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?

same food too.

Hurricane, you are so wrong in making that assumption.

well not in this house

we cook together and all 'eat' together

they are shown new foods all the time, eat some, not others

but they have the energy of 10 children and are polite and a joy so I will cease to fret, in fact I ceased to fret a long time ago

I hate mushrooms btw, food of the devil

In answer to the OP I don't eat with DSs every day, usually two nights a week I eat later than DSs and enjoy being sofa bound in front of rubbish telly with a big bowl of pasta or a salad and glass of wine. However I do agree wholeheartedly that in the main part parents and children should eat together and should eat the same meals.

Have to say, I think I agree with just about every word Hurricane has said. That's about the same approach we take in this house too.

And other people's fussy children do annoy me too. I don't mean children who are veggie or sensitive to a certain food or for some reason can't or even won't eat a certain type of food - I would cater for that, just as I would ask adults if there is anything they don't eat.
But children who won't try anything at all, who can't sit at a table while others eat (and I mean a quickish tea not a 3-hour continental lunch) and who expect to pick at a meal and be given an alternative, or just fill up on rubbish for pudding, yes that does annoy me.

I know the reality is that many families don't have two parents at home for the children's tea-time, but even then I would agree with Hurricane that it's preferable on at least some days of the week for the parent who is at home to eat with the children, and to eat the same food. The parent who is late home is presumably big enough and ugly enough to eat theirs later and chat to their partner or children if they are still up. For those families where the adults like to eat later or would like a quieter mealtime, a compromise would perhaps be a couple of nights a week one parent eats earlier with the children, a couple of nights both parents have a later adults-only meal and weekends everyone eats together.

Ds is only 15 months, so perhaps we ought to do things differently at some point, but currently I only eat breakfast with him, and usually after he has finished (he can go and play, I can read the papers).

He likes to eat lunch at 11.30-12, dinner at 5.30, and both are far too early for me. I always sit with him and have a cup of tea and 'chat' to him.

From a purely selfish point of view, I love food too much and don't enjoy eating with him at all. If I eat with him, my food gets cold and/or thrown on the floor.

If dh is around in the evening I want to sit down and enjoy dinner with him, and chat about this and that. I consider our time together, without the distraction of ds or the tv, far more important.

We rarely eat the same food either, although ds might get any leftovers the next day.

I like the idea of eating the same food at the same time, but: a) DS is a fussy little critter and eats about 3 things
b) he isnt hungry at the same time as me, soooo...

He isn't willing to eat eggs for breakfast, salad for lunch and nice homecooked adult food for dinner at 7pm...and I sure as hell ain't eating mushy cereal for brek, weird beans & cheese combinations for lunch and sausages, sausages and more sausages for dinner at 5pm.

Maybe when he's older...

I understand where you're coming from Muffin. When you're feeding a very young child they demand so much attention that when it comes to cleaning them up you realize you haven't had a single mouthful yourself.

But it's almost for this exact reason that children get older family meals are so important. Children need to learn to feed themselves independently without mum controlling and hovering and wiping over every mouthful (all of these things also create fussy eaters and mess and fear of mess and having spoons shoved in your mouth lead to massive problems for kids understandably). And just as kids need to learn to fit in with adults at meal-times learning gradually to allow adults to have conversations of their own, to take turns, to listen, to eat independently, to watch and learn from what the adults are eating and how so new parents need to learn to fit in with family life as well. So eventually meal times come to be about everyone enjoying eating what's on the table independenlty an valuing everyone's contributions to the conversation. In my view this is really really important in keeping families together and each member valued. And you don't get one group feeding the other and eating different stuff.

I know, I feel I should eat with ds but I'd really rather not.

I'm tainted a little by my own upbringing too, I suspect. We ate every meal together as a family (dad home from work at 5) and they were miserable occasions. We either had the whole meal in silence, with Radio 4 in the background ('to broaden the mind'), and were hushed if we dared speak, or my mother would be whittering on at long and tedious length about something or other to do with church.

Hurricane, your post at 15:55:56 - have you had my dd to tea lol? She doesn't do pasta, tomatoes or brown bread. It would be quicker to say what she does eat.

And you'd have loved her beige period (only beige foods).

Some children are fussy. Fullstop. I have three, all different and a husband who loves his food. It's made not an iota of difference to dd. I've given up.

Well despite ds1 being horrendously fussy and reluctant to try new things, we manage to eat out most weekends and enjoy it - last weekend ds1 requested that we go to Wagamamas - there is only one dish on the menu that he will eat, but he loves it and enjoys eating with the kiddy chopsticks.

We don't eat together in the week for practical reasons, but we do at the weekends and we always have a big roast on Sunday evening.

