Dashboard Dining
Yes or No?

Young boy with ice cream cone inside car.

Dashboard dining - to eat or not to eat on the road?

Dashboard dining yes or no? This is a topic of great parental debate: Should you allow your family to eat in the car?

Different parents have different tolerance levels, and different-sized families are to be considered. If you have only one child, you can probably be more lenient about dashboard dining than if you're chauffeuring a mob.

Yes, it's best if kids don't eat on the road - for the car's interior, their clothes, and our nerves. But real-life schedules aren't always conducive to obeying that rule.

Here are a few things to consider when deciding whether dashboard dining suits your family car.

Busy Family Schedules Support Dashboard Dining

Let's be honest, when you're facing a 500-mile road trip, you might find yourself bending the rules a bit to keep the peace. In these situations, dashboard dining can be a practical solution.

But as kids get older and easier to quiet, some parents start getting strict about eating in the car. It doesn't matter which way you go; stick with it.

If food is allowed in the car, consider these rules of the road: It has to be of the non-sticky, nonstaining food group. No chocolate (however, if someone forgets this rule, here's how to get chocolate stains out of upholstery), no grape juice, nothing difficult to clean up.

One father I know has banned fish crackers and popcorn from his car because they're difficult to remove once they're (inevitably) ground into the carpet.

Dashboard Dining Yes or No? The Car Cleaning Routine

If your kids eat in the car, vacuum the inside weekly. If you don't let the kids eat at the dashboard diner, you can probably get away with vacuuming monthly.

Clean up spills immediately, using upholstery or carpet cleaner for carpets and fabric seats. Baby wipes are handy when those spills are on the plastic console between seats.

I've wiped up more tea spills from my travel mug than any spills from the kids, but the baby wipes work so well you'd never know.

Clean the dashboard and doors with a damp cloth or old-fashioned baby wipes each week or at least once a month. Use a damp brush for vents and hard-to-reach spots. Then, apply vinyl cleaner and restorer. Happy travels!