Pick Up Your Fork – Supper Time Battles with Your Children

girl at the table

What is one word that can make the best parent in the world feel a burst of nervous energy? Mealtime! Ask any parent who dreamed of having family dinners filled with endless and meaningful conversations with their children about mealtime, and you’re sure to ruffle a few nerves. The truth is, kids and mealtime often don’t mix well.

Rather than meaningful conversations and time spent enjoying the tight circle of family, parents find themselves constantly reminding their children to “pick up your fork,” “keep your elbows off the table,” “quit picking your nose,” or “stop playing with your mashed potatoes.” Rarely do parents get a word in edgewise (aside from these). Here you have a parent who put a lot of effort into shopping and preparing a nice meal, spent time cooking it, and doesn’t even get to take a bite while the food is hot. Worse, by the time dinner is over, half of the dish is lying on the floor underneath the table, and the resistant children are sitting cross-armed because Mom is trying to make them take just one single bite of broccoli. It’s funny how kids who will eat their own boogers act as if broccoli is the grossest thing in the world.

The mealtime woes often start early in life. Most parents find that between the ages of 18 months and 14 years, dinner can be nothing more than a calamity of errors. (After 14, many children start eating in their rooms, in the dark, leaving leftovers under their beds as a rite of passage). What’s up with this? Why can’t parents expect to get through a single, simple dinner with their kids acting like civilized human beings?

How to Make Family Dinners Enjoyable

Many parents, exhausted from the dinner-time drama, start allowing their children to eat on their own on the living room floor in front of the television. For one thing, it’s much easier to get children to eat when they’re preoccupied with something that interests them. (Clearly, Mom and Dad don’t). This little bit of peace and quiet also allows parents to enjoy their meals in silence. In fact, in many homes, dinnertime for kids and parents is set at two different times, which really isn’t such a bad idea. This way, you can not only feel more relaxed helping your children through dinner but also enjoy a meal with another adult later and actually have some time to converse without yelling, “Pick up your damn fork!”

The real question on most parents’ minds is: is there a way to avoid this dinnertime drama? Certainly, you want to still have warm, fuzzy feelings about the dinner table. And it’s important to teach your children manners so they won’t be looked down upon if they visit someone else’s home. Let’s face it, your own parents probably forced you to sit down, shut up, and eat the food on your plate, regardless of whether it was spinach pâté or chicken nuggets. So why are the children of today any different?

To help circumvent this situation in your home, your best option is to start the ritual of family dinners early in life. Pull up the high chair to the table, turn off the television, and show your children from an early age that family dinners are important to you. Make sure to turn off all the technological devices in your home and stay present at the table as well. The younger you instill the idea that dinner is a family event—and nip complaining and whining in the bud—the more your children will conform at the table. It may take some time, and you may find that for a few months, when your children are toddlers, you’ll spend more time yelling at them than eating. But keep at it. If this ritual is important to you, you have to pave the way until it becomes second nature to them.

Secondly, make sure you don’t call your children to the table until everything is ready and served. If you put restless children at a table that isn’t ready for mealtime, you’ll spend more time fixing drinks, cutting up steaks, and scooting chairs in than you will sitting down to eat. Plus, this shortens the amount of time your child has to sit still at the table. Before you sit down, ask if there’s anything else your child needs. If they say no, then it’s time to take off the waitress apron and be Mom.

Also, while it is considered polite and respectful to stay seated at the table until everyone is done eating, it is often more enjoyable for the parents to not follow this rule. If your child inhaled their food, talked about the day at school, and is ready to move on to the next thing, forcing them to stay seated while you chew your food will only frustrate them and bore them. Remember, what feels like 5 or 10 minutes to an adult can feel like a year to a child who doesn’t want to sit there.

Additionally, you should enforce rules and manners, but remember you want this family tradition to be fun as well. If all you are doing is pulling your hair out and barking orders at your children, there’s a good chance neither you nor they will enjoy dinnertime. So check your own attitude before you start. Try to keep it fun and enjoyable. Light some candles, let the kids drink out of wine glasses, play some soft music, and be creative with their food. Draw smiley faces with ketchup or cut their bread into cute little shapes. If you have older children, try to keep the conversation light and fun, rather than using this time for discipline. This way, your children will look forward to dinnertime and see it as an event they enjoy every night.

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