Eating meals as a family

[Jemster]

Hi
I'm interested to know if people sit and eat their evening meal as a family and the effects this has on behaviour, manners etc.
I have ds 6 and dd 2 and only ever really managed to get all 4 of us eating together at weekends up until now.
I am a bit ashamed to say it but the dc normally eat at the table about 5.00 and I stick the tv on for them so I can do some much needed jobs in the kitchen. Me & dh then eat about 7.15 by which point I am ravenous!

This week dh is away and I have tried eating with them although I do find 5.00 a bit early. It felt worthwhile though as I was able to help both with their cutlery technique and keep more of a close eye on how much they were eating. Ds and I even had a nice little chat without the tele blaring out.

I'm feeling bad not making this a regular thing as my family always ate together and I look back on it as a nice thing to do. I'm just trying to figure out if I could make it work on week nights what with dh preferring to eat later and not wanting to let the dc get over hungry and grumpy as a result.

What do other people do please and do you think it makes a difference possibly to their behaviour/manners if you do sit with them?

We've always eaten together, more or less around 6pm when DS was younger and now nearer 8pm as he is a teenager - but I can't say it has done much for his manners or behaviour - he can behave nicely when he is with other people but is just a grumpy teenager at the moment who begrudges sitting with his parents to eat a meal and jumps up as soon as he can .

DH isn't home until 7 so DC eat around 5. I eat with DH either at 7 or once the DC are in bed. I sit down with the DC and talk to them whilst they eat and if they behave badly they are told off. Nobody ever eats off laps, we always sit at the table. I remember when DH and I first were married he tried to eat from laps whilst watching TV and I put my foot down.

Weekends we all sat all 3 meals together. At the table. :D

Deep - unfortunately, we both work. Luckily our children can come with us most the time between us. However, this means even when they both eventually start school we aren't home until 6.30/7pm. There's simply no way they will ever be able to have a 7pm bedtime.
I don't think it makes any difference if they sleep 13/14 hrs dividied between night and a nap atm, or if they sleep 13 hours in one go.

Even if you can't/won't sit with them, do you really need to put the TV on? Learning at such a young age to eat mindlessly in front of a screen, not thinking about what they're eating can't be good, surely? (The odd dinner in front of a film together is alright, IMO, but every night?)

drinkingtea - just do what works, as mine get older it gets more and more complicated. Eg. Fridays now DD has activities 3.15-4.15 and 6-7.30 and DS has activities 4.30-5.15 and 5.30-6.15. Just getting a slot to feed them at all is tricky!

When mine were small I used to sit with them when they ate their meal at around 5pm but just have whatever veg they were having (used to have in depth discussions with myself as to whether chips are veg!!). I thought it was valuable time to spend together, it got me closer to my 5 a day and it staved off the hunger pangs and prevented me snacking before my later dinner with DH.

Not they're older we all eat together at least 5 dinners per week

I also make a point of sitting with them while they have breakfast. I find it's the time when things they need to talk about will come out. DS1 leaves home at 7:45, so I sit and have a cup of tea with him while he has breakfast, then have my breakfast with DS a bit later.

I'm not sure I can claim they have perfect table manners but I do think it's an important way to keep the family "close"

I eat with DH as he doesn't get home until late and I don't think it's fair that he should have to eat on his own every night. That said, I do sit with the kids while they're eating and chat to them. At weekends, we all eat together as much as possible. As the kids are growing up, they know that Sunday dinnertime is family time. It's the one time of the week there are no excuses to not be there.

Re table manners, they're a bit more hit and miss!

We all eat together about 6, always at the table and no TV under any circumstances! Even DD sits with us in her highchair looking longingly on (she's only 20 weeks). Don't see the problem with eating early - it means everything is cleared away early too and when DC are in bed you have plenty of time to go for a run/watch a film/have a long bath etc without faffing about cooking and cleaning.

Re eating early- my kids are ravenous when they get home from school so an early 5pm meal suits us fine. If we ate later they would be cramming themselves with snacks. I would rather they ate a substantial home cooked meal with me at 5pm when they are ready for it than fill up on fruit and crackers.

I think the 5pm tea time is a bit of a British institution! We live in France, and are becoming more French by the year in terms if our routine. So the children have a substantial gouter / snack when they come out if school at 4.30, then we eat together as a family around 6:45 or 7:00pm. Bedtime is usually 8:00 to 8:30. French families do things later than us, dinner rarely happens before 7.30 and bedtime closer to 9pm.

