Okay so I need some real advice here. My son just turned 5 and every single dinner at our house turns into a full on battlefield. I put the food on the table, he takes one look at it and immediately slides off his chair like he’s made of liquid. I have tried everything, asking nicely, making his favorite foods, even bribing him with screen time after. Nothing works. He will literally stand next to the table and eat one bite every 10 minutes while walking in circles. My daughter who is 8 is not much better, she sits down but then she is either poking her food or picking a fight with her brother about literally nothing. By the time we are done, I am exhausted, the food is cold, and nobody is happy. Is this just normal? Am I doing something wrong? Please tell me someone else is going through this too 
Oh man this took me right back to when my kids were that age 
I promise you are not alone. My youngest used to treat dinner like it was a punishment. What actually helped us was turning the table into something fun. We started doing a highlight of the day thing where everyone had to share one good thing and one bad thing that happened. Suddenly the kids actually WANTED to sit at the table because they got to talk. The food almost became secondary. Also and this sounds weird but smaller plates made a huge difference. Big portions were overwhelming them and they would just shut down before even trying. Give it a shot!
Okay so I am going to be the honest one here. I used to think I could reason with my 4 year old about why sitting at the table was important. Spoiler alert: you cannot reason with a 4 year old 
What actually changed things for us was consistency more than anything else. We set a rule, you sit at the table until everyone is done, no exceptions. First few nights were rough. Like really rough. But kids test boundaries specifically to see if you will hold them. After about two weeks my son just accepted it as the way things are. No drama. The battle IS the phase. Push through it.
Can we talk about how nobody prepares you for this part of parenting? Like the books tell you about sleep schedules and milestones but nobody warned me that dinner would become a daily war zone 
What worked for my family was getting the kids involved in making the meal. Even just letting them wash the vegetables or stir something. My daughter suddenly had so much pride in “her” pasta that she sat down and ate the whole thing. Something about ownership makes them way more interested. It does not work every night but it works more than anything else I tried.
I agree with Silicrypte on the involvement thing, that genuinely works. But I also want to add something practical for DashXCyberLink specifically since you mentioned your son is walking in circles while eating. That is actually really common in kids who have a lot of energy built up from the day. Try giving them 15 to 20 minutes of outside time or any physical activity right before dinner. Run around the yard, jump on a trampoline, anything to burn off that extra fuel. We noticed a night and day difference once we added this to our routine. A tired kid is a sitting kid
Okay real talk. Has anyone tried just letting them stand? 
I know that sounds like giving up but hear me out. There is actually zero nutritional reason a child has to be seated to eat. My pediatrician told me to stop making the sitting itself the battle and focus more on whether the child is eating and is present at the table. Once we stopped fighting about the chair specifically, my son naturally started sitting more because we stopped making it a big deal. Sometimes we fight battles that do not need to be fought and then wonder why we are so tired all the time.
With all due respect to TriviaNext, I get the logic but letting them stand turned into letting them wander for us and then suddenly they were in the living room with the TV on mid-dinner 
Every kid is different obviously. What saved our sanity was a visual timer on the table. I got a cheap little sand timer and told my kids dinner lasts until the sand runs out. For some reason having a physical thing to watch made the time feel real to them. They would actually race to finish before the sand was done. Turned a 45 minute struggle into a 20 minute sit down. Game changer for us.
The sand timer idea from TechRider is brilliant, I never thought of that! Writing that down immediately 
For us the thing that worked was a sticker chart specifically for dinner behavior. Not for finishing the food, just for sitting. Every night they sat at the table for the whole meal they got a sticker. Ten stickers meant a small reward like choosing the weekend activity. The key thing is you are rewarding the behavior you want, not the food eating, so there is no pressure around food itself. After a month or so we phased out the stickers and the habit just stuck. Kids love a system almost as much as adults do.
I feel like we are all dancing around the elephant in the room which is screens I know every parent eventually caves on the “no screens at dinner” rule and then feels guilty about it. We went through that cycle too. What we do now is a middle ground. We have a family playlist that plays during dinner, no visuals, just music. It fills the silence so nobody feels like they have to perform or sit in awkward quiet but there is also nothing pulling their attention away from the table. My kids actually ask to put the dinner playlist on now. Sometimes the solution is not all or nothing.
DashXCyberLink I just want to say your post made me feel so much better because I thought it was just my household My 6 year old does the exact same liquid slide off the chair thing and I genuinely started to wonder if something was wrong with him. Nothing is wrong. He is just six. What I found after a lot of trial and error is that the more relaxed I am about it the better dinner goes. Kids pick up on parental stress faster than anything. The nights I walk in calm and just kind of let the meal unfold without expectations are the nights everyone actually eats and stays seated. Easier said than done I know but it made a real difference for us.
Coming in late here but adding my experience because this thread is so good. We had the same problem and the thing nobody mentioned yet is designated seats with name cards. Sounds silly I know but I let my kids decorate little cards with their names and put them at their spots. Suddenly those spots belonged to them and they actually wanted to go sit in their spot. Also we started doing a “table topic” jar where we put little questions on paper and someone picks one each night. Things like if you could fly anywhere where would you go or what superpower would you want. The conversation makes them forget they are even sitting. Dinner went from 10 minutes of chaos to 30 minutes of actual family time 
Reading through all these replies and honestly the common thread I see is distraction and engagement. Whether it is the sand timer from TechRider, the conversation starters from Tekvanta, or the question jar from FrontNexus, it all comes down to giving kids a reason to be at the table beyond just the food. Kids are not miniature adults. They do not find the act of eating socially meaningful the way we do. You have to build the meaning around the meal. Also DashXCyberLink, please do not be too hard on yourself. You are clearly a thoughtful parent just by the fact that you are asking these questions. The fact that you care this much means you are already doing better than you think 
Okay I have to share this because it is mildly embarrassing but it worked. I made up a completely fictional story about a little boy who had to guard a treasure at the dinner table and if he left his seat the treasure would disappear. My son was obsessed. He sat so still for two weeks straight protecting this imaginary treasure Eventually the story naturally ended and by then the habit was already formed. You do what you gotta do. Parenting is basically improv theater with snacks.