Basic Trope: An older child longs to sit with the adults instead of the children during big meals.
- Straight: 12-year-old Alice hates being made to sit at the kiddie table, considering herself a big kid who's way too mature for it.
- Exaggerated: Alice is 17 and still sits at the kiddie table because she isn't a legal adult yet.
- Downplayed: Even though Alice is 7, she still considers herself too old for the kiddie table because the rest of the kids are toddlers and babies.
- Justified:
- Alice is an Adorably Precocious Child who really does act mature for her age.
- Alice has the mentality of a 5-year-old and the adults make her sit with the kids in fear of her ruining their peaceful dinner if they let her sit with them.
- Inverted: Alice is a Womanchild who hates sitting with the adults and eating their bland food.
- Subverted: Alice initially dreads sitting at the kiddie table, but turns around upon hanging out with the kids and learning they're actually pretty friendly and fun to be around.
- Double Subverted: ...but she's only acting that way so the adults see how polite and respectful she's being and move her to the grown-up table.
- Parodied:
- In a family full of cannibals, Alice is bummed out that she's being relegated to the kiddie table, where they only eat fat, and not the grown-up table where they eat the actual body.
- Not only is there a kiddie table, but there is a kiddie everything. A kiddie couch, a kiddie bathroom, a kiddie fridge, a separate van for the kids, a separate washing machine for the kids' clothes, etc. Of course, Alice dreads all of it and treats being part of the kids like living in her own personal hell.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alice likes being a kid and doesn't mind sitting with the other kids.
- Enforced: To set up an episode of the Coming of Age series.
- Lampshaded: "Why does she look so dread?" "Because she's the oldest kid and perhaps she wants to grow up."
- Invoked: Since all of the Kids Are Cruel, Alice tries to avoid eating with them as much as possible.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: "No matter how old am I and how annoying the younger kids are, I won't eat with the useless adults!"
- Discussed: "What do you mean you don't throw tantrums?! You're the oldest kid of this table!"
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: The child who seems to be the oldest frown among the kiddie table.
- Deconstructed: When Alice reaches 18 or the age that her parents consider old enough for her, she is immediately sent to eat with adults, but since Alice never quite learned to behave maturely and appropriately, she is badly criticized for not being mature enough, and Alice is Driven to Suicide due to it.
- Reconstructed: Over time, she starts learning how to act and interact with adults, leading to a Character Development.
- Played For Laughs: Kiddie Kid Alice is struck dumb when she is sent to the kiddie table, so Alice becomes The Chew Toy of the "kiddie food war", and when Alice complains about them, they promptly put Alice's head through the nearest wall.
