Sorry about the unexpected hiatus

Violin Daughter had her senior recital last weekend, so my Minnesota daughter flew in at the beginning of last week, then my mom flew at the end of the week, then Minnesota daughter flew back home at the beginning of this week and my mom flies back tomorrow afternoon. So, no blog post this week, either.

As a consolation, here are a couple of recordings from the recital. This first one is the Meditation from the opera Thaïs by Jules Massenet, accompanied by her former music teacher.

This next one is the 4th movement from JS Bach's Partita in D minor. When we were discussing whether to hold her recital in the parish house where there is a grand piano (she also played two piano pieces, a Rachmaninoff and a Debussy) or the sanctuary of our 250 year old church building, she said she needed the acoustics of the sanctuary, "Because that Bach piece is LIT."

Technical note re: comment notifications

For the last few weeks I haven't been receiving email notifications of comments on the blog. Blogger says it's a system-wide problem and they're working on it, but in the meantime, I'm checking regularly for comments here so I can reply to them in a timely fashion. Hopefully I haven't missed any, but if I have, feel free to email me at cumbeeclan at gmail dot com.

Teaching manners to children, 5: How to have interesting and uninterrupted adult conversations in the presence of children

This one rule will shock you.

Heh. How’s that for a click-baity title?

Recap:
In Part 1 we discussed definitions, and the fact that manners are part of the culture we belong to.
In Part 2 we discussed basic principles and the need to model good table manners to our kids.
In Part 3 we discussed establishing a pleasant environment in the home so that mealtimes are an extension of that atmosphere.
In Part 4 we discussed not creating food-related issues as a major factor in making meals pleasant for all.

Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.
Galatians 6:9

I feel very strongly about this one rule I’m going to share with you for several reasons.

1. It makes supper a pleasant time for Daddy and Mama to catch up on the day, and to have adult conversations with each other and with dinner guests.

2. It makes supper an adult activity that we allow our children to participate in, which gives them something to aspire to.

3. It provides ample opportunity for the children to SEE what adult meal-time behavior looks like, and to imitate it.

4. It provides ample opportunity for the children to HEAR what adult meal-time conversation is like, and to imitate it.

5. Even from younger ages, our children appreciated the fact that when we had adult guests they were never relegated to a Kids Table, but got to listen to our talk, which was far more interesting than anything that ever happened at a Kids Table.

But before I get to the rule (and I’m sorry it’s taking so long to get around to it) I need to explain what brought it about. You’ll see in a bit why I’m taking such a circuitous route. Also, I want to acknowledge that if you’re a single-parent family the situation will be much different and much more difficult for you. In the next post I’ll try to address that situation from my limited perspective as a military wife who had long spells of parenting alone.

In Part 3 I mentioned Mike’s crazy shifts, so you can imagine how hard it was in the evening and at bedtime when he was working and I was home alone with three-and-a-half-year-old Eldest Daughter, two-year-old #1 Son, and newborn Mosey. Thankfully, around this time he was put into a position with more sensible hours: 7:30-4:30, Monday through Friday. We had a wonderful routine during those days. Mike would come home and play with the children while I made supper, then after supper, he’d give the two oldest their baths and get them ready for bed while I washed up, nursed the baby, and got her ready for bed.

I say “wonderful,” because it was wonderful for me and the kids. But it was hard on Mike, coming home from work tired and needing to spend the next few hours interacting with little children before he finally had some down time. Don’t get me wrong—he’s a fun daddy and good with the kids, but one evening when we sat down at the table, for whatever reason (I’ve asked him and he doesn’t remember what motivated it) he said that he did not want the kids to be talking during supper.

I thought he was just especially tired that evening, so I did my best to shush them. They weren’t rowdy kids by any means, but the two eldest have always been best friends and they were used to talking to each other and to us, so it was kind of challenging to keep saying, “Daddy’s tired. You need to be quiet.”

This scenario was repeated the next night, and the next . . . until I finally realized he really meant he didn’t want them talking at supper EVER.

I was not a little annoyed.

I thought he was being ridiculous, and tried to talk him out of it.

In the end, this was so important to him that I decided to figure out how to make it work.

Parenthetical comment here. Remember last time when I said I had no qualms about enforcing my table rules? I listed two reasons. I actually thought of listing a third, but decided to save it for this post, and it’s this: As the mistress of this home I have real authority in my domain, and what goes on at the dinner table is just one of those areas. I point this out because I don’t want y’all to think that my husband is some kind of chauvinist, but I hope I don’t make the opposite mistake of making myself look like a harridan—I tend to wear my authority lightly; anything else wouldn’t be dignified. Mike and I get along pretty well and our kids think we’re cute, so I guess we’re okay in this area. ;-)

Also, please keep in mind everything I’ve said before about nurture and comfort and love. That didn’t go out the window just because I found myself needing to enforce a fairly strict rule.

But how in the world was I going to make it work?

