Those of us who have kids in the house, or have had kids in the house over the years know how tiring it can be to get them to eat what you have spent time preparing! We all know how important it is for our children to eat well-balanced meals and to get proper nutrition for their growing bodies.
Unfortunately, those precious children, whom we dearly love, don’t always love the food that we put in front of them. During dinner, they will just push the food around on their plates making it look like they are eating at least some of it. Ya’ll know what I’m talking about.
When our kids were young, we always had family dinner together each evening. The children were required to eat at the table with us…no cell phones, toys, books or other distractions were allowed. And they were required to at least try a bite of everything that was served. If I served up their plates, I tried to give them small servings so that finishing dinner was not a terrible trial in the event they didn’t care for the meal. However, if they served themselves they had to eat what they had taken.
I am sure you all have fun stories to tell of your children and their eating habits. One of mine would walk by the stove as I was preparing dinner. He would stretch tall to see what I was cooking in the pan or pot. “What’s for dinner, Mom?” was the question. If he didn’t like the answer, I heard, “I’m not hungry.” We decided that it was perfectly fine if he was not hungry. He had to sit at the table anyway. And if he didn’t eat, he got nothing as a snack in the evening when his siblings did.
One of my other children hated casseroles. There was something wrong about having different foods touching each other on the plate! And of course, there were always the vegetable battles. “Eat your peas, Louise” was a story that we had read one time, and it became a phrase said often at our supper table!
Today I read a blog post about getting kids to eat. Holly, over at Home Sweet Home with Holly, shares a great idea that she has used in her family. I can see how Rating the Recipe would work well with older children. Wish I had thought of it years ago!
If you still have kids at home, give it a try!
The Cookbook Experiment 