Are You...
Making Mealtimes A Battleground
Part 4: Turning The Tables
Helping to create a healthy attitude to food is one of the greatest gifts you can give a child.
And yet, because we know it is so fundamentally important, we are more likely than ever to get it wrong.
Especially, as modern family life makes it orders of magnitude more difficult than it should be.
Key Points:
- xx
Introduction
In Part 1 of this series we explored why it is so important for children to learn about food before
they take the risky step of putting it in their mouths.
In Part 2 we explored why modern family life makes it extremely difficult for children to develop a natural relationship to food and eating.
In Part 3 we explored some of the long term damage that can be caused when we overstep our natural authority and try to coerce our children to eat.
In Part 4 you will learn how to:
- Make eating safe - Don't just call a truce, actively swap sides - use mantras to help build your children's defences, put them back in control of their own bodies and manage down your own anxiety - this will rapidly defuse the battles and gradually prepare the ground for new food experiences
- Lay the foundations for development - help your children find their own route to healthy, balanced eating:
- Make eating joyful - even chicken nuggets can be a joy to eat and become a stepping stone to a world of exploration
- Provide safe learning opportunities - give your children every opportunity to learn about food without the need to actually put it in their mouths
- Banish 'Hunger Games' - learn to manage blood sugar levels and instil discipline so your children are hungry at meal and snack times, not in between
- Create your own unique family food world - don't overwhelm your children with every delight our big wide world has to offer, start with a small, balanced subset that provides safety, nutritional balance, learning opportunities and enjoyment
- Listen and observe - learn their preferences by paying attention to minute details
- Avoid long term eating disorders - encourage your children to listen to their own bodies and avoid corrupting their relationship to food by using it as:
- a substitute for love or attention
- a bribe or reward
- a salve to ease suffering
- a relief from boredom
- a distraction
- a way to buy affection and love
Instead of cursing our children for being stubborn, picky eaters we should congratulate them on their instincts for staying alive
Turning The Tables - A Mindset Shift
As with so many aspects of modern parenting, helping our children develop a healthy attitude to food requires us to go against our natural instincts and hand significant control to them.
To make this easier it is useful to remind ourselves of the key points we've established so far:
- children are not being picky when they refuse to eat different foods, they are simply trying to stay alive
- we learn what is safe to eat by sight, touch and smell long before we take the risk of putting it in our mouths
- watching others eat is the best way to learn about any food we're not sure of
- modern family life robs children of the chance to learn about food naturally
- the vast array of different foods available from around the world just makes it even more likely that children will retreat to a narrow set of foods they feel safe with
- it can take months, even years for a child to decide to try something, but that's ok
- we can use milk as a safety net
- any attempt to coerce children into eating things they don't like or feel safe with has potentially serious long term consequences
- inside everyone is a healthy eater waiting to get out
Get it right and in the words of my favourite Haiku:
'Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.'
One day, in years to come, you will be filled with joy at the healthy eater that has emerged from within your stubborn, picky child.
xxx
1. Make Eating Safe
This is the first and most important step.
To put it simply, you need to switch sides.
From now on, instead of attempting to storm or undermine their defences you are going to be right in there with them helping build them.
Remember eating is unlike any other activity we do. It involves taking things that are potentially poisonous and deliberately putting them inside our bodies where our defences are weak.
Our children need to really and deeply "know" that they are safe in a way that goes way beyond what we glibly tell them.
For years, from the ages of 3 to 6, hardly a day went by when I wouldn't use my two defensive mantras several times throughout the day:
'Remember, don't eat anything you're not sure of'
'And, don't eat anything you don't want'
Get it right and this alone should defuse the battles. It is hard to continue fighting someone who is genuinely on your side.
These two simple mantras need to work their way deeply into our conscious and subconscious minds.
For our children, first and foremost, it gives them control of what goes in their mouths. But, it also encourages them to listen to what their own bodies are telling them about how to stay safe, about their nutritional needs and about when enough is enough.
I would use them at:
- the start of any meal where there was unfamiliar food on the table / plate
- the end of every meal where there was still food left on the plate (most meals)
- whenever we were talking about unfamiliar foods
- every day when dropping her off at school
- whenever she showed any anxiety towards food
If my daughter asked me if she had to eat something I would often reinforce the message along the lines of:
"Of course not, that would be silly, who would want to eat anything they didn't like or weren't sure of?"
or
"Of course not, it would be silly to eat more than your body says it wants, only you know when you've had enough."
I can't reinforce enough how powerful and important this is if you want your children to feel sufficiently in control of their own eating to open up to new experiences.
However, it's important to understand that these mantras are not just for our children. They are also for us.
If you are anything like me, you will still feel deeply anxious about your children's eating for quite some time to come.
For us, the mantras help override the anxiety and our natural instincts to control and coerce.
Every time you feel like saying:
- Just try a little, how do you know until you've tried it?
- Just have another couple of mouthfuls of your cabbage, then...
- Are you sure you've finished, you haven't eaten very much
- You can't have any pudding unless...
- How can you not like it, it's delicious!
- But you liked it yesterday
Stop yourself and either, say in your head, or out loud
"that's ok, you don't have to eat anything you're not sure of"
or,
"that's ok, you don't have to eat anything you don't want"
In time you will actually start to genuinely feel the truth of it.
