Why are we letting children call the shots?

[trivi]

Apparently the advice now is to let your child get down from the table when then feel like it during dinner etc. If they don’t feel like eating and want to play with their toys, coming and going as they please, then that should be permitted.
Please help me understand the rationale for this? And at what age should this stop? Surely this doesn’t prepare them for school? Or life in general for that matter 😅 AIBU for thinking this advice is ludicrous??

You may be well informed about child behaviour but in this context you don’t seem to get the point.

OP has been very vague. To me it sounds a lot like the posters that state 'apparently all reception age children go to school on nappies now'. They take a statement, run with it and it becomes a load of bollocks.

I'm wondering if this is down to advising parents to trust DC when they are full, rather than forcing them to eat more? We have lots of eating disorders in this country, caused by people not learning when they are full. I'd imagine if a DC decides they are full, then are forced to sit for 30 minutes they will pick and over eat.

Look, there is going to be context here, it is not common to be getting HV advice for a school age child. But generally, of course I agree children should be taught nice table manners and given boundaries in general, adjusted for that individual child's abilities. I just do it though without any handwringing over "The Advice" which I've heard second or third hand, and teach them all sorts of other things to make theirs and everyone's lives nicer as they grow up too. I assume most parents are the same.

At home we allow our kids (4 and 2) to get down from the table when they’ve had enough and go and play if they want. They don’t get to go back and forth, though.

We go to restaurants all the time and have no issues, they will happily sit at the table and chat with us. Sometimes we take colouring but most times not as they are happy sitting with us and chatting.

The eldest also has no issues sitting and eating nicely at nursery either 🤷‍♀️

Our eldest was a bit of a fussy eater (like his father was as a child! hasttag Just Saying), wasn't keen on mushy food, strawberry, steamed greens, more a texture thing. So we played the long game, as he was a "eat to live" child we didn't make the dinner table a battle ground. It is also advised, if you can get your child to try things over and over again, so with all this in mind if he ate "one piece of broccoli" or one strawberry, or try a bit of each vegetable, he could go.

It took years. But his relationship with food is ok now, could be better but so much better than we thought was possible (and we still advise and encourage him). Nailing him to a chair, telling him he had to "finish" his plate and he couldn't come back later, was not going to get us anywhere and possibly/likely create a dysfunctional relationship with food. So he could go and come back, he came back to healthy stuff, it wasn't like we gave in and fed him crisps or anything like that.

This was at home.

We explained our technique and reasons when we visited friends and family, and if they had a stay at the table, ours would stay at the table being well behaved but they didn't have to finish their plates, compromise. If needed.

And if we ate out, it was always at a venue that was suitable for their age, time of day, other cliente.

What we did at home had no bearing on anyone else, when our children were young and out they didn't intentionally, and rarely if ever made anyone else's time out miserable. They knew how to behave at pre-school, and school. They are now almost young men and are decent, can take them to any restaurant now to eat, table manners, actually we can take them anywhere and they adapt their behaviour accordingly.

Now when eating with friends they are the ones who now to play a game after dinner and stay at the table being totally entertaining, was this because they came to view the dinner table as a place of fun and relaxation not rules and regulations? They don't have their phones at the table unless we need to QR code an answer in a game or something comes up in conversation that needs a a phone to prove or show it. But they are communal phones.

So what's the problem? What is the actual problem in letting a child leave a dinner table in their own house, because the OP says go and play with their toys which indicates at home.

How a child eats at home and their behaviour around eating in social settings can be, usually are, two completely different issues. And just because you let a child move away from a table doesn't mean they "call the shots".

If you met them OP you would never be able to guess they were "allowed to call the shots" and drift from dinner table when they were young. It's about the end game, turning them into nice adults, how you get there is not a proscribed list of rules that works with every child, every time.

No worries 😊. I mentioned my nephew because he required more 'effort ' than the others. He was the one that would want to get down from a high chair. The others, not.

Honestly, we took them to child friendly restaurants that supplied the colouring, chatting etc and they were fine.
Part of the first half hour was used for toileting, washing/cleaning hands and by the time you've gone through the whole routine, the food is almost ready.

For the most part, we practise 'dance a yard before you dance abroad', so it mostly fell into place.

Why do so many posters on here think discipline means cruelty and violence against children? It comes up all the time. It's alarming that they don't understand what discipline actually is.

Some of the ed psychs, whether the top ones or not, have the worst behaved, feral children, while telling everyone else that what they are doing is wrong. Theory is all very well, but common sense is far more important. I have three grown up children. My oldest is autistic and went to a special school. Rules and boundaries are more important to autistic people than ever. As an adult, he lives independently and is able to fit in with others by and large. If l had followed your methods, he would have been terrified and had far more behavioural problems. My daughter is the youngest child. When she was fifteen months old, we were invited to an older relative’s home for Sunday dinner - a traditional roast dinner. There were several other older relatives there, all of whom were watching her like hawks. She was a trouper that day. She sat on her booster seat at the table, had a small portion of the meal and ate every scrap using a spoon and fork. I think that if we have low expectations of our children they will live down to them, but if we have high expectations, they will do everything in their power to live up to them.

This is confusing in itself .

Health visitors only see children up until 5yrs, or 4yrs of the child has started Reception.

