Grandchildren's eating habits AIBU?

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I love my grandson, but feel irritated about his eating habits. I'm posting here to see if this behaviour is the new normal and I'm being picky.
He's 6. I cooked a meal for them yesterday - a bit of salad and some tortellini, with sauce to add if they wanted to i.e. deliberately bland (but this applies to all meals we have with them).
So, firstly, he doesn't sit down at the table, but kneels or leans. Then he takes a mouth or two, and then wanders off. Then, a few minutes later, he reappears and might take a bit more, or, if what he wants is gone, gets given something else, like toast.
and then, about 30 minutes later, he'll want some of the pudding. And get given it.
I always used to say (when I had children) that you didn't get pudding if you hadn't eaten at least some of the main course and, once you'd got down from the table, that was it and you had to wait until the next meal.
Parenting is hard enough, without making it harder than needs be.
AIBU?

I was allowed to wander about as a child at home and still managed to sit and eat at the table in restaurants.

Most children know the difference between home and other settings. For instance I allow my DS to jump one of our sofas at home. He knows he mustn't do that at anyone else's house unless they tell him it is OK, and he never has. When he is at Nanny's she lets him eat in front of the TV - he isn't allowed to do that at home and he never asks to.

My husband has Tourette's (most severe from of adhd) and his mother says was always able to sit at a table. He now runs a successful business. That will be your parenting not adhd.

How do you explain the fact that I managed to develop conversational skills, the ability to sustain attention and the ability to self regulate despite being allowed to wander about at mealtimes as a child, then? My DC are allowed to get down if they want to in our home, but know that at restaurants and at friends' houses they mustn't do this, and they don't.

And I feel like it needs to be said here, but it's not a given that every single child attends school either. Home education is legal in this country. "Because they need to learn to do it for school" seems to be the standard answer to most of these types of threads.

Tourette's and ADHD are two separate conditions. They often co-exist, but Tourette's is not "the most severe form of ADHD".

Also, just because one person with ADHD can do something doesn't mean another one can. I have ADHD and absolutely breezed through all my academics with 0 extra support, but that doesn't mean that everyone with ADHD could have done the same.

I sometimes eat off a tray in front of the telly with my slippers on. Funnily enough I never feel the need to do it in a canteen or restaurant setting. Bit like I'm sitting in an armchair with my feet up on the internet but if I was in my old office (I'm retired) then I'd be on an office chair sitting at a desk.

Being relaxed at home doesn't mean you can't be more formal in other situations.

As a parent of 2 (6&8) I wouldn't allow this behaviour at meal times (as a general rule, sometimes have to adapt slightly when family lunches). Their granny doesn't tolerate it either. Occasionally they ask to walk round the garden a few times for a 'shake down ' if they feel a little uncomfortable!
Any food left over is eaten at the following meal time!

Really? I thought that’s how they learned things? Imitating the caregivers? Obviously physical skills with danger attached like swimming and riding a bike we ‘taught him’. But most other things he just started doing. I’ve got a sweet video of him spooning casserole into his mouth at about 6/7 months old and obviously it’s all over his face and in his hair and everything but each time his dad went to take the spoon away he sort of growled and held it tightly because he was enjoying himself. I guess he gradually got better at it. He still likes to eat lots of things with his hands at home and that’s fine- I do it too. I don’t know if he’s typical I suppose as I don't have any other children around us. My parents were vile to me, I was terrified of them and would secretly plan to run away every single day ( I actually did once and never went back finally at 15) so I’m probably overly keen to just be this gentle, supportive character. Thankfully, he’s a child that rarely requires telling off.

YANBU at all. Did they do 'baby-led weaning' by any chance?!

The big deal is that children need to learn table manners and how to eat properly at the table. All of my friends' children were doing this much younger than 6 - it's not difficult. Unfortunately, this poor child has lazy parents who aren't teaching him the basics.

I am shocked at some of then responses. I would expect a six year old to sit down at the table and eat.

Oh God, I've just remembered. When I started school in 1971, after a joyous year with lovely Mrs McCosh in the infants, I went to the juniors where we had to eat at tables at lunchtime in a really weird set up.

It was four younger children with a boy and and a girl from the top year, so 11 at the most, acting as our parents and telling up what to do. This wasn't a cult, this was a state primary school and it happened in others in my county and I have no reason to believe it didn't happen in others throughout Britain.

I can't believe anyone today would think it was a good idea or even then. Putting young children in charge of younger children as some kind of crackpot scheme to socialise them all and make everyone play happy families was mad.

