) and the other playing giving clues to the answer– I find this a bit much in a restaurant so we just have one player hold the phone in their hands while other players guess from the clues given. It’s a blast. Ellen created it!

Tabletopics
$1.99 from iTunes

This is my family’s FAVORITE (at-home) dinnertime activity, now available in an app. Tabletopics (the Starter Set) includes 60 random conversation starter questions that include food for thought like, “What Halloween costumes have you worn and what were your favorites?” or “Would you rather live by the beach or mountains and why?” Check out their Seasons version, too, which gets the family talking about favorite memories.

Similar applications (to get even more results, type in “family dinner” in the search field):
Quizzler Family
Get Gabbin’
Chow Chat (this one couples the convo starters with educational facts!)

Mad Libs
Free from iTunes

Who doesn’t remember playing this awesome game? Great way to create wacky stories that makes everyone laugh while teaching kids about nouns, verbs, adjectives and more! Includes 21 stories in the free version, upgraded versions offer more.

Do you have a favorite app that is fun for the whole family? Share with us!