After asking my readers to give their ideas for making mealtime less stressful, I was flooded with ideas, both practical and positive.
I deeply believe in the KISS factor (Keep It Simple, Sweetie), so I culled the responses for the easiest, most applicable, fun, and straightforward strategies and ideas.
Here are the best of the best and why they work:
1) Accept that young children are tired at dinner. We expect children to sit and enjoy our organic chicken at an hour where they have about five good minutes in them. Children have, largely, front-loaded their calories during the day, and they are simply not ready to “fill up” at the hour we have chosen!
2) Call a meeting and set the expectations. If the children are 3.5 and older, have them provide some ideas about the foods they would like to eat, and put them on the menu for the week. Let the children know that there will no other food served.
3) Have some conversation at the ready. Children love to be silly, they love family stories (especially involving danger/injury/or mistake-making), and they love being in charge of the conversation. For instance, these Table Topics are a family favorite at my house! To make it truly person, create your own table topics (instructions here).
4) Serve the food family style. If you keep this as a practice and keep the focus on the family (not the food), the children will enjoy making their choices, and will better learn to moderate their own hunger cues, as well as correlate their hunger to the amounts of the food they take to their plates.
5) Don’t promote a “clean the plate” mentality. Nutritionists have been fighting this for a while, saying it promotes overeating and lack of hunger and self-awareness. From a parenting perspective, it also makes you into the wretched “food police.” “One more bites of peas….” And “When you eat your broccoli, you can have dessert…” All of the cajoling and reminding sparks children’s counterwill or the idea of doing the opposite of what is asked.
6) Keep your boundaries. If you say the kitchen is closed at 7 PM or that the food stops after dinner, then stick to your word! Yes, there will be some yelling. Yes, there will be crying and whining. If you can withstand the storm of the transition, the child will adapt. As the parent, you have to stay strong; this will feel very hard. But it will pass!
7) Keep the sweets as celebrations, not rewards. Go ahead, have some fun! If it has been a tough week of holding boundaries and the children have done well, have a “Sundaes on Sunday” night. Or have a “Dessert First” for dinner one night. Have fun. Show the children that yes, you have rules, and sometimes it is okay to break the rules. Everyone will have a blast, and the idea is to laugh and enjoy each other.