Turns out I had a decent place to start, which was serendipitous. I had worked for two years between high school and college, and one of those jobs was in after-school care at a private Christian school. I arrived at noon when kindergarten let out, took the kids out for recess, then back in for lunch and naptime, then stayed till the parents had picked them all up in the evening.

Now, at this time, my little sister was in the second grade at the other elementary school in this system, and I knew that at lunch break the students weren’t allowed to speak for the first five minutes of the meal. Kids that age will get distracted by talking and forget to eat all their lunch until it’s too late, so this was a sensible rule. Those five minutes gave the students enough time to focus on eating so that their 20 minutes in the lunch room was adequate. Knowing that my five-year-olds would be subject to this rule when they went to first grade the following year, I decided it would be a good idea for them to practice it, so that they wouldn’t have to learn new lunch-time habits when they moved up.

I don’t remember when I first started having my own children do this. Was it when the first two got old enough to start talking to each other a lot? Was it when I needed to start training them to be quiet during supper? I’m really not sure, but the important point is that I had a small way to begin the training—just the first five minutes of breakfast and lunch, which were our meal-training times. That one small thing gave a little victory twice each day on which to build. The more faithfully I adhered to that five-minute rule, the easier it got for them to keep silent at supper.

The next thing I had to teach them was that I really would take care of their needs. All they had to do was wait for me to notice and ask them whether they would like more of this or that, to which they were allowed to reply either, “Yes, please,” or “No, thank you.” Having a script really simplifies things.

Nowadays this seems like such a radical rule, and like I said earlier, I was upset with Mike when he wanted me to enforce it, but really it wasn’t terribly different from the way things were when we were growing up in the 70s, in my family’s social circle, at least. No one had the old “children are to be seen and not heard” rule, of course, but still, we just didn’t gab and act goofy when we were doing adult things, and dinner-time was definitely an adult thing.

Again, I want to point out that I’m just describing what worked for us, not laying down rules for other families.

But at the same time, I’d really encourage you all to consider instituting something like this, just at dinner. Or rather, at the meal where both of the parents are present, whatever time of day that happens.

Unexpected blessings

Remember what I said about imitation before? Because they spent years simply listening, when they turned twelve years old and were officially allowed to participate in the conversation, they knew how to have a sensible meal-time conversation with adults.

Then, because they couldn’t speak up I had to make sure that I was paying attention to their needs so I could offer seconds when they’d finished everything, or whatever was needed, another blessing was that they learned to wait patiently for me to notice and take care of their needs. I can’t claim that this is the sole reason my kids have such trust in me, my judgement, and my love for them, but surely it was one of the building blocks.

Another thing—and this actually means less work for Mom—was that since they were just eating and listening and watching, there were many things that I never had to directly train them to do. They just picked up on them because they saw them every single night.

This follows from the last thing, but my youngest three children hardly had to be trained at all. By the time they were born, our family culture was so well established that they just fit right in with it. I say this to encourage those of you who are just starting out, or who are needing to make drastic changes. It’s hard hard work in the beginning, but it really does get easier! Don’t lose heart!

For the next post I’ll try to remember all the practical day-to-day things I did to make this a blessing to all of us, not just to Mike and me. My youngest is fifteen years old and I’ve had very little to do in this area since she was born. It’s astonishing how much you forget of the things that were so large and difficult when the children were all very young.

Teaching manners to children, 4: Regarding “issues”

I’m sorry this post is late! Last week we flew to Memphis for Violin Daughter’s graduation from The Center for Western Studies’ gap year program, and then this week we drove home with her. I cannot recommend The Center highly enough. It’s a fantastic program and John and Day Hodges are fine people who truly love their students. If it’s at all possible for your child to spend a year at The Center, you should take advantage of it!

On to business! Last time I said, “at that stage the only rule I had was that I did NOT want there to be Issues surrounding mealtimes.” This time I want to expand on that.

Part 1: Definitions
Part 2: Basic principles
Part 3: Earliest stages

Part 4: Regarding “issues”

The nature of food and meals

Food and meals are meant for nourishment and comfort and fellowship. It is the parents’ duty to nourish their children, which is another way of saying that you owe it to these little people whom you have brought into the world to nurture and comfort and feed them.

I wanted our mealtimes to be peaceful and pleasant times, so that precluded having fights with the kids about what and how much they were eating (or not) and it also precluded using food for rewards and punishment.

But how do you do that? Here are a couple of principles to keep in mind:

Principle #1: Prevent issues from arising in the first place

Principle #2: If a child is hungry he will eat what is given him*

So, if I didn’t want to have to force-feed my child, thus creating an issue, I needed him to be hungry when he came to the table. In order for him to be hungry at mealtime, I had to limit snacks. At some point in my life as a mother, I got tired of my kids asking for snacks (because even though we are to imitate our heavenly Father, who delights when we come to him with all our needs, Mama is a finite being and only has limited amounts of time, energy, and attention, and not only does she need to recognize and accept that, but her children need to learn to respect it), so I put out a bowl of fresh fruit and told the kids they could eat whatever they wanted from it, whenever they wanted it, WITHOUT ASKING. Raw fruit never stopped my kids from being hungry at mealtime, but your kids might be different.

