Royal Children Like Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis Can’t Eat with Their Parents at Big Events Until They Master This Skill

Being a royal child is a world unto itself—in addition to living life in a fishbowl, if you thought your house had rules growing up, insert royal protocol here. “Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis had to learn very early on what they can and cannot do,” The Mirror reports. “The rules start early on.”

One of the rules? You can’t sit with mom and dad at official dinners—including Christmas!—until you have “learned the art of polite conversation.” (A skill a great many adults still haven’t mastered—let’s be honest.) Until that happens, royal kids are sent to the children’s table with the other little ones. “Well, who wants to sit and listen to boring grownup chat when you could be speaking to your pals about police cars, anyway?” The Mirror very astutely asks. Yeah, who wants to do that?

Former royal chef Darren McGrady—who worked for both Her late Majesty and Princess Diana—said royal children ate Christmas lunch in the nursery with the nannies while their parents and the other adults ate elsewhere. “The children always ate in the nursery until they were old enough to conduct themselves properly at the dining table,” he said. (Pretty sure if those rules applied to all of our families, at least a couple of the adults would be booted to the nursery.)

And, though royal children, they’re also just kids who don’t want to eat their vegetables like the rest of us. McGrady recalled how Prince William and Prince Harry were bribed into eating veggies at mealtimes: “The royal nursery wasn’t just for educating the minds of the young royals, but educating their palates, too,” he said. “[Their] nanny always had control of the menu and made sure they ate balanced meals that included not only lots of healthy vegetables but introduced them to new grownup dishes, too.” McGrady remembered disguising vegetables in the boys’ meals by hiding them in one of their favorite foods, like sneaking it into mashed potatoes. (Again, point driven home—though royal children, they’re also just kids.)

And after all of that work to get the boys to eat healthy and eat their greens, McGrady said that, while Diana was very supportive of her boys’ healthy eating habits, she would also sneak them out to McDonald’s as a special treat.