I also think there’s some space between ‘must eat dinner together every evening of every week’ and everyone eating at separate times. Weekdays can be hectic, so we always try to have dinner at home together on Friday and Sunday nights, and eat at a restaurant together on Saturday. We usually eat at home together on…

This is how you run a household. Firm boundaries and no drama. My sister was the picky one too. My dad worked late and my mom was home early so she made dinner and he cleaned up. You ate what was on your plate or you went hungry.

I don’t know what it is with kids now. I learned table manners really young and was done for life. Now, every week there’s some new thing they saw some rude kid do and have to be scolded over. I dread having kids over or letting mine eat out. I hope this ends before grade school does.

Mashed potatoes. They were mine, mine, all mine.

I disagree that you lose adult conversation when letting the kids sit at the table. We’ve just started solids with our little monster so he requires some extra work when sitting at the table with us, but we try to just give him his food, let him do his thang, while we get to chat and catch up about our day. My partner…

I love your Family Bite. Arbitrary family rituals are the best.

Yeah, it was actually really nice to eat dinner together but I wonder if my parents actually ate super early when I was really little to accommodate that or if I’m just remembering dinners from the time I was 5 or 6 on. I’m also an only child, which I realize would have made mealtimes less of a production. My Mom was…

Crazy idea here, just don’t clean up until AFTER the second dinner.

While the kids eat, we sit at the table and talk to them. We try and get them to tell us about their day; we try and get our younger son to eat his dinner.

I know people must do, but not a single one of my friends with kids eats a family dinner. It’s exceptionally difficult with teens, as schedules are insane.

We all fall prey to the trends of our era. (My kids’ names are both super-popular, although I didn’t pick them for that reason.) And yes, the emphasis on family dinner is a trend. But I think on the whole it’s a salutary one. Of course, don’t torture adults outside your family with attempts to force a toddler to…

“Having kids who have really good manners at dinner, and who love kale, for people today that’s like what having a Jaguar was like for people in the ’80s,”

I mean, the only reason that I tend to make sure we all eat at the same time when we’re home is because I want my goddamn kitchen to be cleaned in fell swoop. But if my kid promises to clean up her own mess, she can eat whenever the fuck she wants.

Our family has a long standing tradition that any celebration involving cards, the card must be totally inappropriate, addressed to someone else, and signed by someone else.

My dad is a saaaaaaint. I love him. He is my favourite person in the world. He is also the source of 90% of my irritation in any given day but that’s parents for you. He has always been a world-class dad. I had terrible sleep problems when I was little so he used to come into my room and sleep on the floor until I…

My Dad was a wonderful man. He took my sister and I to breakfast every Saturday morning so Mom could sleep in. This happened every Saturday (I got cheeseburgers, sis chocolate chip pancakes) no matter how long he’d been on the road (selling hunks of steel - that z-shaped thing your bike pedal is on is a “forging”). He…

My dad would insist on reading us The Littlest Angel, and then he would cry Every. Single. Time.

Sounds like my nephews! Parents would always cave after saying no for 15 minutes - if you are going to cave, just get it over with. Instead, the kids are trained to hold out because they know they’ll get it...eventually.

This one works too:

Folks who are saying you need to "understand" the request and "explain the consequences" or "redirect to another activity" have no understanding what this is about.
This is for repetitive requests for the same activity, sometimes after a explanation, many times without.
Sometimes a parent answers no simply because…