One of the questions that I get asked over and over again, both as a dietitan and a mom is “how do you deal with dinner at your house?” Meaning, what’s my timing like, how many meals do I cook, what do I do with picky eaters, how does dessert work? I have four kids ages seven, five, three and four months and as much as I would like to brag that my nutrition background has yielded the best kid-eaters ever, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I do have a little bit of everything though. One kid won’t sit in her chair for more than 30 seconds at a time, another will refuse to eat something one night even though he ate several helpings of it before, and sometimes they will claim to not be hungry but can magically put away several helpings of dessert. It sounds like chaos, but it’s not, because my biggest and only dinner rule that I have ever enforced was, “that’s OK.” We have one dinner time, usually around 6pm when everyone is home from school and work. You don’t want to sit in your chair and eat with us? That’s OK, I’ll take your dinner away and you can wait until the next meal. You don’t want to eat this amazing meal that I slaved over because I knew it was your favorite? That’s OK, chances are your siblings will enjoy it and your dad and I will be grateful for the leftovers. You only want dessert tonight? That’s OK.
Wait, what?
Let me stop here and explain, so you don’t think that I’m someone who starves her children and let’s them eat as much dessert as they want. The fact is, that I have worked hard since day one with all my kids to make the actual food part of a meal, the least important one. When they would sit in their high chair, I was conscious not to give praise if they ate something, and conversely, I never got upset if they didn’t. I never let those dining with us comment on what my kids were eating, there was no “you did such a good job eating your broccoli!” Or “I’m so proud of all you ate tonight.” And my husband and I have really tried hard not to give into the “there’s no dessert, if you don’t do or eat ‘X’.” That last one is hard, I know, especially when you are in the middle of an epic toddler melt down and you will do and or say anything to get it to stop.
So what are my basic “dinner rules?”
- Kids must sit at the table when eating. No snacking on the couch or anywhere else in the house–all meals, snacks are at the table.
- The TV isn’t on.
- I don’t care how much you eat, or whether or not you chose to eat, but as soon as you get up (unless you need to go to the bathroom), you are done.
- Don’t “yuck” someone else’s “yum”. My kids can’t say “eww” or “yuck” or anything else to insinuate disgust. If they don’t like something, they say “no thank you” or keep that thought to themselves.
- My kids only ever have two options for drinks: water and milk. And if they want milk, they have to have it with a meal.
- They have to ask to be “excused”. This is how my husband and I know our kids are done with their meal. And the kids also know that by saying this, they are done.
- I know ahead of dinner if we are going to have dessert that night and I don’t make it conditional on whether or not they eat dinner. If they chose not to eat some/any/all of their dinner, that’s OK.
Those are the rules that we follow in our house. I know I just listed a lot of things we “can’t” do at meal time, so naturally, here is my list of what they “can” do:
- Decide for themselves what they are going to chose to eat.
- Play with their food (not in a gross way), but explore, especially if it is their first time seeing a particular food or meal. They can dissect it, ask questions, lick it, I really let anything go with this one so long as they don’t spit things out, make a mess on the table, or get too silly with it. Side note: I try to encourage this more when we don’t have company over. Remember it can take many (many!) times for a person to decide that they like the taste of a food, and I have found that if they know what’s in a dish I make, this process is expedited.
- Decide when they are done. If any of my kids are done and they ask to “be excused”, then they are done.
- Slow down and enjoy the conversation (or silence). We really make an effort to eat dinner as a family every single night. And even though our kids are young and the conversations are sometimes ridiculous, we cherish the twenty minutes where it is just the six of us, no distractions and it’s when we catch up on the day. Sometimes everyone is exhausted and there is not a whole lot of conversation–that’s OK, too–it’s just nice to be in each other’s company.
- If they don’t eat dinner, they still can eat dessert, (if they want). Dessert is not served in our house every night (maybe once every week and a half), and even if they didn’t eat a lot of their dinner, they are allowed to have dessert-it’s up to them.
I know this may seem harsh, and may not even line up with what you would consider “good parenting,” but I believe (and there is some pretty good research out there to back me up), that my job is provide healthy food for my kids and they get to decide whether or not they want to eat it.
There is a woman named Ellyn Satter who is a pioneer in this model of eating and she asserts that so long as parents do their job with the food (providing the what, where and when of feeding), then children will do their job of eating (the how much, and whether they chose to eat or not). If you struggle with a picky eater or stressful mealtimes, check her stuff out: http://ellynsatterinstitute.org/dor/divisionofresponsibilityinfeeding.php
