Family friendly pub in Scotland

Hi and welcome to the forum, Amy!
Scotland covers a lot of ground. Do you have a planned itinerary that pinpoints more precisely where you'll be visiting/staying in the country? That will help posters who might be able to help you narrow the focus. :O)

Agree. Giving us the names of some of the cities and towns you will be staying in would help.

Will be in Edinburgh, dipping into England to the Keswick area, Oban, Glencoe, Isle of Skye, Inverness, and Stirling!

In Keswick I don't think there is anywhere that is not family friendly.

But for music try the Oddfellows Arms on a Friday and Saturday- https://www.facebook.com/Oddfellowskeswick/

and the Crafty Baa (Baa as in Sheep) on a Thursday and Saturday- https://www.facebook.com/Thecraftybaakeswick

There is Sandy Bells in Edinburgh, near Greyfriars, and they have live music. It's small and crowded, though.

On Skye, the Edinbane Inn sometimes has live music, and that is certainly suitable for kids.

I'm surprised you haven't been able to find family friend pubs. It's been my experience that most pubs in the UK are pretty family friendly.

the problem you have is that most music starts later in the evening 8-9 pm and children are not allowed in pubs at that time, even before then they are only allowed in if having a meal and not all pubs allow them in.
https://efc1973.com/
have a look at the Edinburgh Folk Club , you may be able to get to a night there but that is just Wednesday nights.
http://mikescommunity.com/diary
this link will list Ceilidhs in various parts of the country, real fun evenings and in most cases children are welcome and they will be encouraged to get up and dance. There is usually a "caller" to help with the dance moves but if you have never been to one before then let the organisers know ,they are always happy to help Ceilidh virgins.

UncleGus has said what I was thinking. It's not really fair on the other patrons of the pub to bring your kids after 6 or 7pm. After that pubs are kinda for adults, right across the UK, in my opinion.

Wow- thank you so much for the tips! I'll look into all of those places. : )

There are different rules about children in pubs in Scotland and England. In England kids are allowed into pubs just for a drink but in Scotland you have be having a meal. In both places I would agree that it’s not really common to have kids in pubs later than about 8pm, although in a tourist area like Keswick during school holidays you will probably still have children dining with their parents at that time.

1820 is a cafe bar in Portree on the Isle of Skye. They have semi regular traditional music sessions on a Sunday afternoon and children are welcomed as long as food is ordered. They have a Facebook page but no website.

The Edinbane Inn also in Skye also have Sunday afternoon sessions but I’m not sure about kids.

MacGregor's in Inverness has an afternoon session on Sundays. The day we were there the star of a very large session was an 11 year old lass.

As mentioned, Sandy Bells in Edinburgh has afternoon sessions.

Many folk clubs have weekly gatherings that allow kids. If there was a bewitching hour, I never noticed. I'm usually surprised at how young session musicians can be.

Many bars have outside seating areas where you can at least hear the music.

I'm a bit stuck in the past with my attitude to kids in pubs probably. As pubs have changed over the last few decades my attitudes about eating dinner like it's a restaurant and having kids around have stayed pretty static. I think I need to move with the times. I wasn't entirely sure about Scottish vs English licencing laws these days either so thanks to Helen for that.

Those more in touch with the music scene have provided some good options too. I worked with a guy in Glasgow many years ago who was out almost every night playing fiddle at sessions. He'd regularly come in to work still very drunk in the morning, sometimes with cuts to his face where he'd "fallen over". Davey may have influenced my perception of the session scene :)

Thank you for asking this question! We’re going next summer with our kids (15 and 11 then) and would love to find places to go in Edinburgh and Stirling!

The places mentioned in Keswick are those which specifically advertise themselves as both family friendly and having music, and they do not say that they have any time limit on children being there.

But what you will often see is pubs just locally advertising music sessions, on the window or on an A board.

Under English licensing laws there is no actual time limit on children being in a pub, that is at the discretion of the landlord. Now in my own lake district town of Whitehaven there are a few (only a few) pubs where the landlord would not think it wise for children to be there too late, as the pubs in question get a bit lively shall we say. The industry has had to adapt to survive,

It is as much down as to how comfortable the parent/guardian feels in the environment in England, knowing their own children as it is to rules.