Daily Chanting

For a long time now, I have been serving the same portion size to both kids for all meals. 

Usually one plate will be cleaned up in under 30 min while the other is only 1/4 eaten in the same time. 

The irony is, the boy who finishes his food fast is the younger one, who can chat, laugh and eat at the same time. His mealtime companion finds it challenging to multi-task at the dinner table, yet he can't resist daydreaming, chatting and laughing. Which means chewing and swallowing get forgotten. By the time everyone is done with their food and ready to leave the table, M will still have a near-full plate. 

The next hour is spent with me or E (and sometimes both of us) annoyingly chanting 'Chew', 'Swallow', 'Hey, chew and swallow', 'Why is it still the same mouthful?!' etc... etc... 

This is an extremely frustrating time of our daily routine. 

We have tried every trick we can think of: 

(1) setting a time limit of 30 min to finish a meal and any unfinished food gets taken away. The boy is not given food till next meal. The idea is he should be hungry enough at the next meal. 

(2) same as above and the unfinished meal is served at the next meal, so he realizes that he doesn't get new food until he finishes up his current portion. 

(3) give half the portion. While boy may finish the food faster, but he also gets hungry sooner and we ended up having to go through the routine more times daily. 

(4) serve only easy to chew and swallow food like porridge and sandwiches but after a few attempts, the problem returns. 

(5) set a time limit and boy gets moved into isolation to eat alone. 

(6) take away privileges if food is not finished by a certain time

(7) praising the brother who finishes faster

(8) giving a reward to the one finishes first

(9) let the boy take as long as he wants/needs to finish, so he learns the natural consequences of ending up with lesser time to do other fun stuff. He can take 2 hours to finish a meal if we do that and still he doesn't seem to learn the lesson!!! 

The only days when he seems to eat faster than normal is on his tennis days. After two hours of training, he may finish his dinner within 30 min without much 'persuasion' from us. While I try to incorporate some physical activities outdoor everyday, I can't fit in something as gruelling as his tennis training everyday too. 

The only food which he will always finish in record time is MacDonald's Fillet-o-Fish, which he eats once in a while. But I am not going to serve him this more often just because of this reason. 

Urghh! I know this situation will improve in time to come, but in the meantime, it is driving me nuts!