Breakfast

[Flyhigher]

Do you have breakfast with your teen? And dinner either your teen? My DD refuses. Eats bf alone watching her phone and dinner alone a lot too. Is this normal? Or have we failed?

It’s normal, but it doesn’t mean it has to be that way.

It just wasn’t an option in our house. We all sat at the table.

We always eat our evening meal together. Lunchtimes they’re at school or grab a sandwich if at home but often together. My teen won’t contemplate breakfast.

no phones at the table.

I don't think there is a "normal"! I don't think we ate breakfast together once they passed the toddler stage unless it was a "special" weekend breakfast. Dinner together we always did-unless one of them was what we called "peopled out" after a busy day and they took it to their room. But that's just how it happened-I didn't do anything.

We never eat breakfast together as mornings are quite busy and we do our own thing. We eat together in the evening every day and absolutely no phones allowed. We may sometimes eat in front of the tv but dc have always eaten with us in the evening.

Mine eats breakfast on the sofa with his phone in hand but I don't mind because mornings are hectic and younger DS eats his watching telly. We eat dinner together though most of the time. I haven't had any resistance yet but I'm not saying it won't come. I would insist on dinner together up the table at the very least if it's bothering you.
Even when I'm finding the push back about things exhausting I try to remember that's it's our job to not normalise things like staring at your phone constantly, it'll only be a normal thing for them if we allow it. That being said I'd say 2/5 of DS's friends eat dinner alone in their room so in some ways it seems normal to him.

She's 16. It's been going on since 9 probably. Think it's too late now.
She did dance. So lots of rushed dinners while waiting to go to dance. We have failed.
She eats and runs too. 5 mins in the evening. Then says she's tired.

On school mornings, we eat breakfast together most days. Weekends and school holidays not often because they sleep late usually.
Dinner, we eat together 4/5 evenings a week. Other days we’re all doing different things, sports, at friends house or maybe they eat in their rooms.

one of our few rules is dinner together with no phones; breakfast is rushed for everyone and we do have nights where we don’t eat together for various reasons but most nights it’s together. It’s not too late; just start with making a couple of meals a week as family meals with an agreement no one is on their phone.

We haven't eaten breakfast together since the DCs were old enough to get their own, we only have one bathroom and it makes sense for someone to be in there while someone else eats breakfast etc. Nowadays DH is the only one that eats it during the week anyway. At weekends we all get up at different times.

As for dinner, we stopped all eating together when the DCs started evening activities and it was all a bit rush, now we are all in and out in the evenings and still don't eat together every night but we do spend plenty of time together in other ways, the DCs are both ND and get peopled out so prefer eating separately (and often cooking separately). I am happy eating on my own too. They haven't turned into anti-social people who can't sit at the table with others or anything like that but it suits us better to eat separately a lot of the time and is most definitely not a fail.

It’s not too late and you haven’t failed. Life is busy sometimes, my friends daughter did gymnastics and dance and dinner was always rushed. So you do the activities that the kids want at the expense of the dinner time...you can’t win so don’t feel bad!

I’d just start with one meal a week or that is something she really likes with a nice dessert to make it last a bit longer and say no phones til everyone is done. Maybe do it a bit earlier than usual so she won’t be as tired.

My dc doesn't really eat breakfast, she grabs a croissant on her way to school. We do eat tea together whenever possible

Tea together at table or in front of telly, maybe 90% of the time.

DS's 1st Breakfast at 6:20am when I'm getting ready for work & xH isn't awake yet, DS's 2nd Breakfast (after paper-round) about 7:40am. xH sometimes has brekkie with DS then, but mostly DS wants to slink off & look at his social life phone.

We accompany DS to/from school so plenty of chat time then.

DCs are 17 & 19. We basically never eat breakfast together ( possibly in a hotel or Christmas day). Dinner together probably 3 or 4 nights a week always on Sundays and usually on Saturdays ( Dd works on Sundays) then another couple of times. More on holiday, no phones at the table and we don't allow meals to be eaten elsewhere.

The food together thing has never been a rule or something to strive for (you say you have failed) in our house. It literally doesn't matter when we all eat as long as we eat. I am autistic though and obviously have autistic DC so the 'family meal at the table' wouldn't have suited us anyway. Don't get me wrong we often do eat together but we also have our own meals and feel hungry/want tea at different times. Breakfast isn’t something I ever ate until I got back from the school run and even now without that i don't eat until much later. One of mine stopped eating breakfast when they were about 8/9 and another will not function without it. I don't consider the child who doesn't eat breakfast as a failing on my part, merely a difference.

Mine will not eat with us has ASD or misophonia. I pick my battles.

I do think its a stick to beat partents with. It isn't the bastion that people think it is.
Though yes it is nice to do.

Agree, it's nice to do IF it works for your family but it's fine to do it differently too. To listen to some people on MN (no one on this thread but from past experience) if you don't all eat at the table together every night you are heading towards complete social breakdown.

DH leaves for work very early and Dc1 has breakfast earlier than us to get to their apprenticeship on time but dc2 and I have breakfast together mon-fri. We rarely eat breakfast together at weekends as we’re all up at different times

The 4 of us eat dinner together probably 5 nights of the week. That’s more than when they were younger and needed to eat earlier. No phones allowed at the table. It’s a good chance to catch up.