Speeding up dinner time - our newest solution

Meal time at this house is not enjoyable, for the most part.  It involves a lot of commands: 

• Sit down
• Stop touching him/her
• Sit on your butt
• Eat
• Take a bite
• Eat
• Stop talking
• Eat
• Sit down

Cody, more so than I, is fed up with meal time and mentioned eating after the children went to bed.  But, eating as a family is important to us, so we have chosen bribery.  Yep, the worst thing parents can do.

Here's how it works:
First person to finish eating (lunch/dinner) is rewarded with a coin.  If you sing, dance, "fart around" at the table, no dessert.  

Our poky eating child who turns food into soup from the 100 chews she must complete before swallowing has actually won the last couple of meals.  


*We are not asking our children to inhale their food, but to simply eat and quit horse playing, and by making it a little competition they are focusing more on eating and less on their antics.