My Kids Won't Sit At The Dinner Table
We have a problem. Not a big one, but an annoying one.
Our kids have forgotten how to sit at the dinner table. Or maybe they never knew how to begin with.
It started with our middle child. He isn't that interested in food, so he fills up fast and then is on the run to a nearby chair. My daughter may follow with a marker in hand. My eldest starts to feel the pull of the Xbox and then my husband and I are left looking at each other and yelling, "Get back here!" Or, we enjoy the silence.
We noticed that my niece and nephew are having the same issue when we had dinner at my mother's house the other day. Slowly all the kids fell away from the table and left us adults. Which, don't get me wrong, isn't always a bad thing, but dinner wasn't really done yet.
I know it is not just our family. I had long talk with a friend about this very issue recently. Her problem is that the grandparents have unrealistic expectations that her son will sit quietly at the table while the adult conversation goes on. The more disruptive he is, the less likely his grandparents are to grant him permission to leave. This situation has disintegrated to the point that everyone is sitting down at the table wary of each other.
When the kids were little, it was understandable. But now that they are 12, nine and seven, it feels like we have regressed. My husband and I were wondering, are kids' attention spans are declining, or are we just becoming fuddy-duddys?
Is anyone suffering from the same issue? Any solutions?
Want more chaos? Last year, I complained about the boomerang lunch, the lunch that keeps on giving. It is still annoying, but I don't notice as much.
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