Reply to How much time for family dinner?

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[quote=Anonymous]We have family dinners in our house, and I'm wondering from others who do how much time "dinner" takes for you. (I don't care if you don't do family dinner or don't think I need to, I'm not looking for that kind of response.) Our house rule for the kids is that once they are done eating they can get down, but have to pick something quiet to do and can't bother the people still eating. The 4 yo can mostly do this; the 20 month old not so much. The problem that arises is that my husband is an incredibly slow and heavy eater. I'll usually sit with him even after I'm done eating, but I'll have one serving of food and be done in 15-20 minutes and he'll have 3 helpings and it will take him 45 minutes to eat. Meanwhile the kids were done shortly before me (10-15 minutes) and are understandably having trouble leaving the adults alone (especially once I'm clearly done with my food). Husband's idea is that this is a great time for him and me to talk; I disagree. I mostly rush through my food and end up refereeing the kids, telling them to leave us alone while he leisurely eats thirds. I've tried getting up before Husband is done eating, but it just feels so rude. This is all made worse because our house is very open-concept, so it is impossible to not bother the person still eating; there is no "other room" people can go into.

Something's gotta change here, so my question for others are - How long do you expect "dinner" to take? Do you make the kids stay with you until everyone is done (I don't think this is possible for us at this age)? If one adult takes a long time to eat, does the other adult stay? If your dinners are less stressful/time consuming than mine, what does that look like?[/quote]

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