When a child eats with cutlery, they begin to feel grown up and independent as they can now eat and use cutlery by themselves. Using cutlery is another intellectual skill which is learnt through communication and conversation at the dinner table; if a child is given their food to eat in front of the television there is no encouragement opportunity for skills to be learnt by doing this, as no attention will be paid to the child's mealtime experience as everyone will be too interested in what's on the television to encourage and teach the child new skills. .
Children can find mealtimes, a time of extreme stress and pressure especially; when they cannot finish all of the food put out in front of them. When presenting food to young children, remember that children cannot eat as much as you so you are not dishing up their plate with the amount of food an adult could eat. The Government Guidelines state that everybody should eat 'me size portions of food' and this is where a portion of food is usually an amount that could fit into the palm of your hand. This then guarantees that you are not overwhelming children with food, but not under nourishing them as these amounts will satisfy children's hunger. Sometimes when a child cannot finish their meal it can cause conflict between them and their parents as the parents may feel like the child is not eating, so try and force children to eat what is left on their plate; however the child generally may not be hungry and therefore doesn't feel they need the rest of the meal to fill them up. Forcing children to have a clean plate at the end of every meal can encourage them into overeating, and eating much more than necessary, which might cause obesity in the future so allow them to finish eating when they say their full. .
During meal times there are lots of social aspects that need considering when presenting food to young children. The environment of where you eat mealtimes being one of them.