I have a few favourite teachers from junior, senior and college. But Mrs McCosh from Thomas Willingale Infants was my absolute tops. My mum taught me to write my name before I went to school and Mrs McCosh taught me to read.

I am with you OP. He sounds like the result of shoddy, child-led parenting.

Do you know if he wanders around at lunchtime at school? I can’t imagine he does.

I did baby-led weaning and my 5 year old eats pretty much everything, sits at the table beautifully and wouldn’t dare wander off during a meal. Nothing to do with weaning method.

I don’t force her to eat anything. Sometimes she’s not hungry. Sometimes she doesn’t like something. It’s no big deal. She has to try everything, but after that if she doesn’t eat it, I don’t make a fuss. She knows she won’t get anything else until the next meal apart from a glass of milk and some carrots or fruit if she’s starving. We only have pudding at weekends or if we have visitors but it’s not conditional on having eaten her dinner.

Wandering around during a meal is a) rude and b) a choking hazard. I’d put a stop to that sharpish, my child or not.

DD’s primary had a system where a yr 6 would sit on table with nursery/reception on a rota. It was a small family atmosphere school and she enjoyed it.

Yep. Parents who either cba to teach manners, or think their little precious Jimmy will be looked on as adorable when he runs round a restaurant disturbing everyone else while his parents get drunk and make a racket. I've seen it, at our local pizza place, and actually it was the parents who were more annoying than the feral kids. Dch need to be taught how to behave, in order to fit into society. I've watched a few of the US Supernanny programmes recently, and have concluded it all comes down to useless parenting.

That happened at my school, the sensible top class pupils had a table of little ones each , we kept them under control and got their meals from the hatch etc and had to eat our own lunch with them. We then cleared the table and set the table for the next sitting . I remember another boy in my class telling me I’d put the dessert spoons the wrong way so that was a good thing to learn. This will have been 1982/3. I had no siblings so had no experience of dealing with little children , I can’t remember much about it but it seems a bit mean to not let me socialise with my peers at lunch. I do remember we weren’t allowed a drink with lunch which was bonkers so we were always thirsty.

OP, I'm old school like you are. My children sat at the dinner table and if they didn't want to eat dinner, there would be no pudding, dessert or anything else. They learnt early on (5/6 y.o) that having a meal was a shared family time and if they didn't want to participate and left the table, there be no more food until the next meal. Kids are sponges and learn very quickly what they can get away with .....or don't.

Unfortunately, these are your grandkids and you can't place the same rules. It's up to their parents to teach them how to sit and eat their food at the table without wandering off. Be a grandmother and spoil them. You can make suggestions but it's up to their parents to teach them. You've already done your bit with your kids.

I assume the ones saying it's fine the for child to get up and roam around are the ones who people start threads about on MN about children roaming around in pubs/cafes/restaurants and getting under the feet of the waiters or disturbing other diners.

My DC had to sit at the table until they had finished. When I was a child everyone stayed at the table until everyone had finished.

We do ask DD1(4) to sit at the table until she's finished with her meal, but we don't expect her to eat everything or even anything really. We serve a small dessert alongside her meal usually, and she usually eats both main meal and dessert at the same time (yes it makes me cringe but that's my issue, not hers!). I would never force her to sit and eat something she didn't want or like. I wouldn't do that myself so why would I make someone else do it? But if she doesn't eat what's served then she is offered some toast and that's it as I'm not making a separate meal after we've eaten. She's a pretty good eater, can sit fine in a restaurant, etc. so I'm happy with that. Food should never be a battleground.

That's not fair, each person is different

Children are grazers, fly by eaters, as long as he is eating I don't see the issue.

What's he like with mince/sausage and mash with yorkies and dumplings?

And absolutely kids adapt easily and quickly to different rules in different places. They already get a taste of that at nursery - our nursery has rules, some of which we emulate at home, others we don't, but DD knows at nursery she has to do X but at home it's okay to do Y and has done for some time. It's fine to enforce sitting down for meals at your house.

Please don't enforce eating/trying everything on your plate, though. That is damaging and will just make your grandchildren dread coming over. I remember a friend of mine had a mum like this, where you had to eat everything on your plate before getting down from the table, and I told my mum I didn't want to go there for dinner any more because of it! It made play dates really awful at the end. In contrast, my mum was really relaxed, eat what you can manage, and my friends loved coming over (and I grew up without food issues of any sort).

People are wilfully ignoring this because they enjoy frothing at lax modern new fangled parenting.

Because we all know that kids raised by boomers are so well adjusted and stable! But hey, at least they have good manners right - that's the main thing.