Do you eat dinner with your children?

[Gillian76]

Until now we normally feed the children around 5 and have our own dinner later. I have been reading a really interesting book about children's eating habits and the author is quite adamant that children should eat with their parents if they are to learn good eating habits.

Do you do this? How do you manage?

RachD - I wasn't criticising that way of doing things! Just wanted to point out that it can't always work out like that anymore! I can certainly remember doing that as a child and, in fact, would love to all eat together but it's just not very feasible at the moment. I guess when the DSs are a bit older and can stay awake longer we would try and all eat together.
I'm just not sure about the "this is the only way" mantra that gets recited by HVs (or at least by mine anyway )

Tommy
Don't worry.
Didn't take it as a criticism.
More than appreciate that most families just can't manage it anymore.

We always eat lunch and tea as a family. Dh has erratic work hours but can join us more often than not.

Mealtimes are very important for us. They're about sharing good food and being sociable.
We have a dinner bell (an old ship's bell I bought from eBay) which they take turns to ring when a meal is ready. It goes DING DING ... and the house shakes with the thudding of footsteps as they hurtle to the table.

We have tea at about five which means I'm normally hungry again and have supper, usually with DH at about 8.30 - 9.

Dp comes home about 5.30pm, he doesn't want dinner as soon as he gets in but he sits at the table with dd and I and had a tea/coffee while we have our dinner so we have half an hour together as a family to talk and share what we have been doing.

At weekends we eat together.

I've just moved us all to eating together on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays - on the other days the Inferiorettes eat tea early at their childminder's. When DD1 starts school I reckon she'll have tea at home at about 6pm Mon-Thurs and then DP and I will eat later; it'll probably all shift again once DD2 is also in school.

I have to point out that not all my memories of family meals (despite my mother's excellent cooking) are happy ones.

We all eat together for dinner at the moment, sometimes lunch dependent on DH's shifts. The kids eat breakfast together too but I am usually running around getting stuff ready. In September the lads will all get their main meal out of the house (2 at school, 1 at childminder) so DH and I will eat lunch as a couple, we'll sit with the boys whilst they have their high tea (DH and I will eat then if DH off to work that evening), otherwise we'll eat together later.

Weekends and families are sacred family eating time, and we always have a special Sunday meal, which I make whilst DH takes oldest two lads out to build the carnival float, DS3 will go when old enough.

As a child we rarely ate together, it was like everyone had different schedules, and it wasn't so much dinner, as what was in the freezer that my brother could cook for us.

Anyway, now, we all eat dinner together. When dh was working nights we would eat at 3.oopm when the kids came home, but now we all eat around 6ish.

Is it terrible to admit that I often miss the joy of eating and reading my book at the table?

It is a bit stressful, a family meal. What with coaxing them to eat up and then worrying you've given them an eating disorder and trying not to let infant eating habits distress you too much and wondering why one of your children has developed an unaccountable dislike of some perfectly pleasant foodstuff and getting them drinks and wishing, secretly, that you were just grunting companiably to DP over a nice glass of wine and a Terry Pratchett each....

Wow zaphod I can't imagine 'eating and reading a book at the table'. Sounds like bliss to tell you the truth.

I've always seen eating as a social event. We always ate as a family when I was a child and I think it's only natural that there were times where arguments would flare up because we were all together, but on the whole it was great. Almost like daily therapy.

They say the family that eats together stays together but my mum and dad divorced when I was 13 so that didn't work for us.

Oh yes, the spilled drinks, broken glasses, arguments over who has more potatoes than who, trying to keep the 3 year old at the table (dh suggests blue rope), and dodging the flying food from the baby, aren't family meals bliss really?

