Kid-Friendly Dinner Parties

CELEBRATIONS | by KAVITA VARMA-WHITE

OH, HOW DINNER PARTIES CHANGE once kids come into the picture. (For the better. Really.)

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Used to be: Interesting guests, elaborate menu, flowing wine and great music filling the air.

These days: Still great people, food and wine. But the background noise now also includes the shrieks of multiples of kids running around.

From the time my children were toddlers, I realized the key to a successful, family-style dinner party was to engage the kids with enough distractions so that when adult dinnertime came around, they would be content to disappear for a movie. This strategy still works today, with my kids now 10 and 7. In fact, they so enjoy family dinner parties that they’re eager to help me prepare.

Set a table just for them: Keep a card table accessible and set it up in an adjacent room. Cover it with craft paper and fill cups with markers for dinner-time doodling. (My daughter draws place mats on the paper, along with place cards for each child.)

Organize a pre-dinner activity: Set up a board game, organize an outdoor obstacle course or plan an in-house scavenger hunt to keep kids occupied during adult cocktail and app hour.

Keep the meal simple: Parents don’t expect you to feed filet mignon at the kids table. One easy idea is a pasta bar: Set out bowls of toppings — meatballs, cheese, green peas, tomatoes — along with piping hot noodles and let the kids make their own pasta masterpieces.

Plan a post-dinner dance party: It’s OK to banish the kids to another room during adult dinner time. But after dessert, turn up the tunes for a family-friendly dancefest. (Make sure the Pointer Sisters’ “We Are Family” is on your playlist — the Little Ones will love it.)