Eating With Screens: What Children Miss (and Why It Matters)

If you’re like many families, screens may occasionally make mealtimes feel easier.

They can help keep the peace.
They can buy you five quiet minutes.
They can turn a tense moment into a calmer one.

This isn’t about judgement, it’s about understanding what else mealtimes offer children, beyond eating.

Eating time has always been about more than food

When children eat with others, they’re practising important skills that don’t show up on worksheets or schedules.

Things like:

• sitting alongside other people

• watching what others eat and how they eat

• noticing routines and expectations

• taking turns in conversation

• listening and responding

• building connection and familiarity

These skills develop slowly, through repetition.

When a screen fills that space, even an educational one, those opportunities quietly disappear.

It’s not just happening at home

This isn’t only a family issue.

Screens are increasingly used during eating times in schools and learning settings too, often to help with transitions, regulation, or managing busy environments.

Individually, these choices make sense.
But collectively, they reduce how often children get to practise the social side of eating.

Why this matters more than we realise

Many families already sit together less often than they’d like.

Between:

• before- and after-school care

• sports and activities

• work schedules

• tired evenings

Shared meals might only happen once or twice a week.

When those moments are also filled with screens, children get very few chances to practise:

• staying at the table

• tolerating boredom

• participating in conversation

• managing the sensory and social load of eating with others

Later, parents are often surprised when:

• eating out feels overwhelming

• mealtimes are chaotic

• conversation doesn’t flow easily

This isn’t a behaviour problem.
It’s a practice gap.

Small changes can make a big difference

\This isn’t about banning screens or aiming for perfect family dinners.

Even small, realistic shifts help:

• choosing one meal a week without screens

• turning the screen off halfway through

• keeping screens away for the first or last five minutes

• modelling conversation, even if it feels awkward at first

Children don’t need flawless mealtimes.
They need repeated, low-pressure opportunities to practise.

A gentle reframe

If mealtimes are hard right now, it doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong.

It often just means the skill hasn’t had many chances to grow yet.

Behaviour improves when children are given the right conditions, not when they’re pushed to “do better” without practice.

Sometimes, the most powerful support is simply creating space.