Food for Learning: How Parents teach their Children to Eat

Over the next five posts, we are going to focus on the subject of food.

Once the child reaches daycare/pre-school, her or his habits have begun to take shape. They have already started to make food choices, engaged in doing what they see other doing (modeling), been exposed to familiar foods, created opinions, witnessed some swings in parenting style, and quite possibly begun to make decisions about what foods they like and don’t like.

I am often struck by the long list of items that a child will or will not eat at the tender age of eighteen to twenty-four months. Once they get here (or just about any good pre-school or daycare situation) they will be often be sitting in front of a plate of nutritious food. Numerous daycares take advantage of government programs that offer some reimbursement for this very important function (although in my experience it is more of a subsidy than a straight across, dollar for purchased grocery exchange leaving some of the pass-down cost to fall over into the tuition).

In these sort of programs, regular menus are recorded not only for the parents to review (and a good provider will offer these menus at the end of each day) but for the regular, often as much as four times annually, inspections. How your child eats at this point has little to do with what she or he likes. Many providers will attempt to make the food as attractive to the child as possible but if the child is unfamiliar with these types of food, they may balk at eating them.

This is where you, the parent come in. How your child progresses through the food pyramid, yes that good ole breads on the bottom, lots of servings a day to the sparsely inhabited sweets, fats and oils that tops the heart healthy, good-for the bones Food Guide.

Here are four easy steps to getting your child’s diet for the world that cares about what they eat.

1. Give them numerous nutritional options. This can be especially difficult as food costs increase but offering them a small portion of several items, you can narrow down what the child prefers. The second part of this “give the child a choice” is to not lure them into liking the wrong thing. Adding a caramel dipping sauce to an apple snack doesn’t promote the apple. Smothering otherwise nutritious potatoes with gravy doesn’t give the child the opportunity to enjoy the vegetable just as a jelly smeared piece of whole grain toast doesn’t let the goodness of the bread shine.

2. If you don’t eat it, they won’t eat it. Drop the words that paint a picture of the foods flavor. You know the ones: Yummy and Yucky and any other kid friendly description of taste, good or bad paint the wrong picture.

3. Convenience out, home prep in. Far too many parents feed their kids with the wrong end of the pyramid first. Fast food doesn’t have to be bad food. A small sandwich will hold a hungry child at bay until you can out together a small meal. Refer to rule number 2 and you will probably see some room for improvement in your own eating habits.

4. Consistency always should be what guides you. A married couple should discuss this each day and focus on how they can be on the same page. Talk with your provider about what they are serving and how you can improve your child’s diet at home. Peer pressure often helps at pre-school or daycare and knowing that if they do not eat what they are given, they will not have alternatives. Allowing the child to leave the table without eating allows you to retain your authority. Offer them the food later, and if they fail to eat lunch a second time, they should be able to wait until dinner. Kids have limited emotions promoted by physical surroundings and hunger (the refusal to eat, not the refusal to feed) can be very real. If you have given the child choices and they have made the wrong ones, as long as their safety has not been compromised, be consistent.