Eat Meals with Your Grandchildren

Tip # 6 When you eat a meal with your grandchildren, sit down at a table with no TV or destractions. Just enjoy the meal and their company. It is sad how many meals the children in this country eat from a paper bag in the back of a car, or by themselves in front of a television. When you eat with your grandchildren model good table manners and appropriate meal conversation. Don't turn meal times  into something unpleasant, with scolding and lecturing. If your grandchild doesn't have good table manners first ask yourself what is resonable to expect from them based on their age, then focus on correcting only one inappropriate meal time behavior at a time. Model the proper behavior and praise their attempts to follow your guidance. They may not eat many meals at home together as a family, so thay may not actually know how to behave properly at the dinner table. This is actually one area that I have had arguements with my own daughter-in-law over. She doesn't see why I think it is terrible to feed children in front of the TV. Research has shown that kids that eat in front of the TV are fatter. Also, one study showed that the more often children ate meals with their families, the less likely they were to smoke, drink and use drugs. So since we are live in grandparents, we set the table and sit down to dinner with our grandchildren every night. Some meals are more enjoyable than others, but we are there with them at dinner time and for now that is all that matters.