Do you eat the same food at the same time as your children - everyday?

[McDreamyGonagall]

This has got me thinking after reading another thread.

I really want to increase the amount of times we do this. DH prefers to eat later as he has quite a late lunch but I feel we are missing out on enjoying time with the children, teaching them manners etc.

We do eat with them 2 or 3 times a week, just not every night. Also I tend to cook something different on the nights we don't eat with them. What do you do?

I note that nobody has actually dissented with my point of the potential horror of Family Meals...

Seriously though do you not think that challenging it can sometimes cause more problems?

Dd is a fussy eater - I don't challenge it anymore. I'm not anxious about it. She eats a reasonably balanced diet and I refuse to get drawn into battles over food.

Only read OP so far.

We almost always eat as a family for our evening meal. We eat at 6:30(ish) once DH gets home from work. I get home earlier (when working) and I get dinner ready to eat as he comes in. We generally eat the same thing, or similar - I don't eat meat so I am often the one having something different, not DD.

This is one thing me and DH felt was really important to us. We bought a Tripp Trapp highchair to encourage this and we have eaten together as a family almost from the stage DD was weaned. We also eat out as a family regularly.

Occasionally DD may eat without us, maybe if she has a friend round for dinner after school or if DH and I are going out. I will sometimes cook something different then. This averages once a week or so, if that. I still will sit with DD so she doesn't eat alone. If she has a friend round they sit together and I encourage them (thye need little help, lol) to chat as they eat.

family meals are good for us here

Re the Tanya Byron quote: 'at the root of almost every child's eating pormlem that I have experienced is an anxious parent; and often an anxious parent who is also obsesively clean and tidy'

You see, I consider an "eating problem" to be when a child is so worried to leave something on their plate that they sneak it off the table and make it myseriously disappear. An example I believe you gave, hurricane.

I do not consider it to be an "eating problem" when one child does not like mince but happily eats a minceless bolognese, made quite easily at the same as the mince one.

Mine were fairly grim, but have got better with time. DD now even has the social graces to compliment the cook (me)

I think that it comes, as with most parenting stuff, with time.

Mine were even complimented (cough) on their behaviour at posh resturant we went to during the Whitsun break by the owner. 3 years ago that would have been holy hell on wheels.

last post was all about family meals btw

I agree with Hurricani all the way

oh i do, mi

family meals are fine here, really

the kids do behave fine, actually. I do think it might just be one of those things they are ok with if they are used to it, tbh.

family meals suck!

we have listened to hurricane ad-blessed-infinitum, haychee.

Its not the eating together or lack of it thats makes them fussy. It the "ok, you dont like broccoli in cheese sauce thats taken me an hour to prepare and cook, ill make you a cheese sandwich instead" that what does it.

Family meals are ok. Older kids makes all the difference.

Mine tend to behave, just sometimes (shock, horror) I like to be on my own with dh!

Rather like sometimes I like to be on my own with dd, and sometimes on my own with ds.

I like grown up time.

Who, on this thread, actually does that, haychee?

pointydog I think you're deliberately misunderstanding me. Obviously we may all have different views of a food problem. As I've said there are degrees. Not liking a few things is normal (I don't like beetroot for example), not eating a whole group of essential foods (like vegetables) is a problem. Not eating solid food at aged 4 is a major food problem.

If you'll read my earlier post again you'll find that I (not even my kids) once slipped some inedible fish (I love fish but believe me this was inedible gone off) into a napkin cooked for me by my dp's 90 year old grandmother (who does get a bit confused with her cooking so that biscuits get microwaved etc) because I didn't want to offend her. If you really want to interpret that as a food problem then go ahead but I think that's a bit sad and crass.

I like eating alone with dh too.

We enjoy each others' company.

Ds is 2 and if we eat with him - it's all about him.

I'm sure it will be very different when he is older and also very different if we have another child.

Just don't want the eating habits of a toddler to put me off my food!

It is sad and crass, yes, but that is exactly what you did to mb's example.

do you seriously want me to go through the entire thread to pull out the names?? I know oliveoil is one and my sister and my best freind are more. I see it going on and im speaking out about it here rather than upsetting those around me. Apologies for that.

when mine were two that ate earlier that we did. They 'grew into' eating with us. Now at the grand old ages of 7 and 10 we eat as a family most nights. It is a rare meal dh and I have alone.

is this all about a comment by oliveoil then?

I really don't think its right to guilt trip kids over food. food should be fun.

spend an hour preparing broccoli in cheese sauce becaue you want to (HOW are you spending an hour on this, btw?). But if you are then resentful of your kid for not eating it, thats really not good.

Nice food can be very quick to make. Do pancakes with a savory filling or something instead.

im sure that i said it was all about olive oil didnt i? Er,,, no i said it was about what i see going on and im speaking out here rather than upsetting those around me! FFS LISTEN to what people are saying! You are deliberately misunderstanding what is being said.

Oliveoil will occasionally offer alternatives if her child doesn't like what's in front of him/her. That (apparently) is a Bad Thing.

Again, how people talk about family meals during their own childhood is revealing. A poster earlier down the thread said she was put off having family meals for her own dcs because she hated they were not a positive experience for her as a child. It will probably not surprise you to hear that family mealtimes for me as a child were positive. So the messages we pass on to our children about mealtimes and food can have an impact not only lifelong on our own kids but on their kids.

MB, I also like having meals with my dp on our own and we do go out for dinner withotu the kids sometimes. Just because we eat meals as a family most of the time doesn't mean we don't ahve a life as a couple.

And yes sometimes mealtimes at my house can be stressful, the kids can be monsters etc but I still think they're really important.

If I just think about how the dynamics are different when I've been to people's houses who feed their kids separately I can see why it's really important to eat together at least sometimes. If you get mum feeding child in highchair or at table you are so much likely to get more shovelling, wiping, controlling and less independence for the child. And the whole focus is on is the child eating, what is it eating, can it eat a bit more as opposed to everyone eating together but independently and talking about the food but other things as well.