What do you use for cutlery/plates for your 5-10 year olds?

[amidaiwish]

we seem to have outgrown the toddler Tommee Tippee stuff, and the Ikea plastic stuff... now what? everything seems to be for babies and toddlers.

do you just get your kids used to adult cutlery and normal plates? or do you have separate cutlery, plates etc. for your primary school aged children?

TIA

Normal cutlery and plates.
Why would I use plastic? They are old enough to use silverware etc so that is what they get. However, I do use the entree size stuff for the 7 year old as she has little hands.

DS is 4.5 and has a smaller sized 'normal' plate and a junior set of 'normal' cutlery (think MIL got it from Asda or something). He can use adult cutlery if we eat out but finds the knife a bit of a struggle.

Sometimes, if there are other children coming for tea, I use my elmer/disney plates etc so it's colourful (mine are 8 and 5) but mostly they have smaller, everyday dinner plates. DS (5) still likes to use his small metal cutlery but DD uses the same as us.

A smaller-size (salad size or side-plate) china plate and regular salad-size cutlery is fine for dinner for the over 5's. If it's a less formal 'picky tea' with other kids and not so closely supervised I sub with melamine picnic plates.... because they bounce!

I have used china and metal cutlery for them from about 18 months or whenever the risk of it being launched at the floor/wall was minimal.
DD is 10 and DS is 5, DD uses the same small size dinner plate as me (DH uses a massive plate), and regular cutlery she has done for about three years.
DS uses the same size plate and child size cutlery, I got them from Kitsch 'N' Sink, the knife is actually sharp enough to cut, unlike most child sized ones, his skills have improved no end since I got them. I am bit of a stickler for table manners, so the sooner they can use them correctly the better IMO.
I have just stopped taking DS's cutlery with us when we go out for a meal, as he can just about handle adult sized stuff.

Just normal ones. They have the plastic ikea ones for lunch at home but that is more because DC3 (2) is likely to swipe lunch from them!

thanks, so you don't still use plastic/melamine for everyday.

Mostly my 8 and 5year old use what we use.

If it's handy in the cutlery drawer, my 5year old might use medium sized metal cutlery from Ikea - 'dragon', I think.

The only time I use plastic plates and bowls now is for the microwave or for fruit when I run out of china.

I use the smaller melamine ones for sandwiches at lunchtime. For dinnertime I use proper adult plates/cutlery. DD and ds are 6 and 3.

Normal ones.

Mine have used normal plates and cutlery since tehy were about 3

I'm transitioning to crockery and full sized cutlery, and my daughter is 18 months. This is mostly because otherwise she just steals my cutlery, to be honest, but we've taught her not to bang her plate, so why use melamine?

Or is she going to hit a second phase of banging/throwing and I should stop being smug?

Always the same crockery as me, from about 1 year.

Had a child's cutlery set but to be honest dd soon got used to adult sizes, probably from about 2 and a half she was using adult stuff.

Plastic beakers, though.

Certainly from 5-10 I would say adult stuff all the way.

DD is 8y and we have used normal cutlery and plates, etc for a few years.

I do still have some nice bright funky plastic ones = were bought for outside, which when she has friends round they often chose to us, I don't mind either way.

When she was smaller I used a side plate rather than a donner plate so as to not over face her.

I did use smaller cutlery for quite a while though as it made more sense as they were easier for her to handle - they were always metal though, not plastic.

Same as us from quite early on and we got some small glasses too for mealtimes, can't exactly remember when but certainly before 5 - 10 age range.

"Or is she going to hit a second phase of banging/throwing and I should stop being smug?"

No need for banging or throwing. But accidents happen at any age and if, like me, you went for lovely Portmeirion dinner plates costing £11 a pop, it pays to be a little pragmatic.

ok i guess i need to take the plunge and move away from the toddler/ikea stuff.
most of my friends seem to be still using the ikea stuff but it is proving pretty useless when they come to cut up their own food!

We've used normal cutlery and plates for the kids since weaning. So far the only people who have chipped or broken plates and bowls are the grown-ups ...

mine are 5 & 3 and we use funky melamine stuff from Rice or Habitat, mainly because it looks nice, and I like to keep it on a low shelf so they can fetch it themselves etc. Normal cutlery, smaller sized for the 3yo.

Normal ones since about 3 years ago. Still using Ikea plastic cups sometimes. Kids now 8,9,12. Thrilled to throw out all that scratched pictured bowls and plates after too many years of toddlerhood

Mine are 4, 6 and 7 and they use the same plates that we do.

I think the older two started using them once they got to school age, but DD was younger than that as she decided that she didn't want to be the odd one out with plastic plates