Are my DC hyper or AIBU as my expectations are warped ?

[coveruplep]

My DC always around and jump off furniture after dinner. Like a circuit. Yes I tell to stop but they start again or go in another room and do it. They are very wired in the evenings. We have a healthy diet mostly home cooked, protein, carbs and vegetables and have exercise, fresh air & down time each day including screen time, but not excessive or super restricted.

The running about is straight after main course, they cannot seem to stay sitting and get down after a few minutes. It’s not a sugar thing like after giving a sweet pudding, although I appreciate all carbs are sugar. It’s daily.

Ages nearly 7 & 4, been trying to sit at table as family for dinner forever. Now I don’t know AIBU the expectation they should be able to sit still for 10 minute dinner or did I start the expectation when too young and now there’s a habit of getting up and not staying seated ? How long should they be able to sit at their ages?

Seems the few people I’ve asked about a comparison on this do not do family sit down at the table dinners. Told that the kids eat in front of Tv or on children’s table or sofa so it’s not so formal or more come to table to collect food, but not sit at it. Have one friend we’ve eaten at table when on a play date, but kids get down quickly too, but not hyper like mine.

I find some like this impossible to know what is “normal” expectations as I grew up in vvvv strict family so you behaved or got beaten, so I find it hard to know what expectation is realistic with my children. No other little children in family.

DH says I’m not strict enough and let them get down from table without asking. Obviously I am maybe too lenient as I try to break the circle. Tonight DH was out and behavior was even looser, but DC seemed more relaxed but it’s the weekend. Is it possibly ADHD instead ? How can you stop it anyway without consequences?

The 7 year old should be able to sit and eat, surely they do at school? 4 year old can be hit and miss depending on personality. They shouldn't be jumping off furniture. If they are hyper, what about a family dance, one of the just dance videos on YouTube?

Both should be able to sit and eat, especially the 7 year old,
We've had problems with on of our GC around that age. He
oftenpalyed up when we were there.
You have to be strict with them. Its hard but being firm and sticking
to it will work. Give it a week or two. Then reward them EG, "you was a good boy today, so you can do/watch ?? for an extra 15 minutes"

So try the agreeing to behave and reward and a verbal contract - you do this and you get this and if you do that, you wont get that. Stick to it. Easier said than done, but worth it long run,

btw, we noted the 7 year at the time often went hyper oafter a sugary cookie etc, so possibly before meal, let them play around kick a ball around in the room etc/soft ball etc

I would eliminate your parenting style as the reason for your kids behaviour first before moving on to ADHD as a potential cause.

How do they behave when you take them to restaurants?

DD5 can sit at a table, eat and engage. But I also wouldn’t expect her to do that for more than around 30 mins at home. I mean, how long does it take to eat dinner and how many courses are you talking about (as you refer to main course)?

The 4 yr old probably just copies the 7 yr old.

Get them outside and doing physical activity rather than climbing the furniture.

Both capable of sitting down to eat at that age, but if they're allowed to run around the house climbing everything after dinner then of course they will.

We eat at the table and mine have always sat properly, asked to leave the table at the end and gone to play.

Not said in a ‘I’m doing it right’ way - all kids are different, but in answer to your question of do other kids that nicely sit on a kids table or watching tv.

Mine can sit and eat - maybe about 15 minutes. They also jump off the furniture. The type of movements they do are really important for their development so I’m not fussed about kids jumping about.

Why jump to ADHD?

No starter, just imagining people thinking we give a prawn cocktail starter, but no. We just give a main hot dinner like plain pasta, chunks of chicken breast, broccoli, grated cheese, cut up veg type of thing. Say homemade pasta sauce is available but they don’t often want it. Generally no pudding, as they’ve gone from sitting, sometimes they have a yoghurt after main, but they already cannot sit by this point so are running around, so pudding doesn’t happen regularly.

I'm interested in how others do it , but after a day going out places or walking to school people really take their DC out again instead of clearing up or to the park after dinner at dusk ? It’s dark after our dinner now, so I’m not sure what time people eat? We eat 6/ 6.30pm maybe 7pm at weekends. We have a garden, but it’s tiny, slippery when it’s so wet and rainy weather and small, so 2 DC running about would be muddy, I wouldn’t mind really but it’s dark.

Generally don’t go to restaurants that involve any prolonged sitting, yes if we do it, they will get up, wouldn’t run, but move about, I do encourage sitting, and say not to get down, but they still do. Would involve a constant input to maintain any sitting, multiple card games, colouring. 100% parent attention so it’s not relaxing.

