Parents- what's your take on watching TV while eating for your kids?

We try to eat all meals at the table and practice conversation-making. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes we’re hurrying through to get the kids outside because they’re fighting us. We have a newborn, 2, and 4 year old.

I think building healthy habits is important. We’re screen free during mealtime, pretty structured about screen time. I follow my rule for my toddler and I don’t use my phone. It’s a time to connect, slow down, enjoy a break and eat good food.

Absolutely not. Except… our now 8 year old dropped so many foods from their acceptable menu around just before they turned 3, that we have gone through a fair amount of hell to try to get them to eat a balanced diet. And there we are on long distance flight watching them happily hammering through pasta Alfredo (they didn’t even eat Mac and cheese at the time, let alone anything bigger or more complex) while watching the lion king.

We still don’t do screens during meals at home, but on vacation, anything goes and that’s generally where we get them to try new things.

My take is a screen during a meal makes it 10x easier now, but will prevent my kids from learning how to sit at a table and be present for meals. I believe if I start the habit of needing a screen now, there will be no time in their lives I'll be able to stop this habit and not totally have them lose their minds. So my husband and I are going through a bit of hell with how hard meal times are (struggling to sit still... etc) , but I'm willing to stick it out for now. I really really really understand why people do it. It's just very important to me that my kid learns this is not what we do at dinner.

We’re screen free for meals, sitting at a table, and eating the same food across all 7 of us. It’s exhausting to eat with other families whose kids cannot just sit and eat at a restaurant.

What age range are we talking here?

Lolllll, read this as I’m sitting here eating with my son and my husband put on a football game 😬 my son is 3 and we never put on the tv unless it’s a game or the news.

We have to have the TV on. My husband has this thing (there’s an actual medical term for it but I can’t remember it at the moment) where the sound of someone chewing is like nails on a chalkboard to him so if we don’t have the TV on for some kind of background noise, mealtimes put him on edge

No screens whatsoever at the table / while eating. Used to be no food except at the dinner table. Now my son is 6 and I will allow him healthy snacks only while he watches some TV (carrot sticks, cut pepper slices, cheese sticks), water and that’s it. He’s very happy with veggie snacks + TV

Hard no - zero screens during mealtimes but we do play music on the portable speakers.

Only time they’re allowed to eat while watching TV is when we’re on 14-18 hour flights. Then it’s unlimited screen time with mandatory breaks for sleeping and walking around.

It’s family dinner time. No tv, no phones, no toys (the special one gets a seat at the end to avoid sticky fingers while still being close by), just goofy family conversations.

We will do popcorn or snacks when watching tv mid afternoon but meals are “sit down and talk to each other” times.

Absolutely never - no screens at the table either.

No screens during meals. This is really for several reasons for me - 1) I just want a time we can connect and really appreciated that growing up 2) mindless eating - whether it’s healthy meal or junk if they’re focused on the tv they’re less likely to be mindful of what and how much they’re eating which is fine when they’re young but habits stick around 3) it becomes such a dependency - I’ve gone to nice restaurants and seen some really well behaved kids with no screens and then i have friends who cannot function without it and bring the tablet to the restaurant. I just hold my ground even though my kids wonder why they can’t because seriously - as an adult do you want to have dinner with a spouse/friend that’s focused on their phone every 2 mins than just enjoy your company?

My 1.5 year old won’t eat without tv being on.

I've been trying to play music (no video) during mealtime instead of doing screen time. Works about 75% of the time. Would prefer to eliminatenit all together, but my toddler needs to eat

I have a 9, 8 and 4 year old and no TV at all while having meals. there's the occasional snack while the TV is on but it doesn't really happen very much since their TV time doesn't coincide with food time at all.

I want my kids to eat becasue they are hungry and mindless eating or feeding doesn’t teach them to learn their body cues. So we don’t do tv for meals. Will do snacks or if sick then whatever goes.

Super against. We are no-screens for meals.

Never. While I'm sure in the short term it would make my life easier, I want my kids to learn that meal time is for discussion. No phones, no TV. This is when we join together as a family. I won't pretend it's easy though. It's sometimes an absolute nightmare. But this is an area I won't take a short cut for ever.

As long as it's not "Barney the Purple Dinosaur".