I can say with almost 100 percent certainty that I am not the only mum in Australia that has trouble with their kids at dinner time.
The rejection of food, the whinging or just the plain old “no, that’s disgusting, I’m not eating that”
As I have mentioned in the past I am a sucker for turning to Dr Google or one of the many baby booksto find simple fix it solutions to my parenting issues and this instance is no different. From doing so I am always told:
“Don’t react to their protests”
“Keep all the different types of food separate”
“Always have at least one food they like or are familiar with”
“Always eat as a family”
It was a tradition I was desperate to keep
I’m not denying that these are all valid points and have helped with the battles I have faced with my five and three- year-old but the one that I have decided just doesn’t work for us is the eating together as a family.
Growing up we all sat at the table to eat together and it is a tradition I definitely loved and wanted to include within my own family, but I think it’s going to have to wait.
The reason being is that dinner wasn’t just hard work anymore but was a miserable nightmare for all of us.
It would go something like this...
Me: “Everyone, dinner is ready, up to the table”
Family would slowly make their way over. Upon arriving at the table boys would eye over their plates, and ask: “What is it?”
I would tell them and if applicable may also point out that they quite happily ate it a week ago. “Oh I hate (insert my lovingly cooked creation)”
Hubby “Just sit down and eat”
Boys would now get into full whinging mode.
“But it’s disgusting”
Me: “Please just at least sit at the table”
16 year old Stepson: Come on, just have a little bit.
Boys: “Fine” Sits down with a grumpy face
The rest of the family then start eating and chatting away while the boys start playing or annoying each other.
Hubby: “Hey, boys, hurry up and eat”
Me: Picking up one of the boys’ spoons “can you please just try a little bit, I promise you will like it.”
Stepson: “Look, I have nearly finished”
Boys shake their heads and continue playing/ annoying each other while rest of family continue to eat and chat.
One of the boy’s tries to leave the table
Hubby: “Hey, sit down and eat, then I will give you a prize.”
Child jumps back up to the table and uses their spoon to move food around and if I am really lucky will eat a piece of food that is half the size of a grain of rice.
After a bit more pleading by me and yelling from Hubby and throw in some persuading by teenage big brother we may get a few more barely visable mouthfuls in.
This then leads to them getting a prize of lollies or a biscuit while I am frustrated that another day has passed with them eating no veggies.
I don’t need an expert to tell me this isn’t a great dinner time routine. Begging, pleading, yelling and the promises of “bad food” is pretty much all the experts ‘not to do’s” rolled into one. So, without changing anything I started to just sit back and try and observe our dinner time to see where exactly it was going wrong.
What I noticed was that everyone was happy when initially approaching the table and sometimes the boys would even look at their food out the corner of their eye with a slight look of consideration. It would immediately start going down as soon as the first mention was made to the boys about how they had to eat. Their fork would instantly leave their hand and any previous look of consideration would vanish. As the meal continues and the begging and pleading from Myself, Hubby and my Stepson intensifies the atmosphere rapidly drops, gets uncomfortable even and everyone just wants to eat and get away from the table.
What all this made me realise was:
It's almost like a reflex action to nag them to keep eating their dinner. If I was three and five and I had three grown-ups nagging me to do something boring, I'm not sure I would want to do it either.It was making dinner time stressful for everyone. This was probably making the boys anxious and less likely to want to eat.
- Bad habits such as, "if you eat this, you can have that" kept coming up which I didn’t like.
- I think it’s actually a really big ask for a five and three- year-old to sit at the table and eat when they are:
- Full from snacking all day (despite me having tried to starve them for the last two hours, they probably aren’t actually that hungry.)
- Eating isn't all that interesting to them, it’s boring.
- Excited that Daddy is home
- Big Brother is here after doing whatever he has been doing all daytired
- Mummy there too but OK, probably not as exciting but still, it's everyone in the same placeThey sit down and eat their lunch and breakfast without any fuss, this issue is isolated to dinner time.
What we do instead...
With child number three on the way, I am not up for making more than one meal a day. For this reason, I still only make the one but I serve theirs up at least 10- 20 minutes before mine. I then tell them it’s ready, ask them to sit and the table and then head back to the adjoining kitchen. If protests start, I calmly explain that if they don’t want to eat it then that’s fine, they will not get anything else until breakfast the next day.
My five-year-old always comes to the table when asked but not my three- year-old. If this happens then I will leave the plate for a minute or two and if after that he is still refusing I will then clear it away, explain that it is now going in the bin and that there will be nothing else until tomorrow (this often gets him to the table).
If they do start eating, I will serve the rest of the family’s meal up so that we overlap and while they are finishing up we will sit down. Otherwise, I will clear their plates away and Hubby, Stepson and I will eat our dinner.
An expert may not “approve” of how I am now running our family meal time but they are not the ones sitting down and eating dinner with us and raising my boys so I don’t care. I know (ok, hope!) that as the boys get older their eating habits will improve but right now I am just focusing on today.
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