My responsibility then, was simply to keep the bowl of fruit filled, and to remind them not to ask me for snacks. This included not caving in when they wanted bread and butter or trail mix or whatever instead of the designated snack. If you are going to make a rule, you must stick by it. If you cave in on occasion, you are merely teaching your children that if they pester you enough they can get what they want. You must be, as Cindy Rollins would say, impervious to their pleas. They are not going to starve to death before supper, no matter what they say.*

Also, you must do all of this cheerfully and confidently. Remember, you don’t want negative emotions attached to food, and you certainly don’t want them feeling insecure in your decisions. You are the adult, and your confidence in your own decisions will help them have confidence in you.

So, one food rule we had was that one about snacks.

Another one was that they could have seconds of whatever they wanted, so long as they had eaten everything on their plates.

In order for this to work, I had to fill their plates myself so I could control portions. This meant that I had to know each child well enough to have a good idea of what a reasonable amount of food was. This also meant that on occasion they’d have a growth spurt and their appetite would get ahead of me. I’d notice that this had happened when a child would eat seconds and thirds and fourths of mashed potatoes. When this happened, I’d adjust the portions of meat and veggies at the next meal, so that there wasn’t ROOM in their tummies for four servings of mashed potatoes.

Notice what I would NOT do: I would not stop them after seconds of potatoes, and tell them that they had to have another serving of broccoli before they could have more potatoes. To do that would be to make potatoes the reward for eating broccoli, and like I said, I didn’t want that kind of thing to go on.

A third rule I had was that desserts were a separate course, and getting dessert was not contingent on anything other than it being time for dessert.

This was especially hard for Mike to handle because he grew up in a family where dessert was always a reward for having eaten everything on his plate.

I had no qualms about enforcing this for two reasons. One was that for the most part the kids weren’t leaving uneaten food on their plates. The other was that dessert was a rarity in our house. We have birthday cake several times a year, and I make pies for major holidays, but dessert is never a regularly expected course.

One bit of advice when making the dessert: Be sure that you make an amount that is sufficient for each person to have ONE reasonably sized serving, and no leftovers. This avoids the issue of people eating too much dessert, and it also avoids having them beg you for leftover dessert when they want a snack before bed, or the next day.

By this point, you might be concerned about wasting food. I really hate throwing out food too, so I had a couple of different ways of dealing with this. One was that if there was only a tiny bit of food left over, I’d just throw it out. I mean, I would NOT encourage them to eat “just this last bite” in order to keep from wasting it. To do this would be to train them to ignore their bodies’ signals that they’d had enough to eat, which is to say, doing that would train them to overeat.

If there was really a lot of food left, and they said they weren’t hungry, I’d tell them that I was going to put it in the fridge, and if they got hungry later, they should eat it, instead of fruit. This is my one kind-of-exception to the fruit-only snack rule. A few times, when I was a very young mother, I continued to bring this plate of leftovers out for meals until it was all eaten, but that was horrible. Finally I limited myself to bringing it out for the very next meal, but not more than that. If the child had eaten nothing during that time because that food was so distasteful to him, I figured maybe there was something going on that I didn’t understand, so I didn’t make an issue of it. At the following meal, we started fresh.

Another concern you might have is training a picky eater. I remember when #1 Son was just three and a half or four years old and on Sundays I always made a pot of 15-bean soup and started the bread machine before leaving for church, so lunch would be ready as soon as we got home. This son LOVED the fresh bread and HATED the soup. He would eat his entire slice of bread and then not eat any soup at all, so I had to figure something out. What I finally did was this: At the beginning of the meal, I would cut his piece of bread in half and set it on a small plate close to me and tell him that when he had eaten half of his soup, he could have one half of his bread. Then after he’d eaten the second half of soup he could have the rest of his bread. That worked well for him. He never learned to like 15-bean soup, and he’s still a picky eater, but he does know how to eat what’s placed before him without complaining.

This almost looks like using the bread as a reward for eating the soup, but I think that because of the overall environment around our meals, it didn’t feel like that to him, and it never was stressful. He never fussed over that rule—he just buckled down and ate the soup.

I want to reiterate how important it is to be consistent and firm and confident, while being open to adapting as difficult situations arise. I stress the firmness as foundational because I think that today the temptation for us parents is for flexibility and adaptability to be our modus operandi, and we only become firm when we’re really tired and stressed out. This is really hard on children. Children need to know what to expect in order to feel secure, and the key to that is parents who act with gentle consistency, loving firmness, and humble confidence. 

These principles were things that I had in mind from the time my first children were quite small, but much of the practical application developed after I had to start thinking hard about training in table manners. Next time I’ll tell you all what caused me to have to step up my game.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

* Barring medical issues, of course