Age 7 DC can sit at school has struggled with focus a lot, but never been told about any poor behaviour. I’m sure my DC are more relaxed at home than school/ nursery.

Age 4 is not at school yet. And it is probably me struggling with discipline having come from an extremely strict household growing up.

Would involve a constant input to maintain any sitting, multiple card games, colouring. 100% parent attention so it’s not relaxing.

Thats exactly how children learn

They might sit for 10 minutes to eat max with normal conversation, sitting up when food plated. After that will get off chair and move even if dinner not finished. Do not make them eat everything, but need to eat a few bits of everything.

I’m not jumping to ADHD but asking, because children can be different at school.

Are you anxious around food? You should as if you might be but that might just be because you are trying to explain everything to us!

I remember picking up my mother's anxiety around food and finding family dinners at the table stressful. If they are eating their main course in ten minutes, is there really a problem?

The running around is very good for them. We played that sort of game a lot as children. If you have a space where they can do it, I'd call it their gym time and be happy about it.

Based on your update I should add that mean sit properly but that doesn’t mean actually eat. One is a very picky eater and it’s a battle but she doesn’t act up, just completely disinterested.

Oh right. When I was a child we didn’t really go out to eat, it wasn’t a general thing weekly thing with our immediate family, only very rare special occasions like a big Birthday. So more relative or friends, but my parents didn’t interact with us just the other adults. I’m mid 40’s now, so maybe it’s just my age group or maybe we didn’t have enough money to do this, we weren’t that well off growing up. We never had takeaways either. We didn’t move about or talk in a restaurant or at home at dinner because of fear. As beating your children is now illegal, and living with the bubble of anxiety and fear of severe punishment from mishaving isn’t healthy. I don’t think my parents really like children much and navigating a different style of parenting is hard without good examples. I find it extremely challenging to know how to do it. DH wasn’t really parented due to being one of many and his parents just working all the time, they brought each other up.

I'm trying to think how my cousins would behave at family events as kids, I can’t remember. I know my Dad would moan about it. Now there are some other small children in extended family, but we don’t see each other much and as family is big tends to be at someone’s house. My Dc cousins are much older than them, I wasn’t with DH then I don’t know how they handled the young Dc stage.

If they can do it at nursery/school then they can do it at home.

I have to be honest, if I'd got up from the table and started jumping off the furniture at those ages, I'd have been in big trouble.

I think you need to be firmer. Mine are NEVER allowed to jump on the furniture.
MY youngest does fidget but we can go out for a meal and we do sit for at least 20 minutes eating at the table as a family.

They do masses of sport and playing/ running but not at mealtimes!

My kids are a bit of a pain in the bum to sit at the table and eat their dinner, mostly the big two (6 and 8) the wee one loves her food so she's not so bad. We have to constantly keep telling them to eat their dinner. They talk a lot 🙈 have to go to the toilet, need to get a straw 🤦🏻‍♀️ have to show us something, the list goes on.
They wouldn't be great eaters and are a little fussy.
Yes sometimes they run around like little crazy people and do jump on the sofa, and have to be told not too.
They don't have any additional needs/SEN they are just kids that get excited and definitely bounce off eachother in terms of energy. Sometimes it's irritating and sometimes I'm just 🤷🏻‍♀️ they are just playing and having fun and get a bit carried away.
As for your DH saying you're not strict enough, their his kids too, let him speak up and do the discipline!! It's always me in our house because mine works a lot and it's not fair mummy always being the one giving out and daddy coming in being the fun one.

No not anxious about food, just trying to explain the DC eat a general diet, not super extreme but healthy, but fruit, veg, biscuits and cakes too. If my DC run about at any time my parents always say it’s because they have had sugar like a biscuit, not just because yes they are children.

Try not to stress about this too much OP - I can almost hear the anxiety and tension in your posts because you feel you may be failing your kids, but you truly aren't. If this is the only "naughty thing" they do, they sound like pretty good kids to me!

What I would do is start to INSIST they stay at the table till you let them get down (using either a sanction such as time out/lost screen time if they disobey, and a reward such as 15 mins more screen time/small amount of sweets/whatever if they reliably comply.

BUT make the length of time they have to sit for really short. So it's totally achievable for them to manage this goal. Then allow the lively play so long as it's in a room you are happy with and they are obeying your basic safety restrictions (no fighting, no climbing - whatever you are happy with).

