Highchair advisor
Trays and highchairs
When you sit at the table to eat, you do not use a tray, so why should your child? Most high chairs come with a separate tray for your child but a tray keeps your child away from the table where we eat, play, talk, and work.
Your child learns from watching, observing, and interacting with you. The single and most natural place for this interaction is around the family table. Whether eating, sitting, playing, talking, the family table is a central hub of interaction for every family. In essence the tray of a highchair is designed as a separate table for your child, which may reduce interaction as this creates a distance to the family table, and presents a personal table to your child. One which cannot be shared between you.
Research tells us that, "the family dinner is an ideal place for language development and social skills to evolve" (Tarkan 2005). "Children who eat dinner with their families develop better eating habits later in life" (Eisenberg, et al. 2004).
It has long been a popular misconception that the real value of the highchair tray is to reduce mealtime mess. However, seated further away from the table, and in greater isolation from you, your child will become increasingly agitated and attention seeking, resulting in more noise, mess, and fallen food.
For these reasons, the Tripp Trapp highchair from Stokke is not supplied with a tray. Because after all, the family table is the best tray your child will ever have.
Sources/references:
Marla E. Eisenberg, et al, "Correlations Between Family Meals and Psychosocial Well-being Among Adolescents." The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 158: 792-796 (2004).
Tarkan, Laurie. “Benefits of the Dinner Table Ritual.” The New York Times, May 3, 2005; via www.bridges4kids.org
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2009
Stokke AS