Do people still teach children basic table manners at home?

[Lolabear38]

I grew up in a house where table manners were explicitly taught from very young age. Nothing drastic, the main ones were nobody starts eating until everybody’s sitting at the table, nobody leaves the table until everybody’s finished, you put your knife and fork neatly on your plate when you’re done, no singing at the table etc. My partner on the other hand grew up in a house where none of these were enforced and as such he doesn’t do any of these. He’ll start eating the second he sits down, leaves the table and walks away the second he’s done (taking his plate with him), licks his knife and a couple of other things. Now that we have children I think it’s important that they learn good table manners and I’ve spoken to my partner about this and he just doesn’t see it’s important. He claims that nobody he knows focuses on table manners anymore?! Is he right?! What do you do in your homes?

Yes. Weirdly, it’s not something that became an issue until we had children. The whole time we were dating and in the early days of our marriage we lived in a tiny flat with no dining table so we ate on the sofa with plates on our knees. When we went out to eat (we don’t live near family so going to relatives wasn’t ever something that happened) he sat at the table because in a restaurant there isn’t anywhere to just get up and go to!

We bought our current house - with a dining table in the kitchen - when our baby was 6mo. So his table manners/ habits weren’t something that I ever really picked up on until our DC started to eat solids. I guess I was just surprised because while we’d talked a lot before DC about having children, our values and ways we wanted to raise our family, table manners wasn’t something that I really thought about raising!

This is obviously how you choose to have meal times etc in your house and that’s totally fine. For me, meal times are a social occasion where we eat, talk, catch up on each others days etc so it’s important to come together in those times. Sometimes, it’s the only part of the day where we’re all actually together in one room at the same time!

RE the singing thing as a couple of people have commented on it - I’ve actually got no idea if that’s a common ‘table manners’ thing or not - but I have a child who would quite happily spend an entire meal time performing a medley of Disney songs to a captive audience and not eat an ounce of their food, given the chance. They then don’t eat their meal and nobody else would get the chance to talk, contribute etc so it’s something I brought in.

Table manners aside. It’s really sad you don’t eat as a family.

Why what is sad about it? I don't like to eat with other people.

You might not be giving your children the issues your parents gave you but you are absolutely giving them their own pile of issues! I’m sure it won’t damage them at all to grow up eating alone because their mother didn’t like to eat with them 😳

I still knock my DHs elbows off the table, it’s so important in our family ( to me) and I hope my adult kids carry on the nice manners.

I've never thought about the possibility of not teaching table manners, having been taught them myself as a child. With my DD, I used to say that manners are about considering other people. For instance, it spoils a meal if opposite you is a fellow diner with their mouth open, chomping like a horse. (I have a friend who does this, complete with masticating sound effects. It is so revolting that I have to concentrate hard when having lunch with him not to grimace.)

Are you going to encourage your DH to lead by example and stop licking his knife etc?

Typo

Unfortunately forget table manners how about teaching your child how to use cutlery. I was on supply and accompanied the year group- Year R to lunch. Not one child ate with a knife and fork. Can you imagine it eating a roast dinner with gravy and using your fingers. Absolutely horrifying.

I suppose everyone is just raised differently! Toddler and baby here! I can’t say either of our manners are up to scratch at the moment evening if I was drilled into as in the dinning halls at school! Between the dog scavenging from the high chair, the toddler throwing food on the floor and baby demanding to be let out the high chair, although we eat together, it’s such a rush! We eat as soon as the food is in the table with the one seated starting to eat first and fast before it goes pear shaped and the other can eat in a bit of peace/mess once the terrible twosome are in the bath! It’s that bad they need a bath after meals (older one is better) but the 9 month old….i fear she isn’t ever going to learn any manners having said that, I don’t notice people table manners impeccable or otherwise!

Totally agree. Not to mention the fact that eating together, sat around the dining table we still have, is one of the happiest memories of bringing up our children that I have. It was an opportunity to be together and share experiences of our day and to really connect with each other. Especially for their father who, during the working week, would only see our children in the evenings.

I can’t decide if this is true or if you’re trolling here? Very sad either way.

