We had our children at a comparatively young age. Many of our friends were still single when our first was born in 1987. I never found the time or seemed to have the inclination to buy into the dictums and philosophies of the relatively older local Pram Brigade.

Consequently our children were bought up pretty much the way we were brought up, with the guidance of youthful parents, aunts and uncles, and the odd authoritative directive from varied 1980s parenting publications; all of which espoused the merits of an orderly household, sensible food and unconditional love.

Relatively simple really, and with the arrival of our second child, Anna, something we started taking a little more seriously. By the time Kate was born, Jack was five and a half. I calculated that the day Kate moved out of our bed (the day before her third birthday) I hadn’t had an unbroken sleep for over nine years, when pregnancies, night feeds, night wanderers, my own obsessive compulsiveness and a spouse who routinely “slept through” were all accounted for.

Both of us working, the existence of more children and animals than pairs of hands, the unpredictable busyness of life and its inevitable exhaustion, all culminated in us recognizing the virtues of decidedly autocratic domestic arrangements. The routine application of a high degree of order and discipline, enhanced with liberties and responsibilities, eventually enabled us to rear our children with what we described as a type of supervised neglect. Possibly something of a novelty today, but born of necessity at the time.

Funnily enough, food and meal times are defining opportunities for managing such ideals.

Spouse, from the beginning, took a relatively healthy interest in the meals and manners of our household. A little disconcerting for me really; my father never dined with us unruly lot during the week, preferring to eat later in the quiet company of my mother. Sunday lunch was the only meal we shared as a family (and what an event that was!). Still, in 1960s rural Victoria, food was rather simple, hearty fare and certainly children were never indulged with any argy-bargy about what they would and would not eat.

Likewise I had neither the time nor the daily inspiration to be preparing an a la carte selection for the lovelies to choose from on a thrice daily basis. We worked on the notion that children are remarkably capable of selecting a balanced diet from a broad selection of healthy food. I like to think that I have never plated a meal for anyone who couldn’t be crammed into a high chair.

Mealtimes eventually evolved into the relatively relaxed family affairs many of us aspire to. The provision of only water (or wine) overcame the mess and fuss of inevitable spills. All of the food for the meal was placed on the table for everyone to serve themselves; an exercise, in itself, in sharing and consideration for others. (Call me old fashioned but there is a lot to be said for an early indoctrination of the restraint, decorum and propriety that is so firmly embedded in those declining bourgeois values of deferred gratification). Certain foibles had to be intelligently considered of course. For instance our children, like many, had an aversion to raw vegetables. Spouse was a big salad guy. Once we realised that the tossed, dressed version of his preference was sometime not accepted as de rigueur, the salad bowl was replaced with a platter of prepared raw vegetables. Oil and vinegar, salt and pepper were placed separately. At first children may just select a carrot stick, but that does get boring when no-one makes comment and there are other more interesting, alternatives available.

There was always a bowl of unprepared fruit and a paring knife, a loaf of good bread on a board, a slab of butter and a piece of cheese on the table. Implorations of “but I don’t like this!” were unsympathetically greeted with an introduction to the bread and butter, the fruit or the cheese and the resumption of adult conversation.

The benefits of parents eating with their children, other than imposing a certain degree of socialization and the reinforcement of some sort of social order, is the type of food the children get to be exposed to. No self respecting adult ought to endure a diet of chicken nuggets and fish fingers and chips just because that is what the children like to eat. What is meant to happen in a healthy, autocratic household is that adult food is served to young children from an early age; proper food, like roast chicken, fish, vegetable soup, schnitzels, lamb cutlets, stew, curry, risotto and pasta, a selection of cooked and raw vegetables, whatever your repertoire extends to.

A rite of passage we enjoyed with our children on their 10th birthday was taking them individually to dinner to a very special restaurant, not the local, and certainly none sporting the ubiquitous “Children’s Menu”. A trip into town would be required. At a very receptive moment in their lives, they were being exposed to a level of fine dining and waiter service understood to be reserved for adults.

Another right of passage we encouraged was our expectation that each child, by the age of ten, would be able to prepare a meal for the whole family, of the same quality that they enjoyed from me.

This meant they got to choose what to cook, within the parameters of what we would eat anyway. They were entitled to the same assistance I received, in that others would set the table, perhaps wash the salad greens and peel the potatoes. I would supervise them in the preparation of a pasta sauce, using a recipe.

I showed them how to cook, rather than incinerate, a lamb cutlet (gently, turned only once, allowed to rest and served with a garnish of thyme).

They learnt how to roast a leg of lamb, prepare vegetables and cook pasta and rice.

Each week there was something else they wanted to be shown. They grew to understand the effort involved in preparing food for others and the satisfaction it is often rewarded with.

The days are so full of opportunity to positively influence the development of young minds and appetites through the meals and lunch boxes we set forth. Teach your children, by example, the pleasures of selecting and eating fresh, quality produce at farmers markets, and show them how to prepare it with due care and respect for both the food and those consuming it.

Turn the television off; teach them how to enjoy dining, to linger over food, drink and conversation at the table and to recognise the efforts of others.

Even if you cannot do this as a family on a daily basis, see for yourself the merits of making at least a weekly commitment to such practices.

They will love you and thank you for it.

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