So either it's a toddler in preschool? Or 5yrs+ seen by a school nurse?

Regardless, there must be some other issues going on, eg ARFID, for a health professional to see an older child and give this advice. If that is the case, then it's advice given for a unique situation/child, that has some issues around food, so it doesn't apply to you and you can ignore this advice.

What age of child are we talking about? What I expected of my 18 month old was completely different to what I expected of her as a 3 to 4 year old which in turn is different from what I expect of her now at seven.

Ageist much?

Don't be so ridiculous. It isn't some sort of binary - 'let them do exactly what they want'/'hit and abuse them'. Your critical thinking skills need work, if your posts on this thread are anything to go by.

I had a little seat for my kids when they grew out of their high chairs. It sits on a normal chair and clips on. It also had straps. So they were always sitting with us at the table at meal times until we all finished. They still sit at the table every day and they are teens now. They learn what you teach. Parent how you want to. I didn't follow all the fads and my 2 are fine.

Children in general feel far happier and safer when there are clear boundaries and expectations in place.
Putting them in a situation where they get to make the decisions will be completely overwhelming and terrifying for them. That's their parents' job, not theirs.

Believe me, I get the point. Others aren't listening to or responding to mine.

He IS being taught to sit still. It's not a "one and done" lesson, though. He needs a lot more support with boundaries in this regard than others. Which means doing it, repeatedly, until he gets the message. Even if that includes bumps in the road where he needs to be escorted to the play section.

Think about all the possible things a child learns and develops - sleeping through, weaning, learning to talk, learning to walk, eating vegetables, brushing teeth, potty training, dressing, care routines.

There's a HUGE natural variation in all of these things. Do you agree with that, or do you think that all children learn all of those things at the same pace? If you agree with that, why do you then think that sitting still all through a meal is different from other forms of behaviour or learning? Did you teach your children to do those things by showing them once and they just magically understood it?

Incidentally, I don't mind at all the posters who think that if my son isn't ready to sit still in a restaurant then he shouldn't go. We might disagree on methodology, but they at least realise that different children have different dispositions.

Stupid "advice" that I'd never listen to.

It's funny as I think DDs picked up "May I leave the table?" from granny's or from watching TV. I'm not sure it's something I particularly enforced, but neither were they wandering about or back and to from the table anyway or running about when they were meant to be eating.

The main thing I took from parenting guidance in the noughties (I was more of a House of Tiny Tearaways viewer than Supernanny) was that you keep mealtimes relaxed. If they didn't like the dinner I made they could eat bread and butter as long as they had given it a go. They both went through phases of eating lots of bread and butter, but came out the other side good eaters. I remember also one time in Pizza Express another parent of older kids saying how well behaved they both were and how on earth did we do it, I think they were six and three at the time. Some of it is certainly more luck than judgement though. DD2 does have ADHD but more inattentive/dreamy than hyperactive. Some kids are definitely harder to get to sit still. Mine would always colour in once they were old enough, or make something with a napkin.

I think with 4 children I have a grasp in parenting thanks...

My son used to be backwards and forwards to the table. He has autism we figured out what works for is if he has his back to a wall he will stay at the table for longer. If we go out to eat we usually pick somewhere that has booths. He struggles to sit at a standard table and chairs in a restaurant. But if there’s nowhere suitable for us to sit we go somewhere else.

So all 40/50 year olds behave perfectly in restaurants? Elsewhere? They were more likely to be brought up with the table manners rules and I have observed some extremely rude 40-50 year olds.

So their parents obviously fucked up somewhere along the lines as well.

Because for every badly behaved 45 year old there are two parents, around 70, say, who did a bad job.

Oh you're one of 'those' parents for sure! 'Natural born explorer' lol!

I don’t understand - so you’re saying your nephew sometimes did want to get down from the high chair. In which case what happened then, since it wasn’t allowed? Was he padlocked in place and left to scream it out?

We’ve always taken our children to decent restaurants from the word go. They were sitting nicely for family meals at home long before they had the stamina to sit for a 90-120 minute restaurant meal though. And of course there will always be good days and bad days depending on how tired or hangry they are. And then there’s the odd time when the restaurant is having some sort of crisis and it takes twice as long for the food to come out.

I honestly think this image you paint of 1 and 2 year olds sitting quietly still for hours on end at every meal out to be fantastical, but if you say that’s your experience then obviously I can’t argue with you. But despite having these unicorn babies, would you really judge another parent taking their toddler for a stroll in a restaurant to keep him/her calm and happy assuming that it didn’t disturb the other diners or get in the way of the waiting staff? If anything, I’d be impressed they were making the effort to do that rather than just sticking the child in-front of a screen.

I think problem started when parents decided to be friends with their children rather than parent them. I grew up with the joys of my lovely Mum chasing me and my younger sister upstairs waving a bamboo stick around. I loved her dearly and still do. I can't imagine todays kids surviving a 60/70s childhood where in reality it would do them the world of good because we were free to explore our world.

Well why did you make such a silly statement?

I agree, we should make them stand in the corner for hrs on end. Bring back the belt

This seems to be your understanding of discipline.

Amazing how many parents think it's their god given right to eat out in restaurants with a small toddler who can't behave

Stay home, or have a picnic in a park.