Let's talk kid food! No, I don't mean chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and mac n cheese. I mean the challenges, frustrations, and all the other things that come to mind when you think of meal time with your kiddos.
How many times a week do you find yourself making 2 meals? You make one meal for your little people that is "kid friendly" and one for you and your spouse or you find yourself eating the kid approved meal and wishing for something more. Meal time can be such a challenge with children in the house. Time around the dinner table should be fun and enjoyable and a place your family comes together to talk about the day's events yet many parents find themselves facing a fight as a picky eater refuses what's put in front of them causing this special family time to become dramatic and frustrating.
Trust me when I say that meal times haven't always been pleasant in our house and there are still days when the ugly picky eater monster rears it's head. My daughter has always been a good eater and not picky at all. However, we went through a very difficult period with our now 7 year old son when he was younger. Looking back it seems like years of dinner time fights, food not eaten, and finally giving in to making something special just for him. We tried what seemed like everything! He went through a phase where the only meat he would eat was chicken. We ate A LOT of chicken, cooked almost every way you can think of. After a while, I decided to get clever and tricky...one night we had ham and I decided to tell him it was "pink chicken". Much to my surprise, it worked! He ate it excitedly and told me how good it was. Well if this trick worked, certainly there must be other things to pull the wool over his eyes too. We had venison one night and we told him that grandma had made this special "chicken" to look like bat wings for Halloween time. We got really creative, let me tell you! Although things slowly improved, there were lots of bumps in the road and many tears shed.
Though the meat eating situation had gotten better, we were still fighting the vegetable fight. I am not exaggerating when I tell you this. My son actually cried because we touched him with a green pepper we wanted him to try eating, REAL TEARS! You would have thought we put dog poop on his plate for him to eat. There's another specific meal nightmare I recall. Trying to change things up a bit, we made meat on a stick on the grill. He'd had the same meat cooked the same way on the grill and gobbled it up but for some reason decided he was having no part of it after it had been on a skewer stick. This occasion turned me into "mean mom". We fought for hours and reheated it several times. Finally we put it away and informed him that he would not be having anything else to eat until he had eaten this food. At breakfast the following day, we made our usual Sunday morning breakfast but our adorable little boy had his dinner warmed up from the night before. He still would not eat it! This child truly may be the most stubborn little thing I've ever known. So, the food got put away and come lunch time we reheated it yet again. At this point I figured he had to be getting hungry (and catching on that this wasn't going to go away) and would eat it without a fight but noooo, he still wouldn't eat it! We unfortunately were not home when dinnertime rolled around so we weren't able to see how the rest would have played out.
Okay so enough about the nightmares, let me tell you some successful things we've done to change meal time in our home.
I LOVE to cook and try new things in the kitchen. I rarely make a meal the same way twice and we do a lot of "creating" in the kitchen. I decided that if I could get my children involved in the kitchen and they could see me excited about cooking, then maybe I could get them excited about cooking and eating. When they were younger, I started out having them sit at the island where I was preparing our meals. As I chopped fresh veggies or herbs and prepped the other ingredients, they started asking to try new things...a piece of fresh cilantro, a chunk of diced onion, a slice off of a garlic clove, and different seasonings on their fingertips. At the other end of meal prep, I started making sure the food looked fresh, fun, and colorful on the plate when it was served. I know when we dine out that the presentation is a big deal. Again, this seemed to make meals more fun for them. It didn't take long for their imaginary play to turn to being "chefs" outside and making soups and salads and such from the landscaping and yard that they would serve to us. About this same time, we started watching Master Chef as a family and this just added to the excitement about food and new things. They began having their own Master Chef challenges with their landscaping concoctions.
Now that we had the kids excited about food and cooking, we began letting them help with meal ideas and new recipes to try. I think we made more progress with meals by letting them become involved in the planning than from any other effort. We set aside a time each week to talk about what everyone might like to have and made a grocery list. We set fun food traditions such as Mexican food Friday and each Friday had something like tacos, fajitas, or quesadillas. The kids became excited about helping pick out ingredients at the store (and this was a good lesson on costs, savings, and comparison shopping) and eventually began helping prepare the meals they had helped plan.
Earlier this year my daughter came up with some fun ideas to add to our Mexican food Friday tradition. We'd found we were getting into a bit of a rut with our meals and were preparing the same things we liked over and over. My husband and I told the kiddos that we needed to try some new things. My daughter excitedly proclaimed that every Tuesday should become "Try Something New Tuesday" and on that note added that we should also have "Meatless Monday". What an awesome idea from an 8 year old! We got out cookbooks (one's with pictures helped a lot) and started pouring through them for new ideas. This has been a huge success!
This is a meatloaf "cupcake" with mashed potato "frosting"
When we try a new meal (which isn't always Tuesdays) we talk about it as a family while we eat. We decide if it's a keeper or if it goes in the "never make again" file. We talk about what we like about it, don't like about it, and what might make it better. I remember hearing a neat idea some time ago that goes along with this. When the family tries a new meal or dish, they all have a "thank you" bite (basically everyone give it an honest taste test out of politeness) and as a family they decide if it is a keeper or not. If it's a keeper, they carry on with the meal and if not, they ceremonially take the meal to the kitchen sink and literally burn it to banish it from returning to the dinner table. Cute idea.
With the addition of new little ones in our home, we've made it a point to expose them to lots of different foods and flavors and to feed them what we are eating as a family. We don't prepare special meals (except in food allergy instances) for the kids and everyone is expected to eat the same things, at the dinner table together. Our 18 month old son sits at the table for every meal and will eat everything. He uses a fork and spoon and the chatter is filled with the cutest little "thank you's" and "your welcome's". Food isn't thrown on the floor purposely or played with. He loves broiled fish and roasted cauliflower and had never "dipped" something in a condiment until about a month ago. Teaching them at a young age to enjoy a healthy variety of foods is ideal.
A few big tips and main points
- Eat your meals as a family, in your home, at the table whenever possible (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). This is SO important for so many reasons.
- Encourage your children to be involved in the meal planning, grocery shopping (this teaches good behavior in the store as well), food prep, table setting, and clean up.
- Your children can only eat what you stock the cabinets and refrigerator with. Don't complain that "all I can get little Bobby to eat is mac n cheese, chicken nuggets, and ice cream if these are the things you are keeping on hand. Unless they're going to the grocery store and doing the shopping and making the meals, then you're the one in control here. You're responsible for providing an appropriate selection of options for them to choose from. You wouldn't let them where a bathing suit to school in December, right? Think of this the same way. Bathing suits are okay for certain occasions and so are chicken nuggets.
- Set expectations for good behavior at the dinner table at home. These expectations should be the same behaviors you want them to demonstrate in a restaurant or a home where they are a guest. They won't understand the need for sitting still at a nice restaurant if you allow them to run all over the house poking bites of food in their mouths as they pass by.
- Be the best example you can be by exposing your children to a variety of fresh, healthy, flavorful foods and make it a fun experience.
In closing, I'll share that my once very picky little boy and his adventurous sister are both now quite open to trying new things. Earlier this year they willingly and knowingly ate pickled deer heart. Yup, you read that right! They still have their moments and foods they do not like or will not try (guacamole and avocado for some reason) but they are so fun to cook with and share a meal with!
