The kitchen table is convenient for homework until dinner needs it

My fifth grader has two homework spaces and neither is working the way I expected.

At the kitchen table, he actually opens his folder. I can answer a question while making dinner, and he doesn't have to carry every uncertainty downstairs. But he also spreads out until a worksheet is under the fruit bowl, the table needs clearing and I'm asking him to move halfway through a math problem.

At the desk in his bedroom, his papers stay where he puts them. Dinner can happen. He also comes downstairs four times looking for an eraser, a definition or company.

I keep presenting the bedroom desk as the sensible choice because we bought it for homework. That is not evidence that it suits this particular hour.

Here is the difference our afternoons keep demonstrating.

The kitchen table gives him easy access to me and an obvious starting point. Its cost is interruption and a hard deadline created by the meal.

The bedroom desk gives him continuity of space. Its cost is that being upstairs feels, to him, like being sent away while everyone else is downstairs.

This isn't a question about which location makes children achieve more. I don't have that answer. I'm trying to choose an arrangement we can actually live with between school pickup and dinner.

One possible compromise is to let him start at the table, then move unfinished work. But moving is currently the part that irritates him, so calling it a compromise doesn't make the friction vanish.

Another is to keep a small work basket downstairs and use the end of the table that doesn't need to be cleared immediately. That would require me to stop expecting the whole surface to look ready before everybody sits down.

A third is to spend the first few minutes upstairs with him, then leave. That sounds reasonable until I remember that dinner is also happening during those minutes.

What I want to compare isn't a proper desk against an improper table. It's three actual costs: moving the work, sharing the room and making an adult available.

Which cost would you accept? I'd rather choose one honestly than keep promising him a workspace that has no inconvenience for anybody.