To correct DS's friend's table manners

[chubbyspice]

DS (8) has a friend over once a week and we have dinner together. I always correct my child's table manners, bit of a bug bear for me. Is it rude to correct his friend's table manners? I think that at 8 he should be well able to use cutlery and not shovel the food in.

Depends what you mean by manners, I would send guest children to wash their hands before eating, insist they eat in a certain place (at the table/counter) or not put knives in mouths .

But trying new foods, incorrect cutlery use etc I would feel was overstepping the mark.

@delboysskinandblister

Or if they are really obnoxious just point out to your own children when they have gone home that 'that is not the way we do things' and maybe discourage your child from being friends with that kid anymore. Otherwise a gentle 'eat more slowly as you don't want to be ill later' at the table. Better that than to tell him off. I suppose it's a balance - yes address it but there's a way of doing it.

Are you actually serious???

The child's crime is "poor" table manners? Yeah go make friends with a nasty bully as long as they eat "naicely"

OP YWBU to say anything!

Definitely not. I’d even hold back on correcting your own DC on those occasions.

I can still remember with horror a 10 year old guest eating potato salad with her hands, not just her fingers even, but scooping up great handfuls and chomping into it like a horse with a nose bag. She’s all grown up and a nurse now and eats very nicely with no input from me.

My dyspraxic children would be very upset by this, as would I.

Depends what you mean by correcting. I told a child off for catapulting his peas across the room. And then I removed his plate when he spat some rice across the table at me. He has never been invited back.

As a child (between ages of around 6-9) I went to the same friend's house every Thursday evening for dinner.

The mum did pull me up on table manners and expected the same behaviour from me as she did her own children. It was always done nicely and in good humour and if anything made me feel part of the family just for those few hours. I felt very secure and comfortable at their house; much better than sensing that I'm doing something wrong but no one telling me what!

I had to pull up my own Ds (6) the other day for commenting on his friend’s (dreadful!) table manners at our house. I wouldn’t say anything myself unless it was a regular visitor we had a close relationship with. And then it would be done gently and encouragingly.

I'm really laid back with this sort of thing but I did have to bring up an 8 year old's food snatching once. Friend of the family's son, kids in same class but every time food was involved he'd drive me round the bend.

Eating out - decided he didn't like his, would take from DD's plate. Birthday parties with a shared buffet brought out - would snatch everything most popular (ie fish fingers or nuggets crap) for his plate. Eating at mine, would finish his favourite part and just snatch from another plate.

I snapped.

Other than that I like to see children enjoying their food and don't really mind as long as it goes down. I think that sadly a lot of children may be brought up on beige cardboard meals - i.e nuggets/popcorn chicken and chips/pizza that don't require a knife and fork.

Even if you do help - as soon as the child goes home it will be forgotton. Concentrate on your own childs manners

As an adult when you're out at dinner you can see who didn't get brought up to have good table manners. Knifes and forks left in all directions at the end of the meal, clattering cutlery against teeth, putting a knife in your mouth - eugh!!!

One view is that the purpose of good manners is to help put people at their ease.

Consider if reprimanding a guest is evidence of good manners on your part.

The purpose of etiquette rules is quite different. It is to identify and draw attention to people who are not members of your social group. This is why they are so complicated and often changed; because the common people keep trying to find out what the rules are.

Etiquette is not good manners.

Let it slip, it’s not hurting you or your DC. I wouldn’t be happy in the slightest if my DD had been at a friends and humiliated at the dinner table like that.

My mums abusive EXH used to bully us all at the dinner table about how we use our cutlery, chew our food etc. I ended up with an eating disorder, my DB lived off takeaways for years, my DSis’s find meal times extremely unpleasant and anxiety inducing.

