What way is best to get kids to go from whining to dining at the dinner table?
THE kitchen table has long been a battleground of childhood but can someone please tell me when parents began to think that it was acceptable for children to call the shots?
What deluded individual began to really think that they are helping their children if they cave in to intransigence, tantrums and whims at mealtimes?
Naturally, we will all let our kids gorge on ketchup sandwiches when we’re exhausted, but we are not doing them any favours by allowing them to use food as a weapon of control or by not encouraging them to fall in love with food.
Food is the most basic human need but it is also one of the great things about living: to eat, to cook, to savour, to smell. Food is at the heart of every celebration and milestone in life but our relationship with it can turn abusive when we’re in thrall to an eating disorder or when we eat to the point of obesity. There are also way too many emotional eaters out there who when things go awry immediately open the fridge for comfort.
I have two kids, aged 9 and 14, and each of them spat back boiled egg when they were being weaned on to solid foods. To this day, neither of them eat egg, and seeing as a hard boiled egg and toast is a mighty fine and speedy snack after school, it bugs the hell out of me that I didn’t stick with this particular one.
You see I began to realise when they were younger, that every child can be coaxed over the “I’m not eating that” hump and that having a night’s dinner shoved right back at you is a power play, kid-style. To be fair, I am also far too impatient to be dealing with this guff.
So, if they won’t eat carrots, don’t give them a fistful of carrots night after night and tell them they’re good for them or will help them avoid a trip to Specsavers. Instead, give them one baton of carrot and tell them that you will be delighted if they eat that. A few days later try it again and build it up. Slowly, slowly catchy monkey and all that.
And this nonsense that ‘My kids don’t eat spicy food’? Give me a break: kids love spice: show me a kid that won’t inhale curry chips, Monster Munch or spicy tortilla chips?
Kids will naturally take a mile if they think you will give an inch so if you’re going to wave the white flag they will accept it straight away.
And seriously, do you want to make a rod for your back by making separate dinners for kids and adults? I’m not saying that a five-year-old should eat a full-on vindaloo, but remove their portions before you pile on the extra spices for yourself so they get to start on mild curries.
If you want to ‘veg up’ your dinners and don’t want them sitting there sifting through the lasagne, picking out the peppers, courgettes and squash that you spent ages chopping, chop them smaller or in the case of courgettes, peel them so they are unrecognisable. By the way, can somebody please tell me what courgettes ever did to kids?
Food is glorious and it’s wonderful to see teenagers enjoy tasting new foodstuffs rather than being immediately wary of something that they don’t recognise.
There are lots of ways that you can help your children to express themselves but don’t make a rod for your back and for them by making food one of them.
But as I write this, I think of a text I got from my husband last week after I spent the afternoon labouring over a rather fancy crab curry.
“The kids said your dinner was puke,” it read. When I got home there were two untouched plates on the countertop. You win some, you lose some.
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IT ALL started off so well. I recall taking our first-born on her debut holiday. We stayed in a sleepy little village near San Pedro and were basking in the evening sun enjoying an al fresco meal. She was nine months old, and sat on our laps as we ate, sampling fish, meat, and vegetables from our plates and loving it. Smug.com.
Fast forward a few years, and the scene was very different. She’d start the day well with porridge, but by dinner it was pasta and cheese — and sometimes she’d refuse the cheese. No meat, no fish, no potatoes, no vegetables — and no amount of threats or bribery made a jot of difference.
When her baby brother joined the clan, I vowed I would not have another picky eater. Primarily due to lack of confidence in the kitchen, I had given her baby jars when she’d started on solids. With my second-born, I eschewed those in favour of homemade portions of carrots, sweet potato, chicken, and fish. He ate everything I prepared and I had a few more smug.com moments. Then he hit two and became worse than his sister. More pasta and cheese. He physically retched when I tried to feed him carrot.
With two poor eaters, you have to become a bit inventive. With child No 1, mealtimes had become a daily battleground, all tears and tantrums (often mine and my hubby’s) and I couldn’t face going through that again. There would be divorce, or murder, or both. Hubby wanted empty plates, I just wanted them to eat something other than pasta.
“Just put the dinner in front of them, and if they don’t eat it, let them go to bed hungry,” a friend advised airily one day as her brood sat down to adult-sized portions of meat, spuds, and two veg.
I knew they wouldn’t starve but I still found it difficult (and wasteful) to throw a plate of food away and send them to bed with a rumbling tum.
So we tried a different tack. We began to slowly reintroduce foods that they had eaten in pre-faddy-eating days — such as chicken, fish, mince — and place a tiny amount of it on the plate. If they ate the portion (and it was weeny) then they could have dessert. If not, no dessert.
It took a lot of patience, cajoling, and persuasion, but the portion sizes gradually started to increase as they started to play ball and try new things. When my little boy tried broccoli, I actually took a photograph to send to his dad.
Most nights we cook healthy meals that we know they will enjoy, like fish, chicken casserole, roast beef or lamb, and spaghetti bolognaise. At the weekend it’s a bit more relaxed; my other half will rustle up something more adventurous for us, like a Thai green curry or paella, and we’ll let them have a pizza. My daughter will often ask to try dad’s creation. My boy still doesn’t like to try new things and we don’t force him to because I think that will come with age.
As a rule, I don’t cook separate meals but I don’t pour any sauce on his chicken casserole and I let her take a dollop of ketchup on roast beef. I do carrots for her, and broccoli for him. And I don’t shout and roar if they don’t every single morsel on the plate. You have to choose your battles, and I’d rather not have mine around the dinner table.