My husband only shows table manners when he's in public. At home he is not bothered. He is putting so much into his mouth that both his cheeks looks swollen and sometimes rice falls out. As well he is sipping loudly and chewing loudly with mouth open. I find it disgusting. Plus he will leave the mess on the table when he leaves. Funny enough, he is eating nicely in a restaurant, just like he's a different person.

I teach our little one not to put too much food at once, to chew with mouth closed, not to sip, to sit still, that we are not using phones (my mom is not even happy that we talk, of course with an empty mouth, though I think talking around lunch or dinner is a special family time). An important thing is that a spine is straight (the spoon is going to mouth, not the head to the plate!!!!) We actually wait till we all start and everyone is taking there plate to the kitchen. As well, we always say bon appetite before starting eating and thank you for lunch to mom, when we finish. My little one is managing well and I am enforcing this, till he does it perfectly. He's 4,5.

We don’t eat at the table for every meal, but when we do we observe good manners. We have a 2.5yr old so that’s very much a work in progress and we are trying to teach a little
without making it overwhelming as he’s a very picky eater so trying to make it a positive space.
I have corrected my MiL (who I get along with normally) though because I find her manners Very rude. She will start on her own (when I’ve cooked!) and then will get up and start clearing plates and cups away before anyone else has finished. Over the years I’ve made it clear its
my house, my rules at the table. Last time she tried to get up before we’d finished eating DH asked her if she’d asked permission to get down, given that’s the rule we have for DS. I think she got the point.

I might be shot for saying this, but, my parents said good manners seperated the classes 😬 bit extreme, but I get their point!

Nothing more offputting than bad table manners.

Wouldn't do a repeat.

I completely agree with everything that you've said. My children were brought up to have great table manners. I have to say, however, that I don't think that teaching table manners was a concerted effort - it was more a way of life rather than one of life's lessons, as well as showing appreciation for food.

Get that partner on board!

Sneering is rude.

Eating together as a family is (theoretically) very beneficial. One of my DC was referred to clinical psychology and in the questionnaire we were asked if we eat as a family, and if so, how many times per week. It's now included as a question in the DSM something or other diagnostic criteria as it gives insight into the family dynamic that the child is part of.

Same issue here! My husband eats terribly. But funny, he can eat nicely in while dinning out.

Strict table manners and my DDs were taught the same, also ate at the table 95% of the time, plus formal dinner parties - my dc was surprised when they started in the armed forces and others didn’t know how to use cutlery properly nor which side the glass and side plates went even. Just basic etiquette stuff, not that you lay formally daily, it’s just knowing for when you need to know!

Yes of course - teaching manners at the table and in general is a fundamental of parenting

Mine were:
no elbows
no chewing w mouth open
using cutlery properly - ‘you have a knife!’
no phones at table (when older)
take plate/cutlery to side/put in DW

My PIL’s table manners/mode of eating (slurping, double dipping) made me feel a bit 🤢 there’s no need for that. I met them in their early 60s so not elderly at that point.

I absolutely hate noisy eaters as well - I’ve been like that since I was a child.

By the amount of adults I see in restaurants with appalling table manners, I would say that no, parents are not teaching children.
Chewing with an open mouth, speaking with a full mouth, a total inability to correctly use a knife and fork, no idea what a napkin is for, licking of cutlery etc. Awful and yes, people do judge for that!
I was taught table manners as a child, as were my DC and now DGC. To not do so is doing them a disservice.

That's fascinating that you think me living a different way to you means I'm trolling. We genuinely don't eat together everyday and don't enjoy it and I don't value or teach table manners. When my kids were little they ate dinner at nursery then the childminder, DH does shifts and I loved being free of the horrible table manners obsessed meals I grew up with. Now my kids are teens they've usually eaten before I get home from work and DH is not home when I eat. I love eating alone without being told I'm doing it wrong. At the weekends we often share a takeaway or picnic food but don't sit round a table or pay attention to manners. We do most activities together but eating isn't one of them. We are all happy with that.

I genuinely can’t imagine actively choosing not to eat ANY meals with my kids. You might not value table manners or eating together but general society does - the majority of replies on this thread acknowledge that even if table manners aren’t something explicitly taught at home then they are something that matters when out and about in restaurants, when eating with others etc. I’m sorry you have trauma from childhood meals but this approach is demonstrating real emotional disengagement with an important part of parenting and I do think it’s incredibly sad.