blogs

Food is said to be the great unifier, but for many parents and their picky discerning children, it's often a divider. I'm not sure why so many of us get caught up in struggles at meal time; even fairly laidback parents find themselves at times urging their kids to clean their plates or take a bite out of every kind of food on the table. In September, I read an article in the New York Times called “Six Food Mistakes Parents Make.” I won’t lie…I had a huge smirk on my face as I read through two pages validating just about everything we do in our household:

1. Sending children out of the kitchen

This is a hard one for many families. I work from home, so in theory I have plenty of time to put meals together, but in reality dinner prep can get chaotic. When time isn’t an issue, I invite the kids to help, and I solicit their input on menus as often as possible. My daughter has been helping me in the kitchen since she was a toddler, and is known on both coasts as the best egg-cracker in the family. My son helps me with latkes, which are potato pancakes, and sometimes will do chopping duty or toss a salad. They also make most of their own snacks and lunches.

2. Pressuring them to take a bite

My philosophy has been to treat the kids like I’d want to be treated. If I said I couldn’t stand a certain food, I wouldn’t expect my mom or my husband to put it on my plate anyway and insist I take “just one bite.” I also wouldn’t tolerate them loading portions of food onto my plate and insisting that I eat it all. I’ve had to intervene with well-meaning relatives whose attempts to get the kids to try this or that were turning into harassment, but at this point, my kids are fairly food-adventurous.

3. Keeping ‘good stuff’ out of reach

The only food we keep out of reach are the granola bars we put in the kids’ lunches, as they’re too expensive to be snacked on daily. Long ago, I decided that we would not have any foods in the house that were off-limits to the kids. Admittedly, this is easy for me because I haven’t had soda since I was pregnant with my son in 1998. Our family’s beverage of choice is water. We also don’t do sticky candy -- I keep a stash of small chocolates so the kids can exchange the lollipops and Starbursts for dental-friendly chocolate.

4. Dieting in front of your children

I have struggled with my weight since childhood, but typically don’t talk about dieting or weight issues in front of the kids. I put the focus on healthy habits, not body size. I use an analogy about their school day being like a trip to Los Angeles, and how far their food choices will get them before they run out of gas. Waffles for breakfast for my son means he’s out of fuel by Turlock, aka more than an hour before morning snack. Diabetes runs in the family, which gives us the perfect forum for discussing blood sugar, too. We emphasize eating organic foods, and since the recalls in China, aim to be locavores.

5. Serving boring vegetables

My son isn’t a huge fan of intensely-flavored foods, unlike my daughter, who adds garlic and basil to just about everything. We sort of blew it on our garden this summer, but we made sure to have plenty of produce and have been working to be more creative in our recipes. For years, I was a vegetarian (I’m now a pescetarian) who didn’t like vegetables because the canned veggies I grew up with were so awful. That changed when I started going to farmers’ markets in the valley and experienced produce that didn’t take days to reach my table. We’re planning to join a CSA next summer.

6. Giving up too soon

My daughter has never really liked fruit. As someone who grew up sensitive to citrus foods, and knowing that a food aversion can be a sign of allergy or intolerance, I don’t push it. I invite the kids to try all the foods on the table, pointing out something I think they might really like. If they try a food and hate it, the adults reminisce about when we used to not like food X or Y, so the kids know that their tastes may change. If they truly loathe everything in the meal (which is rare), they can make themselves a sandwich or some rice and beans or eat leftovers. I’m not going to take it personally, ‘cause it just means a better lunch for me the next day!

So, out of those six mistakes, I think I’m doing pretty well. I sometimes take the easy way out by tossing dinner together while the kids are doing homework or playing; my attempts with vegetables could be better; and as I type this their Halloween candy sits in my closet by mutual agreement so there’s no clandestine snacking or food wrappers left in their rooms. How do you measure up?