It depends on what level of manners it is. Something basic (sit on the chair, cut with a knife, use a fork to put food in your mouth, sharing fairly), feel free. (My DC's eating skills are one of our causes for concern amongst other traits, and don't reflect the fact that he's eaten at a table for nearly every meal of his life)

I'm happy to have basic manners being reinforced, but trying to reinforce the finer points of holding cutlery in a certain way is often more than his temper can take and can result in meltdown. It's not worth nit picking over the small stuff.

I look after a friend's child regularly and expect decent basics, but her parents are fine with that and would hold my DCs to decent standards too.

I think posters here are making too many sweeping comments.

There is some bad behaviour here which goes beyond etiquette and I think needs to be called out - examples from PP are:

Rice spitting kid
Pea flinging kid
stealing from other people's plates
wandering off after grabbing a lot of food on their plate and not eating any of it
putting hands into communal serving bowls and eating it

... surely all parents would intervene in those?!
i would, without hesitation.

there's a point where behaviour impacts on others, and for me, that's the main test of whether to intervene, whether that offends the kid or the crap parents - don't care really.

@PigletJohn
I agree.
I still remember being reprimanded by a friend's mother for holding my cutlery in the wrong hands (I was about 10) - I still do it that way and I am 56 - I tried very hard but I can't and I still dread eating out.
On the other hand she was cutting her potatoes with her knife and I knew that was wrong (at that time, in that culture) and I pointed it out adding bad manners to lack of etiquette.
My manners got better.

And I still do not really understand how you (whoever you may be in this case) eat peas.

My DS is 9, dyspraxic and still doesn’t use cutlery.
If you reprimanded him and succeeded in embarrassing him, he wouldn’t be visiting your house again.

I have no idea if ywbu as I have no idea what the child was doing. What was wrong with his use of cutlery and what does shovelling it in mean?

Generally speaking I only used to intervene if visiting child's actions were offensive or potentially harmful.

For lesser things I would reinforce to my dd afterwards how and why I'd expect her to behave differently.

I tend to value the lead by example rather than dictate to others approach. And good manners to me includes making guests feel welcome not self conscious.

Seriously Kool no cutlery at all ? What does he do for baked beans or Bolognese or other "wet" food?

Shovelling it in? At least he’s enjoying your food.

He doesn’t eat ‘wet’ food.
He’s polite, says please and thank you etc. he eats some foods, that’s all that matters really.
I’m sure he’ll get there in his own time.

My daughter's dyspraxic. At home she uses adapted cutlery and even then she struggles with it - I take the line of "give it a good go using at least your fork and try to cut a bit of it up yourself" and then turn a blind eye apart from advising when food is not going to be cooperative enough to be eaten the way she's trying to (jelly is NOT a finger food).

Considering a course of occupational therapy hasn't fully managed to crack the issue and reinforcing it at home is a sloooow process I'd be pissed off beyond belief if you made my child feel like crap for what is basically a disability.

I'm not making mealtimes into a battleground - currently my kids have great attitudes to food, will try anything... I value that more than trying to force finesse on a child with coordination difficulties.

I wouldn’t comment on a child’s use of a knife and fork although would ask them too use that over hands, however I have taken a hard line with DS friends when it comes to sitting at the table until everyone is finished and not wandering off just because they’ve had enough.

I usually find a simple “XXX can you please come and sit back down while the others finish? Thank you” surfices and is no big deal.

I haven't said anything and won't, based on advice received.
He might use fingers instead of a fork, he wipes his nose on his sleeve, he usually leaves the plate too far away from himself so a lot of the food is falling on the table.

Shovelling - not pausing between mouthfuls.

however I have taken a hard line with DS friends when it comes to sitting at the table until everyone is finished and not wandering off just because they’ve had enough.

See, if anyone ever invited my DS to their house I would ask you do let him do exactly that. Because he cannot tell when he is full so if he is forced to sit at the table whilst the slow eaters (e.g. DC2) finish, then he would make himself sick. Quite literally because he would eat until he vomits. But the difference is that I would mention it to the person to whom he is going.

and I might add on a please correct his table manners in the vain hope he would listen to someone else because he sure as hell doesn't listen to me