Are the children allowed to eat the chocolate from strangers?

[EachandEveryone]

Also ref to the Christmas Day service. Why do people give them daft stuffed toys and chocolate? How do you say no you can’t eat them to a six year old? Where does it all go to?

I'm sure they consume naice organic crisps and chocolates, but not wotsits and fingers of fudge, and definitely not freebies pressed into their children's hands by obsessive strangers.

Yep. Except in this particularly pitiful case it's interbred animals in a gilded cage. Time they were released into the wilds of the UK, half of which they own right down to the seabed so their chances of survival are better than average.

I can afford expensive chocolate but I still love Cadburys Dairy Milk

I’m partial to a fruit and nut and I can afford hand made chocolates if I fancy. I prefer plain digestives to fortums biscuits. I honestly think they do have normal treats. I can’t imagine Zara being fussy and snobby. Although they will always eat good meat I expect.

A simple standard and basic security precaution to not allow them to eat stuff they've been given, surely?

I seem to recall that Kate was given a teddy for the baby during one of her pregnancies and went to say, thank you that’ll be perfect the dog and caught herself at the last minute 😂

And Hello mag is hardly an independent source of high quality journalism they rely on royal fans for most of their sales I imagine, there always seems to be some minor royal or other on the cover when I see it in the hairdressers. They are hardly going to say "of course it's binned in case of tampering" - they are going to write what their royal fans readers want to believe, even if it's utter fiction and nonsense.

Diana used to give stuff away. At one event she was seated next to Barry Cryer for the dinner. She was given a big bouquet and said to him to please give it to his wife Terri, who was stuck in bed with flu, to cheer her up. Nice.

(She didn't believe him when he told her 😆)

Ditto- there's no way I'd let my kids tuck into random chocolate some mad stranger has given them. It's clearly a ploy to lure those little kids in and take photos of them close up. Massively creepy. If I was Kate and Will I'd sack off the whole thing and keep my kids at home away from these loons.

There’s no way any food products given to the royal family are consumed - probably not by anyone because of the risk of passing on something that has been tampered with.

When I worked in radio - listeners would send all sorts of gifts to their favourites and there was a general rule that anything homemade - no matter how lovely it looked had to go straight in the bin because it wasn’t worth the risk.

Bought food products like chocolate etc with sealed tins used to get eaten though.

But for high profile people like the royal family I can’t imagine they’d take the risk.

But don’t bother making cookies for ‘famous’ people you don’t personally know because they don’t get eaten.

Because people are obsessed with royals and other celebrities and love the idea of having any kind of actual contact with them. They'll probably be telling anyone who'll listen 'I gave the royal children chocolates, you know!' for the rest of their lives, as though it's some kind of weird claim to fame! Baffling.

How do you say no you can’t eat them to a six year old?

This sounds like such an odd question - of course parents have to say no to their children.

I'm sure they just have the normal rule of not eating random stuff strangers give them - just smile, accept the gift and say thank you to be polite, then don't eat the thing. It's not hard for kids to learn that, and it's probably easier for the royal children as they get so much more practice interacting with strangers.

Your question reminds me of those weird Lloyd's adverts where the dad can't say "no, I'm not buying you that expensive toy" to his child and instead uses his banking app to put a stop on his credit card, then goes through the charade of agreeing to buy the toy, taking it to the till then feigning surprise that "the bank wont let him buy the toy" instead.

My DC are now in their 20s so perhaps I'm just massively out of touch and this is just what modern parenting looks like, though.

I suspect the harder parenting comes around tempering egos for the children who openly live in a 1000 year old traditional hierarchy and a modern celebrity hierarchy too.

Not only do the Wales children get placed ahead in traditional settings but they also tend to be public favourites too - but the way Zara and Peter’s kids interact with them suggests they are (so far) managing those differences.

I don't mind the royals and if fans want to go and wave at them fine but to give them flowers and chocolates seems bizarre. Surely a nicer tradition would be the royals handing out treats to onlookers, a bit like Santa .

Did anyone notice on the brief clips Edward always had his hands firmly in his pockets. He seems a bit adverse to hand shaking. He was reluctant on the walkabouts following the Queen's death too. Maybe it's just unfortunate clips and he really is a warm handshakey person..

Would you let your child eat something given to them by a random stranger. Neither would the royal family.

I have. It's Christmas. People hand out chocolate.

People give chocolate to the kids as a kindness. It is more for the giver than the receiver, and the optics round it. the royals don’t want to publicly say any small gift they don’t accept, as it will be bad pr, and it’s a lovely tradition.

anything received will be handed over to an assistant who will spirit it away nd deal with it. They themselves, the staff, may eat it, who knows.

but the kids will be more than used to handing everything over, and won’t think twice about it. They will know to act delighted and never say, I’m sure they do get Cadbury’s and the like at home, but anything they consume will be provided by family, parents, school or other trusted and known sources.

and if they were my kids, I’d do the exact same thing, say thank you, be polite, act delighted, and quietly get rid. Because there is always a risk some nutter wants to and would try to hurt those kids. You’d have to be incredibly foolish if you were Kate or William to let your kids take chocolate from strangers and eat it,

Ahh but the peasants get joy from gifting something to the little princess

I don't know why they don't announce in advance that this year the charity will be XXX and all gifts kindly given to us will be donated and taken there on the same day. It might stop or decrease this stupid practice of the three Wales children walking around with arms full of chocolate and toys.
And the fans can stop thinking...ooh, I gave Louis a selection box, he won't eat his roast turkey now, I wonder what William will think about THAT!
After all, die hard royalists treat the royal family like they actually know them personally

I don’t think the giving of gifts is a huge problem, it’s the requests for selfies and gratuitous hugs. The children should absolutely not be put in the position of having to deal with this.

It’s not just royal fans though that behave like that.

Celeb fans all over since forever waiting for their idols. Boy bands wouldn’t be so popular without their female fans albeit they are younger!

Personally I could think of nothing worse at my age but I’m certainly of an age where I queued for Spandau and Duran tickets 🙈 and actually met Duran Duran but that’s outing.

I was wondering the same thing! I definitely saw that William pulled the chocolate bar given to Louis out of his hand and quickly put it in his pocket.

It's so odd that people are able to take selfies/ shake hands with the children though. I'm more surprised that their parents allow that.

I always imagine M&H watching at home thinking 'thank goodness that isn't our kids!'.

There was a lovely photo of Mia and Charlotte at one point - they obviously know each other well and love each other.

I'm wondering if the RF will revise the interaction of the children with the public rules after this year - perhaps tighten them up as regards certain things eg hugs and even selfies. . The selfies are new territory in today's Royal public life. Can you imagine asking QE II for a selfie? 😂 Perhaps the popularity of the family and the event took them unawares. On the other hand George and Charlotte are getting to an age where they will mingle with many adults because of their position. In my experience with my own family this only leads to well developed, mature and sensible children who are adept and confident in the world.