We grow a few veg (cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce) and lots of herbs, take the kids to the farmers market, cook a huge range of foods from scratch, the kids are fully knowledgeable about healthy eating and balanced diets.....

and yet

DS1 is still horribly fussy and reluctant to try anything other than a limited range of food.

sagga, just to make you feel better I have a ds just the same. I weaned them both the same. DD easts anything even the most adult of things, she loved olives for example.

DS born into the same house and treated just the same was ultra picky. Now at 7 he is getting much better.

To a degree, you get what you are are given re kids and eating. I was so smug over dd's excellent eating habits and gave myself the credit. Oh what a fool I was when I got ds!

I have found that ds has improved with time.

I repeat all children are fussy if you allow them to be. Again, children's refusal of food is actually very rarely anything to do with the food itself. It's about unfamiliarity, getting attention etc. If you've ever watched programmes like Little Angels and House of Tiny Tearaways you can see children's attitudes to food being changed radically and in the space of a week them starting to enjoy food that their parents had always assumed they hated. Same thing as at nursery as I've said the vast majority of children eat what they're given.

You would never or rarely hear a parent say, 'My child will only wear pink,' or 'my child will only wear one shoe,' or 'my child hates brushing her teeth so I don't make her,' why is it different with food?

I repeat if a child is really fussy (not just having various foods they don't like) they almost always have a fussy parent or a parent with issues about food or a parent who hasn't challenged the child's tastes.

I recently met a child who was desperately underweight. It transpired she was born very premature and fed through a tube for her first years. Learning to swallow and chew were very hard for her. Her parents had assumed that there were various foods she couldn't manage or didn't like 8 years later but as soon as she sat down to eat with my dds (she shared a meal in a restaurant with dd2) she ate apple slices, sweetcorn, tomatoes and carrots all foods she'd previously refused and her parents had given up on.

I agree Hurricane with all you say.
As a salt I have seen dozens of children with very weird eating issues created entirely by parents.

"Children need to learn to feed themselves independently without mum controlling and hovering and wiping over every mouthful (all of these things also create fussy eaters and mess and fear of mess and having spoons shoved in your mouth lead to massive problems for kids understandably)"

Hurricane, you are still making assumptions and sweeping generalisations.

That may be the situation for some children and parents but it certainly isn't true for all.

(McDreamy - what have you done, that's 2 threads today )

so how did I manage to go from unfussy with dd to fussy with ds?

I also met a mum recently who ordered a salmon sandwich for her dd. The mother opened up the bread looked at the salmon (which was fine by the way) and said, 'oh no you won't like that dd' and gave her dd chips instead! She didn't even let her dd try it. And she decided her dd wouldn't like it because of the look of it!

mb - mine are the other way round - fussy ds1, human dustbin ds2

I must have got it right second time after screwing up the first one.

dd, on her first bithday, was snarfing all the smoked salmon sandwitches. At one point ds wouldn't eat a biscuit if it was the 'wrong shape'.

Go figure.

Same here MB!

dd always a good eater, still is. ds was a good eater until he was 18 months old. Then changed.

Not making generalisations. Not saying that every parent has these problems and not saying that children can't grow out of problems. Many probably most new parents are over anxious about food. I was myself. Just saying that when children are very fussy (as in not liking vegetables, not liking brown bread etc etc) this is very often because of the way the parents have been handling food or not with them.

Martian your son sounds like he has issues with food about control which are very common. The fact that he won't eat the food because it's the wrong shape is very revealing. Obviously nothing to do with taste then so therefore this is obviously something in his head not to do with his sense of taste. Not saying this is anything about your parenting but obviousy issues your son needs to overcome.

Mercy, totaly snap. 18 months was when ds changed.

I was a 'new' parent with the ultra gormet dd, and an old hand with ds. the difference was his personality.

At 7 he has improved beyond recognition. Always ate enough to be fit and healthy, so I wasn't going to make an issue of things, and he has gradually got over things.

But you underestimate the effect of the child at your cost

Im with you most of the way hurricane. I agree obesity and lack of knowledge of a healthy diet and table manners are very important. But, some people children and adults dont like certain foods, this is what i think you cant comprehend.
I have witnessed many parents (my sister and best friend especially) who cook seperate meals for the family memebers on a daily basis. This i think is wrong, increased workload and financial costs are far too much. Also, if on the rare occassion their dc are faced with something new or slightly different they simply refuse to like it, because they know full well their mother will be providing an alternative if they dont eat it. Its almost like theyve decided their not going to like it simply because its different. I also think its very rude, when ive witnessed poor mummy cooking 3 seperate meals thinking she being a good mummy just to have one of them be outright rude and refuse to eat it. Then of course good mummy rustles up yet another option! Outragous!

LOL at hurricane. Smug - moi?