We're lucky enough to have my parents and my brother and his family nearby. We've been doing Sunday family dinners for a few weeks but they always end up being super stressful. I'm wondering if it's just this time of life with young kids or if there are strategies to make it more fun for the adults. My kids are 3yo and 6 months, both girls. My older DD is a really good eater and we've worked hard to instill some table manners in her so she's good about eating with adults and then when she's done she can go play quietly by herself. My brother's kids are 10, 7, and 20 months, all boys. They do whatever the F they want and it creates massive chaos at the dinner table and then my 3 yo wants to play with her cousins and I'm not sure if it's worth asking her to stay at the table or give up when we have family over. My mom is really upset as she cannot enjoy herself anymore. One idea we talked about was feeding the kids early and letting them play while the adults eat. I'm pretty against that with my own kids on a daily basis but happy to do that for bigger family dinners. One issue is my youngest nephew can't eat on his own yet so that wouldn't entirely solve the kids behaving badly at the dinner table issue. Other ideas???