Grandchildren's eating habits AIBU?

[Sausagenbacon]

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 never say anything when the parents are present. I parented as I thought was right when I was a young parent, they have the right to do as they want. When DH and I are alone with our grandchildren we set the rules but in a very gentle and playfull way. Our children agree on that and appreciate the effort we put in showing the little ones good table manners - it makes going out for a meal so much easier! I'm very lucky both my children have more or less the same rules as we had : we eat at the table, we eat an acceptable portion, we remain seated untill everyone has finished their meal. DS's boy is 6, eats without making a mess, remains seated, uses a napkin, eats a reasonable portion, asks if he may leave the table. DD's son is 4, he too remains seated, has to be encouraged to eat an agreed upon portion, is more messy than his cousin but now using cutlery and getting-there using a napkin. But again, if and when the parents are present I leave it to them!

YANBU OP, this would annoy me too. I've had to use the "in our house rules" with several of DD9's friends & their siblings at meal times. Some can't seem to sit on a chair properly, or stay sat on it through one child size plate of food unless firmly asked. It seems bizarre to me that people can't be bothered to teach children table manners - yes it takes patience & persistence, but that's parenting (obviously with necessary allowances for SEN children). It's hard when your grandchild's parents are there, but would definitely try to use granny's house rules, as then it's not a direct criticism of them, it's just setting your standards & boundaries. Same as if DD's friends get to eat in the living room/on the sofa at their homes, they wouldn't do so in my home as that's one of our house rules - food at table. Have had to use that in front of their parents as well & had no issues arise. Best of luck with it x

Fruit and plain yoghurt 🙄

Fruit and plain yoghurt 🙄

The rules in our house are sit on your bottom whilst you're eating dinner, eat as much as you want but only pudding if you finish your dinner. We give free reign on pudding as I don't my children to associate certain things with being 'helathy' and therefore less fun, or developing a complex around junk food. Yoghurt and fruit are as much as a treat as icecream and everything in moderation. I think it's important to learn good table manners, its expected at school, but it's something parents need to teach. It's perfectly reasonable for you to have your own rules in your own house, your not parenting other people's children, you're setting guidelines for how people behave in your home when you've prepared them a meal. Totally not unreasonable.

Agreed.
My daughter is a very picky eater and it’s not all about manners.
We work with a dietician and a consultant and so my parents cook her what she wants to eat so she isn’t left out and still sits with us at mealtimes.

I was also forced to eat all my dinner or I didn’t get pudding.
Even now in my 40’s I eat everything on my plate, even if I’m full.
It’s a terrible way to teach a child to eat. I overeat at mealtimes.

As long as my DD eats at least some of her meal she can have pudding. Either a fruit pouch or yoghurt.

Grandparents house is different. They always cook her what she wants and she always gets ice cream.

Maybe your son or daughter feels relaxed at your house and doesn’t feel the need to have to ‘parent’ at mealtimes because it’s a safe space, but can sit down and actually eat her own dinner for once without having to constantly keep your grandchild in check like she would if they were eating out.
Granny’s house should always be fun!

My 8 year old has always struggled with eating and sitting at the table. This is a constant battle at home. When we go out or visit other people we don’t enforce the sitting down and eating as it causes arguments / tension. We would rather have a relaxed meal time and if he doesn’t eat much then it doesn’t matter for that occasion, rather than make things tense.
my child eats better when he can get up and down or stand or lean - sitting is difficult for him.
He has autism and ADHD. Not saying your grandchild is neurodiverse but it’s not always fault with parenting. As someone who spent years being told my sons issues were a parenting issue it’s really upsetting to be told that.

Spot on.
I was the same and always overeat at mealtimes.
I will never make my children sit at the table until they’ve finished everything on their plate, but they do have to sit at the table until they’ve had enough and then they ask to get down from the table.
My DD is an extremely fussy eater but we’ve worked with dieticians and she’s under a consultant for other issues and they aren’t worried at all about her pickiness.

They did for me.
I wasn’t allowed to leave the table until I’d eaten everything on my plate.
I still do this even when I am full and so does my husband. It’s a terrible habit. You should eat until you are full.
We never had any snacks in our house growing up.

Totally agree with this. Shocked at the amount of people who don’t encourage these basics - of course most 6 year olds should be able to do this. Most pre-schoolers should be able to sit at a table to eat their food and stay there. We just have to have the expectations otherwise it becomes another job for pre-schools and schools that should be a basic role of the parent.

I’ve only ever come across one parent who doesn’t expect this. Their 2 children (oldest is nearly 11) now get down from tables at family homes and restaurants whenever they feel like, they barely eat, they demand (and are given) other food after a few mouthfuls of what they’ve been given (even though they’ve been asked what they would like beforehand) and they very rarely say please or thank you. That isn’t how society works and it will do them no good.

My nephews were both like this at 6. They simply grew out of it. I think at 6 they just weren’t very interested in food.

My own son did sit nicely at the table at 6, without wandering off. He loved food and would eat almost anything at that age. Restaurants were a very different story: he’d attempt to get down from the table repeatedly. We didn’t allow him to run around, we just took him outside for a few minutes each time. He enjoyed the food in restaurants but couldn’t cope with the noise. He was 6 when he was diagnosed with ASD.

I don’t think it’s so terrible for a six year old to wander away from the table. Most children will eventually learn to stay seated and eat up. Some of them just take a bit longer than others to get there.

At 6 they should be expected to sit at the table until they are full , not necessarily eaten everything on the plate . Getting up and down at the school lunch table would not be tolerated .

