table manners

[hondagirl500]

Step son - Mike, and his wife, Jane, are divorced. One child, Belle. (I can't stand all the abbreviations, can't follow...). They don't live particularly close to us, but see Mike's mum Louise (my husbands ex) regularly.

Mike had Belle this weekend, and came to our house. Mike had to run some errands, so left Belle with me for a couple of hours. She is 8. Not a problem, we played games, did crafts. Later yesterday, Mike took Belle to a birthday party, and then back to ours for bed.

Which brings me to today, Sunday. My husband and Mike took Belle to see her great grandmother this morning, whilst I prepped Sunday lunch.
Roast beef, yorkies, veg, roasties….

Belle tried to cut her potatoes, but held the fork like a dagger (made a fist, fork held in it if that makes sense) and the knife like a pen. Obviously it wasn't working very well! I showed her how to hold them correctly. She tried, but went back to her way. Mike told me to leave her, it didn't matter. She was then sitting with her knee up on the chair, against the table - I asked her to sit properly. Again, glares from Mike. She got up as soon as she finished eating, but not having finished her meal. I told her that it was polite to 'ask to leave the table', not just get up. Mike told me 'we don't bother with that'.

So, AIBU to insist on table manners - sit properly, use the cutlery properly? TBH, I can't believe that her mother Jane, and Louise don't seem to enforce these?

If others are here he’ll say i’m going to do x now. But we’ll all be talking and he’ll go off to look at his phone. He finds conversations boring. He likes doing his own thing.

I suspect sn for the dc but no dx. Their motor skills are terrible. I do think some table manners are important but then others feel arbitrary and like it’s a rule for the sake of it.

“ Regardless, most adults tend to like to eat their dinner leisurely when they have dinner guests. Talking two 3rds more than they are eating.
Where as the kids probably eat fast to get away and go watch tv or read. It's unfair to make a kid wait for an adult taking an hour+ to eat while talking to other adults at length.”

Agreed. Which is why they ask politely to be excused then go off and do their own thing.

@MrsKoala That really sounds quite rude of you DH tbh.

For me I think eating with your mouth closed and using cutlery are basic manners.
Obviously with SN it's different. I remember a few years ago a friend was feeding her then 5 year old DS because he wouldn't eat otherwise. Each mouthful she almost had to airplane in. 3 year later he got dx with SN.

Table manners are important. People judge you on them. My son, who was taught them, is impeccable in public and eats like a Neanderthal at home. If he hadn’t been taught, he’d show himself up in public.

@MrsKoala do you really think using cutlery (for many foods) is "an arbitrary rule"? I get that for children with poor motor skills the finer points of knife and fork usage may be too much, but a spoon? A child who can find his mouth with his hand can learn to use a spoon, I've known children with quite severe cerebral palsy master that with practice and patience. If your kids can't, or won't despite your best efforts, use a spoon then you really need to know why.

I think manners are very important. If my nephew leaves the table without asking I pull him up on it, it's my house my rules. What you do in your house is entirely up to you, but in mine we have manners and well behaved kids because they know what is expected off them.
I would equally expect people to pull my dc up on their manners if I hadn't seen or wasn't there.

It is important not to be overbearing as the rules are not the same at home. Holding aknife in a efficient way is helpfull. You need to build a relationship with her but you can gently steer her to the " This is the way we do things in our house" She will also learn a lot from the example of others, just dont pick on her

YANBU to implement basic table manners (please, thank-you, please can you pass the ketchup etc)

YABU to try and enforce holding cutlery the way that you think is correct. I hold my knife like a pen, it is efficent and effective. Dh holds his fork differently. He is left handed. My kids both struggle with cutlery aged 15 & 17. Turns out they are both hypermobile with possible dyspraxia.

I don't see anything wrong with showing a child how to use their cutlery correctly if they're struggling to use a knife and fork or requesting that they stay at the table. I wouldn't be overly harsh or tell them off but there is a middle ground of kindly teaching them the correct way to behave.

No not at all. I just meant some rules I find arbitrary and odd and some I don’t. So cutlery is one I think is important but struggle with getting my dc to use it. But using cutlery in certain hands I think is odd and arbitrary (I eat left handed).

Ds2 won’t use a spoon because he raises it up at a weird angle and spills everything backwards over himself then has a screaming tantrum but he also won’t eat with his hands so I feed him. Ds1 only eats noodles which he uses a fork for but eats in the Japanese way of leaning forward and slurping them up. Which is how he learned to eat them in Japanese restaurants. (He eats pizza, bread, crisps, biscuits and hot dogs with his hands but dry cornflakes with a spoon)

Eating with mouth open or making lip smacking noises are something I absolutely would not tolerate. I think the important manners are the ones which mean you don’t disgust other people unnecessarily.

We don’t eat together anyway so there is no ‘leaving the table’ while others are still eating /talking.

The idea that someone would get up from a table and not say at the very least thank you is so basic.

Saying excuse me, taking their plate with them is also basic.

A courtesy to the person who's prepared the meal.

It is a life skill for sure.

When you have nice table manners, people may not notice.
When you don't, they sure do IMO.

The OP does read as if you were nagging the child a bit.

I'm of an older generation and hate to see the way some adults use their cutlery and eat their food, never mind children.