Sidermama - I agree, my parents divorced at 15, so obviously having a family meal is not a marriage saver !!
We have to get the whole 'family meal thing' in perspective.
Gillian - you are VERY sensible for making time for the two of you - desks clear & some wine.
We do that too.
We occasionally feed, at 5.30, then he either goes to bed early and we have wine etc, or he goes off and plays and pops in and out as we are eating. This works really well too.
There are lots of possibilities.
Just try for the 'family meal' as oftern as poss.

motherinferior- Dh would have a technical manual of some sort, but that sounds like my description of heaven!!

Well my take on this is that children have kept nursery teas for many many a year and adults have had dinner separately. If table manners have taken a turn for the worse then it doesn't seem plausible to me that having a separate tea is the cause as it has been that way for many a year.

I think it is more likely to be as a result of the mode for dinner eaten sat in front of the tv, or on the lap that has led to the lapse in table manners!

I don't think it matters whether the adults are eating at the same time as the children, but that they are all sat round a table as if they were eating together!

Yes, and that celebratory meals aren't partaken of in restaurants (well, fast food joints) with no knives and forks. Dh always insists on wimpey at least, I can see why now as DS2 only has to go to MacD's once and he's back to the using fingers stage.

It's a shame more 'posh' or at least proper restaurants aren't kid friendly really. I don't mean Brewsters et al and their run around in between courses stuff, but proper sit down and enjoy quality time together places.

It,s worth trying "normal" restaurants. We've been going out with dd since she was just one to a local chinese and an indian with friends.Neither have advertised themselves as being child friendly. The chinese doesn't even have a high chair, so we took our own. We got some very funny looks from fellow diners when we left with the furniture!We are always first customers in at 6pm, dd loves the evenings and has always been v. good (touch wood!) Dd is now so used to eating out that we don't give it a second thought.She's also getting more adventurous with food - fish pakoras were our latest success!

we all eat together, we are lucky enough that dh can come home for tea at around 5.30-6 and then goes back to work if he needs to or goes to work in the study as he does techy geeky stuff that he can do via remote assistance!

oh, i have a lot to say about this! it is one of my bugbears!

but no time now, so will just say agree with issymum and soapbox...

I think the ideal is to eat together, it's really lovely when that happens,and I think ds1 eats much more when we do, but dh doesn't get home till 7.30 at the ealiest and often later so most of the time we can't manage it.

We do 5 out of 7 nights a week. But i'm also lucky dh is home at 5pm, so we can sit together and i'm sure ds sits much better when we all sit togehter.

We always eat together at the table at teatime, although we are lucky that our schedules allow it I agree. I absolutely love it, its a brilliant together time and I'm sure they benefit from that. Eating anywhere else at tea time is a no, no in our house. I don't know if it makes any difference to what they eat really, but having said that it is proving very useful whilst trying to get very, very faddy dd2 to eat more. She's trying things off everyone elses plate at the mo (unfortunately she's not liking most of it but there you go at least she's trying, one day she will!)

i really value family mealtimes, and believe dd's good table manners, and eating habits are a result of that.

I eat all meals at the table with her, dp works shifts so will eat with us when he is around, or reheats his dinner when he gets home (about 9pm).

If we have friends around or eat out in restaurants, we wouldn't eat until later, but dd still joins, if she's hungry at normal dinner time i'd offer her a snack

I'm glad my dd is flexible and can enjoy my life with me, rather than my life be dictated by routine for her.

DD is 2.5 and i neither have to coax her to eat, or help her. She loves her food and can manage era spoon and fork by herself.

If I ate at 5pm I know I'd be hungry again by 8 - please let me know how you cope with that. Especially as dh is away and I tend to nibble in the evenings. If I haven't eaten earlier I can enjoy my salad or whatever guilt free. Maybe it's just filling in the time till bedtime with no partner....
This evening we ate Chinese together (home made) but not till about 8pm. My kids are 11, 9, 8 and 1. What time do yours eat?

The kids and whichever adult is around eats at the table at 5.30-6pm. We generally manage all four of us 3 days out of 7. If either myself or dh are in later, we miss family supper and eat on our own