What are your rules for kids at a formal meal?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Another thread spawned off this one.

What do dopers think of having kids at the table for a formal meal? Do you do a special kids’ table for special occasions, require them to sit at the adults’ table or something else? Or do you perhaps think kids don’t belong at a formal meal at all?

Also, do you have all the kids sit there or do you let them go do their own thing once they’re done?

Oh, and before we get into rants about kids in restaurants, please know that I’m referring to kids at special-occasion meals in someone’s home, your own or someone else’s.

When I was younger, the kids had a kids’ table in the same room as the adults. But even after we were done, we had to sit there until the adults were done, had started in on chatting and someone finally released us to go watch TV or play. If we got to leave the table, we had to leave the room so we didn’t bother the adults. It depended on whose house it was when we were finally allowed at the adults’ table. At my mom’s and my grandmother’s, it was around age 10; at my aunt’s, we weren’t allowed until we were around 15 or so.

Now that I have kids (5 years old and 20 months), if they’re done with their food, they can leave the table. Right now I don’t bother with a kids’ table - not enough kids and my toddler still needs supervision while eating. If we’re in my house, because it’s baby-proofed and because my son can hold his own, they can go pretty much anywhere. In other people’s houses, they need to stay where I can see them so I can make sure they’re not destroying anything.

In the next year or so, they might be expected to stay until everyone is done with their food, but I’m not going to require them to sit through adult conversation until they can participate.

When my mom comes over, she tries to make my kids stay at the table until everone is done, but both of them find it hard to sit still when they’ve finished their food, so I typically let them go or the tone of the meal takes a nosedive quickly.

Anyway, what are your rules for your kids (or others’)?

2

Well, if possible they should be left at home. If they live there then they should sit in relative silence at the kids table and then scram as soon as they are done eating.

3

My kids wouldn’t go to a FORMAL meal (i.e. one that comes in courses and is served to you). I’ve only been to a few of those in my life, and I don’t believe they are a place for kids.

A holiday meal with real china (as opposed to brats off the grill on the 4th of July) - if we have room for them at a grown ups table, they eat there. If not, there is a kids table. Kids table manners are looser from necessity (because no one is watching), but in theory are the same (and they do a pretty good job - eating off fancy china encourages good manners).

A holiday meal involves being excused from the table (in theory, all meals for my kids involve that, with the exception of the Grab or Graze), passing food, saying please and thank you, making POLITE small talk, not criticizing the food, plus the normal chew with your mouth closed sorts of things. Correct fork usage is optional. In fact, in theory - all meals for my kids except grab and graze involve all those things - they do them MUCH better when the stakes are higher than when its just the four of us - with the exception of polite small talk - with family only we do not enforce polite small talk.

4

Obviously they shouldn’t be broguht uninvited, but why would you exclude kids from a part of society? How do you expect them to learn about these things?

Growing up, if there were enough kids to justify a kids table, we’d have one. But there usually was just a spillover table that kids and younger rowdier adults shared. Kids were included in the conversation and expected to contribute appropriately.There wasn’t a formal rule that kids had to stay at te table, but they were expected to know when it was appropriate to ask to go watch TV in the living room or run around in the yard. Usually kids got tasks to keep them busy- setting the table, plating appetizers, fetching drinks and busing. Anyway, we were always happy because we got free-flowing sodas and candy bowls to raid.

5

Can I ask the obvious question, what is the point in keeping kids at the table once they’ve finished eating? Don’t get me wrong we’d occasionally have these simlair situations, but the point of these meals should be enjoyment and that includes the kids’ enjoyment too.

6

The same as the ones I set for myself. He can use a napkin and be polite.

When he was three, I rather found it funny when he tried to pull apart sushi and stab the rice with his chopstick, but that was then. He’s six now. :slight_smile:

And if he is done eating, he can go, provided it’s appropriate. (Depends if I’m a guest elsewhere and what the guest is doing.) Basically, he asks and I let him.

7

Well, to some degree kids should be learning to enjoy adult conversation, and the adults should be making an effort to make sure the conversation is accessible to the kids (explaining things in quiet asides as needed, asking the kids’ opinions about the issues being discussed, following up on what the kids say and integrating it into the wider conversation). At the same time, the kids need to be learning the polite skill of sitting silently through bits of conversation that aren’t relevant or interesting to them, not blurting things out, and asking other people leading questions of their own. The point to a family meal is not to get food in your belly: it’s to be a family.

The idea that people can only find amusement within a pretty narrow peer group really bothers me.

That said, I’m fine with releasing the kids after a certain time. But I don’t think the meal itself should be seen as something kids endure until they are released. My family always did an excellent job of making us feel welcome and involved in grownup conversation, and I hope to perpetuate that.

8

The first reason is basic politeness- it’s rude to eat and run, and a guest has an obligation to contribute to a dinner in more ways than simply consuming food and then wandering off. But more important is to expose the kid to the pacing and practice of adult conversation, especially in a family setting. A kid needs to learn to appreciate spending time with people of different ages in different contexts. This means slowly aquireing a taste for table talk, and that won’t happen if the kid is not at the table.

Anyway, a kid has plenty of time to stare at screens. It does them good to spend some actual face time with diverse groups of people. Learning to be a good guest and a good host is a skill you don’t want to have to learn the first time when you meet your girlfriend’s parents or get invited to dinner with your boss.

9

My friend and I were just discussing this topic as it concerns my nephew (age 9) and her stepdaughter (age 11). We agree that it is important that they learn to be a part of the larger gathering of adults at either a restaurant or home dinner situation. But we disagree on the “how long to keep them at the table after eating”.

Is there a rule of thumb that anyone here uses with their kids based on age? I do feel it’s important for them to practice skills, but I think it’s asking a lot of kids to remain at the table for more than, say, a half hour to hour after eating. I’m curious what others do.

10

Another reason, at least with my friend’s kids, is to be sure they actually eat. If you let them leave as soon as they wanted it’d be off to play after five minuets and whining about being hungry later. If you make them wait until the adults are pretty much done they actually eat.

11

you are totally right to address this issue.
kids learn by doing.
at a formal meal, it doesn’t matter how much they eat or if they eat at all–
you can always feed them fishsticks before or after.
what matters is that you teach them what they SHOULD be doing, even if they don’t it well…and are consigned to the kids’ table till they’re 21 lol
think I’m crazy? do you want your kids to be doctors or congressmen etc.? then they’ll need to know how to act…when to use each utensil (work from the outside in) etc.
Taught in the safety of a relative’s home, especially, these are the years when you mold them.

12

Simple etiquette dictates kids perform quite well at a formal dinner table providing they have their own table but placement of the table is critical.

I recommend placing the table in the middle of a three ring circus in another city just before 100 clowns emerge from a tiny car and all of them have a seltzer bottle.

13

I think the idea is to keep them there until they start having a genuine reason to leave- the food is done, the conversation has started to fragment and turn to topics only adults can really contribute to, etc. It’s not about torturing the kid. It’s about teaching them that it won’t hurt them to spend fifteen minutes away from the X-Box being a part of the family.