As for eating together, it's one of our family rules that we've at together when we are all home. If DH works late the children will usually eat at their snack table and watch a cartoon - sometimes I join them there! I think it helps them to see how adults eat and share food and conversation. The French are real sticklers for table manners, the idea of special tables or special kiddy friendly food is not as popular here I think. It's one of the reasons why French children don't throw food... ;))

We have teatime at 5 or 5.30 at the latest. We eat together on weekends and holidays and lunchtime at weekends. Whoever us not picking up won't be home until 6 which is too late for the dc. I eat breakfast with the dc during the week, Dp eats with them on weekends while I have a lie in.
Eating together more is something I aspire to and intend to do as they get old enough to wait a bit longer. We always eat at the table to the extent that when ds2 (3) found a packet of sweets yesterday he wanted to take them to the table to eat.

i much prefer eating together. DH doesn't like earing early but he is happy to have a bit of an evening. we eat at 6ish most nights. When DD's been at nursery she is a) not that hungry and b) knackered so on those nights she has a sandwich at 5.30 and i sit with her then we eat later. So i expect if she was at nursery full-time (or when she's at school) we won't eat together so often :-(

i think it's a very good thing to eat together - quite apart from the conversation, when we started it really broadened dd's diet.

I serve dd (3) her tea at six-ish sitting up on a stool at the kitchen island while I faff around. DH and I eat much later.

Just - that's true. It's only British children who can't seem to last a few hours without wasting away! I mean children all across the world cope with later bedtimes, later dinner and yet still get to school earlier than children in the uk. Or friends in Madrid have 8 year old twins. They eat around 9pm, bed around 10.30pm, yet start school at 8.15am so up 7am ish. Like the whole of Spanish society. They go to international school so no siesta at That age

We all eat together at about 6.30, unless DD has been at the CM, where she has her dinner really early at 5, because that's what time the others kids eat. On those nights she sits with me and DP while we eat ours and we give her a tiny portion so she's still included.

It's only me and DD who's 14 so we eat on the couch at 6.30/7.00 in front of the telly. But I talk to DD in the car everyday for about 20mins on the way to school and sometimes back depending if she's taking the bus or not.

It hasn't done DD any harm, she knows how to use a knife and fork and knows her table manners. She went on school camp recently and half the girls didn't know how to use a knife or fork!

We're in NZ and a lot of the families I know have tea either on the couch with the telly on, don't have tea as a family or have at the table with the telly on. I also think having tea at 5.00 is a british thing as I know no one who has tea at 5.00 apart from my mother who had tea at that time since she retired in the mid 1980s!

Art - a lot of German children eat at 5 or soon after. School starts at 7.45am, the kids in our village (including my eldest) catch the school bus at 7am, out of the house by 6.50am latest, so up at 6am. My 8 year old goes to bed at 7.30pm to scrape 10.5 hours sleep, most of her friends go at the same tome or earlier, so kids here wouldn't cope eating at 7pm or later, they just wouldn't get enough sleep!

Drinking - that's must be regional then. As when we lived in Germany friends children always came out late to our house and up late at there's etc.. No one had bed until 9/10pm at least. The streets would be full in the evening at events and Xmas markets with families until late.

Tweasels I love you!
I always sit with my D at teatime - 5.30ish; she and I have lunch together if she is at home and we always all have breakfast together and lunch at weekends. I am a massive foodie, believer in the importance of sit-down civilised dinner every night and that came from always having early tea till I was deemed old enough to eat at 7.30 with my parents, around age 10. What I mean is it did me no harm at all in terms of socialisation / healthy eating / food adventurousness. And frankly, I see a hell of a lot of my darling toddler (2.10) and not nearly enough of DH. We sit down and eat together sometime after 8, once she's happily in bed and I am actually not looking forward to the time when she is old enough to stay up and eat together. So slay me. Maybe I won't like DH enough by then to want to spend some quality time alone with him This 'all eating together' thing seems to be a modern sacred cow and another thing for mums to beat themselves / each other up about. No-one in my house has ever consumed a scrap of anything (wine doesn't count, right?) in front of the TV and DD gets really stuck in with the cooking (not so big on eating, together or separately, but that's another story) so I hope she'll grow up valuing meals as much as DH and I do. Artandco I read your post as 'Drinking must be regional' !!

We eat at 7.30, all together. We only get home at 6.15 so can't eat much earlier. Those of you who work a normal working day (till 5pm) how do you manage to eat so early??

That's why DD has two dinner times (and occasionally two dinners!), the CM gives all her charges their dinner really early.

Doesn't seem to bother DD that when she's not at the CM she eats later.

Feral drinking is fairly regional, at least in terms of what you drink, I'd say :o

Art maybe, we have lived in Bavatra for 7 years, can't speak for other states, but the early start to the school day is not regional I don't think, and its an unusual under 10 year old, regardless of nationality, who soes well pn less than 10 hours sleep on a regular basis (rather than as a one off for a Christmas market, fest or football match...) In year 3 at state school they learn about how much sleep they need at different ages, and are told to get 10-11.5 hours at age 8-9...

All the kids around us play out most of the afternoon and early evenings when its dry, and there is a loose knit band of 14 or 16 5-11 year olds out most of that time - between 5 and 6 various kids go home to eat, and then often come back out, but my kids eat at 6 and thete is nobody out playing by the time they finish, except in the summer holidays ehen there are often kids and parents out til 8 or so. There are only people out later on fest days, though it is a rural farming village.

*Bavaria, not whatever my sausage fingers typed

tugamommy The afterschool club only runs until 5.30 so we have to pick up by then except Friday's when it doesn't run at all. We flex our hours so one of us will drop off while the other picks up.