How to get kids to eat at the table?

Getting your child to sit through the whole meal can be quite a big challenge. Very often at meal times, children walk around and play with their toys; and when parents try to stop them, they throw big tantrums.

So how do we get our child to sit through the meals? Here are some strategies which have been broken down into small steps. I hope these would help alleviate some of the stress during mealtimes.

Program: Sit at the table for meals

Target: The child will independently sit at table and eat the meal, and only leave the table when the meal is finished.

Procedures:

1. During this training, you can choose to directly provide reinforcer to your child or use a token system.
2. Have the food ready and make sure the temperature is optimal. By doing so, you avoid having the child to have to wait for the food to be cooled down, as sometimes the waiting itself can cause behaviour problems. Also, prepare your child’s favourite reinforcer, so you can provide reinforcement immediately when he/she finishes the task.
3. Begin the training: Tell your child your expectations and learning target [i.e. “you can play with (the reinforcer) when you finish the food in your bowl”]. Then, according to the current training phase (start from phase 1), serve the appropriate food amount, bring it to your child and have him/her start eating.
4. Provide feedback based on your child’s performance. When the child fulfils our expectation, immediately provide praise and a token/reinforcer. If, however, the child leaves the table without finishing the food, parents should not chase after to feed them. When this happens, stay calm and tell your child he or she hasn’t finished the food and cannot leave the table yet. Then, bring your child back to the table with the least amount of attention provided and restart the practice.
   
5. According to your child’s success rate, move up (increase the difficulty level) or move down (decrease the difficulty level) the phases.
6. It is recommended that on the start of a new training day, parents revisit the last phase of the previous training day. prior to continuing step (5).

Tips:

1. 1. Use food that children would normally eat during meals for practice (i.e., o not use food that they hate) to reduce the occurrence of behaviour problems.
   2. To help children to easily understand our expectations, there should be a very clear learning target. If the child has the two above-mentioned problems simultaneously, we will need to allocate two time slots to practice eating independently and eating aversive food, separately. For example, work on picky eating during afternoon tea time (use food that the child does not like); then work on eating independently at the table during regular mealtimes (use food that the child would normally eat).
   3. Do not let your child do other activities during mealtime; this includes playing with phone/ipad, watching videos or TV, playing with toys or letting them walk around. These activities should happen after mealtime. Do not let them form the habit of playing and eating at the same time. The longer this habit has formed, the harder for your child to break them.
   4. Do not let your child do other activities during mealtime; this includes playing with phone/ipad, watching videos or TV, playing with toys or letting them walk around. These activities should happen after mealtime. Do not let them form the habit of playing and eating at the same time. The longer this habit has formed, the harder for your child to break them.
   5. Adjust your expectations based on the child’s self-help abilities. If your child is old enough to use utensils, our expectations can be:
      • Sit at the dining table
      • Eat with utensils
      • Finish all the food in the bowl

1. 1. If your child is still young and does not know how to use utensils well (remember, this is another skill that requires separate training), our expectations can be:

      • Sit at the dining table
      • Finish all the food that parents feed

      (Parents can refer to the training table below (parents can decide training target and phases)