This way you make it easy for them to succeed, and you re-establish control (not in a nasty way) of the situation, and can then work on more extended periods of sitting perhaps going forwards.....

Oh, and don't let your husband make you feel bad about this. Sometimes men find it naturally easier to be obeyed by children (taller, deeper voice, sterner looking faces etc) - so he should be helping you and backing you up, not putting you down.

You are doing a good job, and I am sorry your parents were shit. The only really fatal ways you can fail your kids are abuse, lack of care, lack of love. If you are loving and kind and careful what happens to them then yes you may not get everything right, do everything perfectly, who does? But they will overall be ok in the end.

If they have finished eating why do they need to stay sat at the table?
As for the energy thing - as someone upthread suggested do things like dancing. I don't know if those dance mat things are still around. The ones with flashing lights and you have to follow the steps.
A secondhand Nintendo Wii with the sports games might be good. Do they have bikes? You can get something that turns a bike into an indoor exercise bike.

My youngest does have ADHD so he really struggles with sitting for long at the table. My 11 year old can sit for much longer but neither have been great, it's taken a lot of work over the years.

I'm a bit surprised you allow jumping on or off furniture, that is a massive NO at any time in our house. If they need to run (my youngest definitely does) then it's outside or off to the park.

If this is always after dinner then I think you need to step in and stop it. They're old enough to understand what you are saying and you can impose consequences nicely, it doesn't have to be harsh.

I do notice some parents of toddlers let theirs graze and play whereas I've always taught we eat first then when all done we can play. So I think it's a lot about what they're used to doing and what they, not you, see as normal.

What time do they get up/ go to bed? Is it possible that they’re overtired and eating too late?

At that age mine used to eat at about 5 and be bathed/ undressed / ready for bed by about 7. We often used to get the ‘bedtime giggles’ which I assumed as overtiredness.

Generally don’t go to restaurants that involve any prolonged sitting, yes if we do it, they will get up, wouldn’t run, but move about, I do encourage sitting, and say not to get down, but they still do. Would involve a constant input to maintain any sitting, multiple card games, colouring. 100% parent attention so it’s not relaxing.

When you say "they still do", what happens then? Your comment about what it would take to keep them sitting down in a restaurant suggests you let them wander about? Despite you asking them not to?

In your own house I'd be less bothered. My 4 year old will sit through dinner no problem, but if she wanted to get down after she'd finished eating I'd be fine with that. I wouldn't have her getting down, then coming back for another mouthful, then wandering off again, but if she's done she can go if she wants.

Humans aren't designed to sit around like we do these days, but that particularly applies to kids. They should be moving all day and instead they sit in school, sit in cars, sit watching tv etc. No wonder they have excess energy.

They are jumping on the sofa because you let them, that can be stopped easily. It does need replacing with something else though. Can you walk them from school, do sports clubs, go out on bikes, chuck them in the garden, put down cushions and play the floor is lava etc?

For what it's worth, my child with adhd can sit at the table brilliantly as he likes food and adult company. My child without adhd really struggles and always has done.

I think at those ages they NEED exercise in their day.

Our school system expects a lot of sitting/behaving/concentrating and I think it is completely normal to need more than a walk to/from school as exercise in that age.

They need to move so the longer we keep them coupled up the bigger the explosion is one way I think about it. And training them to not move is a bit counter productive long term.

What time do you pick them up from school? Can they really not play in the garden? Can you make the garden an easier place to play in? Doesn't need to be pretty but to climb and play amd move or a rope swing or a hula hoop or some old pieces of carpet to use as stepping stones to make an obstical course are all great. Park on the way home is a favourite but sounds like you don't have time for that.

If they don't eat until 6.30 do they have a snack after school? Sometimes hunger does odd things and kids don't always recognise that's what it is.

Otherwise yes look at indoor ways to move (I envy those with space who have some sort of indoor climbing/swinging set up) but dance games on a switch or any of the movement games are good. Or other games with the kids that you can think of. Or kids exercise video if it's a fun one they'll want to join in with. Mine liked "go noodle" songs if they're still around.

Kids really aren't designed to sit still all day and it's important for their development they move. So it's their way of showing you it's what they need. But yes to repurposing that into ways that don't involve jumping off furniture (unless you're okay with that then fine too! We had one sofa we allowed headstand on in the end!)