Joanna Fortune: My toddler always has a meltdown when we eat out

It’s also worth keeping in mind that restaurants are designed for adults and not with children in mind. Beyond a colouring sheet and some crayons, most restaurants cater to adult customers.

Different dining rules and expectations are often placed upon children when they eat in a restaurant. For example, at home, they may be able to choose whether they eat at the dining table or perhaps take some food in their hand while they wander around the house.

The space feels safe and familiar, and they can control how they experience their mealtime, eating safe, predictable, familiar tasting and smelling foods.

However, the rules are different when we bring them to a restaurant. They must stay in their seat and cannot wander around. Even when they choose food that sounds like the food they eat at home (chicken, pasta, etc), it will arrive on different plates, cooked and served in different ways. It is noisy and distracting with other diners and a lot of movement with service staff working around them. We may even offer them a digital device to stay seated and not cause a fuss, even though this might be something they are told they cannot have at the dining table at home.

It is very difficult to hold two conflicting sets of rules in mind about the same thing at any age, but especially for toddlers.

All this is to say that I understand and empathise with the plight and frustrations of junior diners. But I also understand your desire to enjoy dining out while you are on holiday. Here are some tips that might make this easier for you:

• Plan ahead. You can anticipate with some certainty that this experience will be challenging for your toddler.
• Consider the restaurants in your holiday area and choose ones that cater to families. Consider his age and how tenuous his frustration threshold is, and consider dining earlier when he is not tired.
• Take turns being the parent on the move during mealtimes. The one who will take him to the bathroom, a little movement break around the restaurant or step outdoors. You may decide to cover for each other on alternate courses — starter/main/dessert — or rotate each mealtime between you.
• Consider holiday self-catering options to eliminate some of this stress on at least some days.

This is a phase of development. Your son is not trying to be difficult at dinner time; he is simply trying to show you that he is having difficulty with the environment in the only way he can.

If you have a question for child psychotherapist Dr Joanna Fortune, please send it to parenting@examiner.ie