Teaching children how behave when eating revolves around a basic respect of and consideration for others, parenting columnist Ian Munro says.
The other day I came across an article I'd clipped several years ago about children in buffet-style restaurants and the challenges they pose the restaurateur.
One recounted how he came across two children using their hands to eat dessert from a serving dish. Others reported that children regularly served themselves using their hands and, if they did use the serving utensils, were prone to dropping them on the floor and then putting them right back into the dish.
With meal times more a fuel stop than a dining experience in many homes, it's not surprising that many children don't know how to behave around food.
I know I've experienced restaurant dining where disruption by children has spoiled the evening for others. The parents happily eat and chat while children push past diners carrying food from the buffet, bump into waiting staff, crash into chairs and make the level of noise children do when they play together.
It's a time and place thing. If Mum and Dad were dining with guests at home the children could go off and play outside or watch television, but in a restaurant basic table manners and dining etiquette are called for.
''Etiquette'' is a quaint word these days but it is still the best one to describe an appropriate standard of socially acceptable behaviour.
And it's not restricted to behaviour in restaurants. It also applies to an acceptable standard of behaviour in other public places such as shops, supermarkets, cinemas and public transport.
As always, it's something we need to consciously work on by deciding what is acceptable in particular circumstances and beginning the training and modelling at home as early as possible.
With dining there are various levels of table manners, which stretch from using the correct cutlery and waiting until everyone is seated, to using ''please'' and ''thank you''. It's the latter level that I'm really referring to.
It may be about eating with your mouth closed and not slurping your soup; or sitting up straight, if that is an issue for you, but essentially, it revolves around a basic respect of and consideration for others.
Along the same lines, expect to be spoken to in a reasonably respectful manner; for example, by not being yelled and screamed at for something.
''Other people don't speak to me like that and neither will you.''
The external structures about behaviour and respect that we set up for our youngsters will form the foundation on which they will build their own internal structures.
They will take the basic concepts we have given them on how to behave in their childhood world and develop these into appropriate ways of behaving in all manner of other situations in their adult world.
