Dinner Time Dramas

Child refusing to eat dinner

Parents often find it very stressful when faced with fussy-eaters, children ‘yo-yo-ing’ up and down from the table, getting distracted, eating very slowly, and complaining about the food parents have lovingly prepared. To parents feeding their children represents a show of love, nurturing and commitment. In addition many of us are concerned about our children’s weight and their health and this can turn mealtimes into stressful and unpleasant events. This is not helped by the latest Public Health for England announcement that children should be limited to two snacks of no more than 100 calories per day! Pester power is bad enough, without needing to calorie count our children’s snacks!

We know that food has a big impact on our children’s behaviour. Breakfast is especially important to enable your child to function optimally at school. At the end of a school day when that book bag is thrown at your feet, you can guarantee blood sugars are low. Forgetting an after-school snack could result in the most almighty meltdown.

According to The Royal College of Psychiatrists a third of under-fives develop some sort of food fad (either food refusal or selective eating) which makes it a fairly normal part of development. All foods can be allowed but some foods may be everyday foods and some are more occasional foods. If we give sugary snacks on a daily basis, they develop sugar cravings which is a perfect recipe for fraught mealtimes, bad eating habits, and poor behaviour.

We know it’s our job as parents to provide meals and snacks that are healthy and balanced, and meal-times that are enjoyable and free of pressure and stress for all.

Here are a few ideas to make mealtimes calm:

• Eat together – all the research tells us how important this is. Try to sit down with your children at mealtimes, even when you are not eating with them. This means preparing as much as possible ahead of time.

• Prepare together – try to involve children in the planning and preparing of meals. Let them leaf through recipe books and choose a meal themselves. Involve them in making the shopping list, loading the trolley, ticking off items as they go in, packing, unpacking, washing fruit and vegetables, even cutting them up and putting them in pans. Take them to self-pick farms where they can pick their own fruit. Young children can weigh ingredients, grate cheese, mash potatoes, roll out pastry (reasonably well!), and they can tear salad leaves, sprinkle herbs etc. They can start growing cress, and move on to tomatoes, potatoes, even strawberries in pots. Research shows that when children are involved in sourcing food they are more likely to try it.

• Show them the way – model enthusiasm for trying new foods, and bear in mind we need to offer new foods at least 8 times before they may be accepted! When we try something we might even verbalise our reluctance “Although I’m not sure about this one, I will try one mouthful to see how it is, because I might like it!” Talk about foods you love now that you didn’t like as a child so that they can see that tastes change. Accept that even though your child doesn’t like a food now he may love it later. Kids have a lot more taste buds than adults so foods will taste a lot more intense to them. Some children are more sensitive to taste than others but most children don’t like bitter tastes which are more common in vegetables.

• Ring the changes –try something new, such as a different venue. Try a picnic in the garden, or the park! If the weather’s bad , make a den in another room or under the table and have the picnic there. Change the table setting, help them personalise where they sit at the table, either with a special cushion or by adorning their chair with stencils stickers or ribbons, or make a placemat by laminating an A4 card with a rainbow of foods tick chart.

• Be clear what you want -Decide what rules you want for snack time and the table and write them down (or have them in picture form). These should be framed positively and specifically such as ‘Sit with your bottom on the chair;’ ‘Leave toys behind’; ‘Eat with a fork and spoon/knife’; ‘Ask to get down from the table’. Ask your child what the rules are before the meal. Be clear about what snacks they can have and don’t have less healthy ones around. Given sugar is the new cocaine, don’t be surprised if your child refuses the fruit or vegetable snack, if high sugar snacks have been the norm.

• Let them play – within reason, let them experiment with real food and water in their toy cooker and help them prepare special feasts for their toy friends. Let them play with real saucepans, ladles, spoons – celebrate kitchen equipment!

• Praise them- Use a tick-chart or a jar into which you put tokens such as pasta pieces to acknowledge them for good behaviour and the rules they are following. Praise even the tiniest steps in the right direction: ‘You came and sat down. The four legs of your chair are on the floor’; ‘You didn’t say ‘yuck’, even though this isn’t your favourite food’; ‘You put your fork in a carrot – that’s a brave start!’

• Small steps -Give small portions to start. If it’s a new food, a pea sized amount will do.

• Keep trying- If your child doesn’t like a food, don’t criticise, nag or scold, but don’t give up. You might need to present it to them quite a few times before they will try the food or before they decide they actually like it.

Build happy memories of food and mealtimes, rather than laying the foundations for eating disorders in the future!

So what are you going to do to make mealtimes calmer? Let me know what’s working for you and if your child is becoming more adventurous with food. Let me know the craziest thing they have eaten by dropping me a line at elaine@theparentpractice.com

If you would like to explore having a calmer and happier home life, then join my Harmony at Home Course.