Snack time at toddler's is usually a pretty messy affair at the group's I go to, the kids always tend to have eyes bigger then their stomachs! Which always leads to the same result, plenty of left over food on the plates.
This usually leads to two different things, several children picking over the remains, usually including mine especially if there is sausage (the little man) or blueberries (the young lady), or a few parents tucking in to their children's remains or just the general left overs.
Now, when I was at Uni, such acts were know as minesweeping, granted it also generally involved clearing random plates or drinks and usually involved having already consumed a significant number of alcoholic drinks prior to such acts. Obviously it's not quite the same with the bairns, the lack of alcohol being the most obvious, but is it wrong to allow your children to go around picking off the remains of other people's snacks? Or indeed is it wrong to finish up you children's half eaten crackers with those last few bits of cheese?
Generally my parenting style is fairly free and easy, so I've never had a problem with it. After all, what's the harm in it? I know some will talk about germs, but they are sharing toys and in the case of the young lady, chewing on said toys. Toys get passed around, dribbled on, chewed on, sneezed and coughed on left, right and centre at these groups and even though there are various toy cleans through the year, you can't keep everything clean and sanitised all the time. It's supposed to be good for children to share germs anyway, it builds up a health immune system and its better done at toddler's than waiting until they get to nursery. On the other side, if it means that my bairns are getting a decent amount of food down there necks and mainly fruit at that, then I'm happy, not that we've ever had an issue getting the kids to eat fruit.
Now, as parents I don't think we should feel bad for tucking in once the kids are done, yes its a little wrong to start tucking in while the kids are still eating, but when their done I think its all fair game. After all, its only going to end up in the bin otherwise, which is just silly, no point wasting good food. As for finishing up your kids plates, I don't see what's wrong with that either, after all we're all pretty close to our children, and I'm not going to pick up any germs finishing their food that I'm not going to pick up some other time.