They aren't in school why is everyone going on about school? 🥴

@HauntedPencil
Not sure about other posters but I've referred to school to highlight that they must be capable of sitting at a table and eating as they would have to at school . No lunch supervisor would allow children up and down from the table as it would be chaos , and unsafe.

They are at their grandmas? Who sounds like a real hoot.

I expect it was. We are all different, aren't we?

When I was 11 and started secondary school in 1975 my best friend was a vegetarian. I'd never heard of someone who didn't eat meat. Similarly, many of my new friends had never heard of eating offal, which we did at home all the time. When my mum wasn't giving me Fray Bentos pies on my lap in front of Wacky Races, she cooked things like kidneys and pearl onions fried in butter on toast, or liver and bacon and heart stew. My new friends found that odd and some of them found it repellent.

I also knowingly met Jewish people for the first time and learned that some of my new friends kept kosher, or at least when their parents were looking.

There was a girl in my class who drank Perrier. This was 1975 in England so I don't think it was just me that was surprised that you could not only get water in bottles but that people would actually pay for it. Her mum was French.

I'm really glad I met those people. I wouldn't say their habits were better or worse than mine and definitely not that they saved me from my feral ways, It was just that they were different and us coming together was a rich experience. This was a state school in an area that had a mix of working and middle class children, not some rarefied Bohemian place.

I now eat and cook all sorts of things - I am a very keen cook - and though no expert, if someone came round to my house who was a vegan, a vegetarian, or who kept halal or kosher, or had allergies I'd know roughly what to give them and what not to give them because I've learned and because I am interested in learning I'd ask them.

Soon I'll be starting a ribollita using cannellini beans, cabbage and other leftover vegetables plus a parmesan rind I saved. We'll be eating it about 8pm in front of Mission: Impossible 6 which I recorded on my Sky box.

But if someone phones out of the blue and invites us to join them at a restaurant then I'll put it in the fridge and manage not to run around and trip up the waiters.

I am a mixture of the sublime and the banal. The most interesting people often are IMO. It's much more interesting to be flexible than hold to a rigid adherence to rules like sitting round a table to eat your dinner or never eating ready meals or at McDonalds.

The wandering no, that’s not right. Kneeling, no, but I understand if they need a booster (personally I wouldn’t encourage it as could lead to other traits).

being picky about eating, yes sadly some kids are, they often grow out of it but can take yeaaaars.

When you are at school you are there to learn, not to be co-opted by teachers or lunchtime supervisors into doing their jobs for them.

School is a major place where we learn to get on with others, but children should never be responsible for other children or encouraged to "model" behaviour. It doesn't help the older children who are expected to behave like little mummies and daddies and doesn't help the smaller ones who expected to be their children.

There were children I knew at school who came from dysfunctional backgrounds to put it mildly. After a sex education lesson, one boy talked about punching his sister in the vagina. At least he got the term right but do you think that's a boy who should he be "modelling" my behaviour or do you agree with me that social services should have been called?

It always an adult's job to supervise the children in their care. If you don't think so, ask yourself if it would be okay for a 10 year old to supervise her five-year-old sister while their parents popped down to the pub.

I’m not totally sure of the question / purpose of the post so will take a few goes;

1. it is more common these days (in my experience) to allow kids to wander during mealtimes like your grandson does. But it’s not totally the norm, many families still insist on the rules you did

2. but there’s nothing inherently wrong or right with either approach. By the time he’s 30 he’ll probably be sitting down to eat properly.

3. sounds like it’s annoying for you but as a grandparent i guess you need to just back up the same rules he has at home. It’s hard to explain different rules in different places to a 6 year old.

4. don’t think you should raise with your child / the grandson’s parent. He’s their kid and if this is allowed by them that’s their choice.

5. tortellini is delicious :-)

And 3-11 is a huge range. I would keep a very close eye on an 11-year-old playing with someone who was little more than a toddler. It's not that the 11-year-old would intentionally hurt someone smaller, it's that they are a child and they wouldn't understand.

And why would an 11-year-old necessarily want to play with someone of three? I don't know what you were like at 11 but at that age I wanted to talk to my friends about the things we were interested in - horses, boys, periods, make up, pop music etc. I didn't want to babysit someone else's three-year-old.

my daughter is nearly 6. she can't sit at the table a full meal. we do suspect adhd, but i do think it's normal. I want her to learn to listen to her body & eat from hunger, not sit & eat because she's told to.

she also had food sensitivities. I like that you kept the sauce seperate, but its not just as simple as that. if the parents want to give him toast because that's his safe food, so be it, better than being hungry. maybe you could run the meal idea by his parents before hand & make accommodations? (just like you would for dietary requirements for adults visiting)

again, parents choice to let him have pudding. but remember a) that might not be their preference to let him have pudding, but they could be more concerned about him being hungry since he didn't eat much

b) they are eating at someone's house - it's a special occasion, it may not be their usual practice or how they do it at home. but if it is, it's still not your place to judge

@Cosycover

Rubbish, mine sat and ate meals at the table as a family as soon as they could sit up in a highchair. This is called normal parenting. You set your expectations and children cope just fine. How on earth can they cope at school if they can't sit and eat a meal. And sn's aren't an excuse either, dsd has very severe ld's, autism and other "stuff" she sits through meals just fine because she's always had to

Schools who ask older children to supervise younger ones will pick those year 6 children carefully. You have an unrealistic understanding of how most schools work and the importance of building relationships across school years. They benefit both the older and younger children.

This a variation on the meme of "Behold! A man has arrived to share his manly views" but with someone who is probably female but equally annoying.

@RattleRattle I don't give a shit what your nationality is or what is part of your culture or what you think of the English.

If you came round to my house with that attitude I would tolerate you and never invite you back.

It's the English way.