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#11
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Robyn Kozierok wrote:
My question is, if your young child is done eating his dinner before the rest of the family, do you expect him to stay at the table with you? We usually let him go off to play or watch a video. And frankly, we prefer to do that because it makes mealtimes much more relaxed for the rest of us. We do make our older children stay at the table for a reasonable amount of time, and I think we started with them before they were 4yo. But this one just doesn't seem "inclined" to sit still for a while at that time of day. (He eats lunch with his group at preschool, so he does get "experience" with group mealtime behavior.) Any thoughts? --Robyn . When mine were small, they did sit with us. Even as babies we fed them in the high chair while we ate. (And of course, the dog snacked on anything that went overboard :-) ) We tend to eat earlier, 6:30 or so, so I never fed them before we ate. Once they were done, they could be excused, but mealtime is family time and early manners training. I always figure it's easier to start a good habit that try to break a habit later, but I suspect I can get too hung up on that. Lesley |
#12
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My kids are long past that age but when they were that young they both found
it almost impossible to sit still at the table for that length of time. The older one used to do what we called 'eat and stroll'. Her plate was on the table with the rest of ours. She would eat a bite and then walk around the table or the room, taking another bite as she passed her plate. The younger one did something similar. I think by the time they were 4 they were more able to sit with us for a meal if we let them leave the table when they were finished. At age 5 and up they learned to wait until everyone was finished (for the most part). |
#13
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Lesley wrote: When mine were small, they did sit with us. Even as babies we fed them in the high chair while we ate. (And of course, the dog snacked on anything that went overboard :-) ) We tend to eat earlier, 6:30 or so, so I never fed them before we ate. Once they were done, they could be excused, but mealtime is family time and early manners training. Same here -- our kids *want* to sit with us. Not sure how else it would work. When I say it is time to eat, they run in. My two year old shouts "eat!eat!" and physically drags any stragglers to the table. They do tend to leave when they are full, and we work on asking to be excused and not leaving if you are not done eating. We also have to work on the fact that after they leave, they want our attention and participation while playing with something in another room. Everything goes best if they are good and hungry when we eat, and this I find hard to manage too. We eat between 5:30 and 6:00 and my rule is that you may snack, but after 4:00 you can only have fruits or vegetables. This includes raisins, carrots, grapes, strawberries, etc. They may also drink milk. I find it hard to cut off snacking completely because if they get hungry it is hard to manage the crankiness and cooking at the same time. I figure with the fruit/veg rule, 1) they don't eat unless they are really hungry (well, expect maybe the raisins) 2) they don't fill up that much and 3) even if they do fill up, at least it was healthy. -Jan |
#14
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"Robyn Kozierok" wrote in message ... My boys are 4, 8 and 11yo. When we sit down for a family dinner, we don't currently force the 4yo to join us. We sometimes give him something to eat earlier if he's hungry, but more often that not he basically skips dinner, or eats only a few bites. He's very tiny, but completely healthy. But he really doesn't eat much, especially at dinnertime. My question is not about feeding him, as we have worked out a plan with his pediatrician where he is healthy and growing, albeit slowly. My question is, if your young child is done eating his dinner before the rest of the family, do you expect him to stay at the table with you? DD (7 years old) has to ask "May I please be excused?" I've never said No in answer to her question. The only other requirement is for her to take her plate, silverware and glass to the kitchen at that point. DS is not quite 2, so he's pretty much stuck with us. But even when he says "down? up?" or in desperate situations, "down? up? please?" we let him out of his high chair. Jeanne |
#15
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dragonlady wrote:
My kids sat at the table for dinner from infancy on. Seriously: if they were awake, we put them in their seats on the table. Once they were big enough for high chairs, that's where they were during dinner. In general, they stayed at the table until a meal was over, though they weren't always eating -- we included them in the conversations, and played with them. As they got older, they'd ask to be excused when they were done, and whether we said yes or no would depend on variables like how much they'd eaten and whether we had company. This sounds very much like what we did with our kids. Now they are 29 and 25 so it is a bit hard to remember details. I know that when they were 1 to 2ish we had a bottom drawer in the kitchen with canned goods they were allowed to take out and stack. About ages 3 and 4 we had an end of dinner game [while we had our coffee] where we would give the child 3 or more things to do in sequence which the child would leave the table, do, and return. I recall that we did less of this after we bought a toystore the summer they turned 7 and 4. Tom |
#16
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Like many others, my kids are way past this stage, but when they were
little, they sat at the table with me, and they didn't get to leave until we were all finished eating. I'm a huge believer that table manners have become almost a lost art with this generation of kids, and in my family, that's just not acceptable. My kids never heard the 'may I be excused' line until they started eating at other people's houses and heard other kids do it. I simply explained to them that in our family, that wasn't really an option. From the time they were out of high chairs, they sat at the table in booster seats, they waited until everything was on the table and everyone was seated before they sat down, and they were required to at least take one bite of everything on their plates. They didn't leave until everyone was done, but as time went on, DD got to be a slower and slower eater, and at some point waiting for her to finish a meal dragged out to an hour or more. With that, I started limiting the time you have to eat dinner, and it did eventually cure her of that problem, so now she eats within a normal dinnertime. As for discourse, we've always had more than enough to talk about during meals, and conversation is a big part of our dinnertime ritual. We do have some rules regarding noise; no singing at the table, no rude noises, and bodily noises are kept INSIDE until dinner is over (i.e., no burping at the table). Now that my kids are teens, they have pretty darn good table manners, MUCH better than any other kids that I know. I've got friends with kids who still reach across a table to grab food, who start stuffing their faces the second they sit down, who help themselves to huge portions and leave little to nothing else for the rest of the table, who eat with their hands, eat with their mouths open, talk while chewin, and we're talking mid-teens here. It's disgusting to watch this kind of table behavior and it causes me to wonder how these little gems are going to do on their first job interview where a meal is involved. I think manners are an integral part of what we as parents should be required to teach our kids. I find it distressing that its become the norm for kids to be picky eaters, wander around the house during mealtimes, and dictate what they will or won't eat at any given meal. Two examples that come to mind are the 8 and 4 year old kids at our Passover seder who DEMANDED hot dogs, which their parents brought to our house and made me cook. Since I had made chicken, not some bizarre foreign food for the kids, I was appalled by this lack of manners. And the other example is that new pediasure commercial that makes me seethe every time it's on. The one with the little girl who is shopping with mom and says "I don't like broccoli, I don't like chicken, I don't think I like waffles (WAFFLES???) and then smiles at mom when she picks up the pediasure. Like it's ok to give your kids a chemically-ridden drink instead of plain old food. Ugh. Rant off. Marjorie |
#17
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Our 7 year old always sits down to dinner with us but may leave when he
is done. When he was younger he would finish before us and leave to play but now a days we usually all finish at the same time or perhaps even a bit after him. When we have company (esp adult) and we tend to linger at the table we are always happy to excuse him as otherwise he tends to try to monopolize the conversation... Still I consider a family dinner time a high priority and think everyone should sit down together, wait to eat until all are served and then make polite conversation.. so these are things we work on. No reading at the dinner table although we do read at breakfast... |
#18
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Quote:
I am reminded of our daughter who as a child was quite fond of broccoli. She must have been about 9 or 10 when she heard that George Bush the First said he did not like broccoli. She was definitely pleased that she knew better about something so basic and important than this adult who was supposed to know how to run the country. Tom |
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