At our table we had to eat whatever was put in front of us. Leave nothing uneaten or there would be no dessert.
Many a time I would still be sitting at the table well after everyone had finished and left the table. Pushing the food around the plate.
When my Grandmother had washed all the the dishes she would say to me, " Get out of my sight"
No dessert for me and off I would go.
So…if you didn’t eat your meat you couldn’t have any pudding? 
So true. I often went without pudding. 
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We just had to sit at the table until we finished eating. There wasn’t a daily dessert after dinner. We had enough sweets and treats all the time, it seems to me.
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No desserts in our house either. We had to eat everything on our plate and if we didn’t it was served up again at the next meal
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I don’t remember any hard and fast rules as such.
It was about being together, conversation and chat… I always got my pudding 
The only exception that I can recall was when our budgie walked through my banana and custard. It had to be binned for obvious reasons 
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No rules when we were kids, thank goodness, just rowdy get together Londoner family meals, squabbling, laughing and banter
There was always pudding of some sort but it was never used as a threat and mum and gran would plate up our meals with stuff we liked anyway, if they knew we didn’t like it, they didn’t put it on our plate
If we were struggling to eat it all, they’d always tell us to eat our meat and leave the rest, because the meat was good for us
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Mandatory for us at school age.
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I live alone, having house rules of any sort would be a bit silly.
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We did not have meal rules when i was young.
But i do not allow mobiles at the table at any time., thankfully my sons /daughter-in-laws have the same rule
And no elbows on the table either.
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That would certainly exclude you from the pudding club😉
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