However, I think table manners are something that children imbibe as they grow, and if the family aren't teaching them then it's a bit of a lost cause to try to impose them on a child over the course of one meal.

My DD's children, 3 and 5 years old, have beautiful table manners, however the youngest, at one year, picks his food up in his fist and eats it that way. As time goes on he'll learn that that's not the way to eat because he'll watch and gradually learn how it's done from his parents and siblings.

If the people that are regularly around this child aren't teaching table manners she'll no doubt grow up as yet another adult that doesn't know how to, correctly and comfortably, use cutlery.

I'm not sure how effective the odd bit of input from her step grandmother is going to be and it probably won't make any lasting impression on the child.

In your shoes I'd just let them get on with it.As pp said, it's not your battle to fight.

Bloody hell, some of you are giving the impression that it's cruel to keep a child sitting at the table while the adults are talking... Surely in friendly, loving families the kids are talking too! Kids wolfing down foods then leaving while adults chat and laugh? That's what makes kids seem subservient, not kids having to stay with the group until the group's finished. We are social animals and eating is a social occasion.

I would find the behaviour of your husband, MrsKoala, unbearably rude. Can't actually believe he does that.

I used to be embarrassed to eat out with my ILs. I taught DH table manners when I first met him (we were friends first) and he was grateful because he needed to socialise for work. He now surpasses me with the etiquette for eating hard to eat things. With his family however it’s feeding time at the zoo. I have actually been stopped coming back from the loos in a restaurant and advised not to chat to “that table”. (I was walking back and FIL met me on the way and asked where the loos were and I told him and then another diner got up and told me to keep away!)

How bad must they look to others for that to happen.

Cut off now so no longer an issue thank goodness.

Yes what @TotHappy said. We all sit and talk, what's going on at school, what we're doing later or at the weekend. Surely that's normal.

I agree @Benefitofthedoubt. We've been out before and a whole family have been sitting eating so badly I've turned my chair (discreetly) so they are not longer in my eye line. Honestly, slurping, chewing with mouths open, food dropping out. It really was disgusting, the kids were quite young, I felt really sorry for them.

Also, I work with a really nice person. Kind, generous, intelligent, caring, you name it really. Unfortunately it seems they have never been taught any 'table' or eating manners. We eat at our desks usually and it is really difficult sometimes when this person is eating - and they eat a lot! They have never been taught not to chew with their mouth open, consequently every mouthful is accompanied by disgusting chewing and slurping noises. They are the only person I know that is totally incapable of drinking from a can without slurping every sip. They love haribo and you can literally hear every chew and movement of the sweet around their mouth. I have been on the phone to somebody and they have commented on the loud slurping noises they can hear when this person is drinking. I know they are the main carer for their little girl, I worry that the child will also grow up not knowing basic eating etiquette. This person is in a fairly senior position and is late thirties, how on earth have they managed to get to that age not knowing how to eat without causing offence? They certainly haven't managed to pick anything up by osmosis or by observing others.

An old colleague of mine was panting after this guy in the office for months. She had such a crush on him without really knowing him well. Nice looking guy, pleasant manner.

For some reason she was in a client meeting with a large group and it turned into a working lunch.

Rolls and sandwiches were brought in.

She had the misfortune of witnessing him eat a couple of sandwiches and told us later she was completely cured!

The churning of the food in an open mouth had killed it dead.

None of us women that she told had any difficulty understanding what she meant.🤢

my son is 8 and his fine motor skills are not yet great. He wouldn't be able to hold cutlery 'properly'. Also I hate the 'you need to ask to leave the table'. At a restaurant maybe but at 8 and at home no. It feels very controlling.

I really don’t understand this objection to asking to leave the table.
What happens in your houses? Do you all just finish eating and stand up and leave the table?

Nor I. Generations of my family have been taught to say “Please may I leave the table?” I can only assume that the parents who object think their children would be submissive if they ask permission to do anything.

Reading this, I've realised that I kind of excuse myself from table still, even at home. I'd say something like, "Excuse me, I'm going to start on the dishes while you finish eating," at home. I'd excuse myself to use the loo at a friend's house, and at the end of the meal wait until there was a general movement away from the table. I expect the same of my kids, but would help them out a bit if they were fidgety after loads of adult chat by asking the host if it would be alright for them to ask to be excused. But I would still not like anyone else to try to teach my child manners when I was present. It's rude.

“Reading this, I've realised that I kind of excuse myself from table still, even at home.”
Of course you do. That’s what polite people of any age do!

Manners are important however the Dad was there and is perfectly able to speak to his child about manners etc. some people have different standards and are more relaxed than others, don’t be offended if they don’t stay for dinner again!

My mum or mil would never dream of commenting on my child’s manners when I’m present. That’s my job,

The cutlery thing is personal preference. The knee on the chair may be that she was trying to get to a comfortable height to eat (some tables / chairs might still not fit her quite right at only 8). The asking to be excused? Different families do that in different ways. Some are more formal, others it’s normal to drift away as you finish your own, she may have sent her dad a pleading look and he’s given her the nod. In some households the adults and children won’t eat at the same time. Some people don’t have a dining room table at all and so eat on trays on laps. You get my drift OP! So sorry, YABU.

My mum or mil would never dream of commenting on my child’s manners when I’m present. That’s my job

One would hope that they would never need to. Which sounds different to the OP.