Can anyone offer some advice for DS(6) poor table manners please? Nothing that we try helps and I’m at my wits end. We praise where due but this is rare and it feels like mealtimes is a non-stop ‘don’t do that...’
Table manners are important to us; I realise they aren’t to some people going by other threads I’ve seen so I would like to hear from
those who share the same values please.
He’s always been a very fussy eater and mealtimes, mostly dinner, see his behaviour nosedive. He refuses to use a knife and fork together most of the time (can use a fork or spoon fine), eats with his mouth open despite constant reminders, drops food accidentally all over the table, his clothes, the chair and the floor. It’s like an 18 month old has been eating at his place.
He has started pulling food apart into very small pieces I e. a cookie or bread roll with his hands before eating and creating an almighty mess on himself and the floor. It’s embarrassing and he won’t stop doing it.
Does these bursts of rapid eating and shovelling food into his mouth, and holding a larger piece of food to his mouth and gnawing at it rather than cut it up into smaller pieces.
Eats an ice cream by holding it against his mouth rather than lick and take away from the face. Result is that he is absolutely covered in ice cream around his mouth, chin and cheeks and looks like a 2 year old with an ice cream. Other children have commented and laughed.
In the last week he’s started squirming in his seat and sitting cross-legged and then his feet/shoes are migrating up onto the table. He is told off as soon as we can see what is happening but he keeps doing it.
I’ve told DH we can no longer take him anywhere because it’s so embarrassing that a child of 6 is behaving like this. Yet, he can eat and behave much better if we are not there or watching so it must be attention-seeking, but how can we ignore shoes on the table or stuffing food into his mouth in a rapid fashion or gnawing at a sausage like a dog?
We have talked to him about behaviour at the table and why it’s important (to us), but we might as well talk to a brick wall.
I don’t know what he’s like with school meals but strangely enough his clothes rarely have food on them, unlike at home where he gets them dirty at almost every meal.