For others, the mantras are a way of communicating the approach. I would use them to explain to Amalie's carers the approach we had adopted.
Of course, they never could quite believe it, or get their heads round it, so I also had to ensure that my daughter was confident to use them herself if ever anyone put her under pressure to eat anything she didn't want.
These two mantras alone are sufficient, over time, to rebuild the mutual respect and trust that are so important as you move to the next stage.
2. Lay The Foundations For Development
At first your inability to control your children's eating is a huge source of anxiety, but as the years go by that same unpredictability of when and where they will go next becomes an absolute joy.
Yesterday my six year old daughter ate sugar snap peas for the first time. Not through anything I'd done, but because one of her best friends at school has been bringing them in for snack time over the last few months. It didn't happen overnight. She watched her eating them many times before eventually deciding they were safe to try.
The week before she asked me if I'd heard of a programme called Masterchef (I've no idea where she'd heard about it) and asked if she could watch it. It left her brimming with ideas of her own for Masterchef style dishes (mostly involving Serrano Ham or Chorizo!).
The fact is, you can't determine when your children will open up to new food experiences and what those will be.
All you can do is create the right conditions and wait for it to happen.
a) Make Eating Joyful
For many people, food is one of life's great pleasures.
There's no reason why it shouldn't be for our children too, no matter how restricted their diet currently is.
Helping them to see the pleasure in food is one way to help them open up to the possibilities of new experiences.
b) Provide Safe Learning Opportunities
Once you are confident you can talk positively about food without putting pressure on your children to try things you can move to the next step.
A safe learning opportunity is any opportunity where your children can be exposed to food without feeling under pressure to put it in their mouths.
Family mealtimes are the ideal if they can be achieved, but the chances are that if you were able to do that consistently there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
That said, just one or two family meals a week can make a big difference over time.
To make family mealtimes as effective as possible you should try to:
- Base the meal around something you know they will love
- Include new optional elements that you eat without any pressure on them to do likewise
- Stick to the same types of meal over and over again (for example a Sunday Roast)
- Ideally make it self serve at the table, but if that's not convenient then at least actively engage them in what's being put on their plate for them
- Reassure them that pudding, if you are going to have one, is not conditional on anything else
Lunch and dinner obviously provide the best learning opportunities, but anything from breakfast, to supper even snacks are better eaten as a family wherever possible.
Most modern families will struggle to have family mealtimes more that a few times a week. If that's the case then you need to supplement the learning process with as many other opportunities as possible.
For much of history children will have either been involved in the hunting and gathering of food, or the farming of it. They would also be involved in the processing and storage of each basic ingredient, from the butchering of livestock to the milling of grain.
This 'safe' contact with food is an invaluable learning experience that it is unfortunately difficult to replicate today, except on a small scale for those lucky enough to have a garden.
What we can all do is involve our children in food prep, and I'm not talking here about baking cakes... I don't know many children who need more exposure to cake.
Ideally, get them involved in preparing both their own meals and yours, even if you are not going to eat yours with them.
Being involved in prep allows children to see the raw ingredients that go to making a dish, to handle them, to smell them and to see the transformation they go through in the cooking process. Above all it provides a happy safe environment to explore food without the pressure of having to eat it.
Eating in front of our children is also vital. They don't have to be having their meals at the same time to sit with you while you eat. Just observing the food being eaten is what counts. Seeing something being eaten and then finding the person still alive and well the next day is powerful learning!
c) Make Sure They Are Hungry At Mealtimes
None of us are much interested in exploring food if we are not hungry.
When we are hungry we pay more attention to all food, not just the food that we already know is safe to eat.
We are more acutely aware of the smells around us, the appearance of food and what others are eating.
In essence, our brain is encouraging us to search for things that can safely satisfy our hunger and nutritional needs.
This is the ideal time to learn about food, even if we are not prepared to eat it yet ourselves.
The problem is that many children will do their best to make sure they are not hungry at mealtimes. Being hungry is risky. It puts us under increased pressure to find something safe.
Snacks are automatically safe. They are typically simple foods that our children have eaten over and over again. There is rarely any pressure from parents to 'try' something more challenging at snack time, so they are also enjoyable eating occasions.
Of course, unless you are a very switched on parent, they are also often relatively filling and low in nutrients.
Children will learn to demand snacks, not just as a way of getting something they know they like, but also as a way of protecting themselves from being too hungry at more challenging mealtimes.
Part of our natural authority as parents is to actively manage this situation by:
- Ensuring there is no eating outside of designated meal / snack times
- Making snacks appropriate to fill the hunger gap but no more
- Providing foods that will help maintain steady blood sugar levels
xxx
d) Create Your Own Unique Family Food World
The vast array of different ingredients and dishes available to us every day is simply staggering. From Chinese dumplings, to Sushi, to Indian curries to Mexican chilli's and every conceivable thing in between.
At no other point in history will children have been faced with such a challenge.
One day they will love the chance to explore, just the same as we do, but when you're 2, 3 or 4 years old is not the time.
When children are faced with a vast array of different textures and smells the chances are they will restrict themselves to only eating the safest, blandest food and struggle to get beyond it.
To help them try to stick to a small subset of what the world has to offer. That does not mean you need to stick to one type of cuisine, pick and mix is fine.
What you do need to do is make it balanced and nutritious so that your children are being exposed to a range of nutrients.
e. Create A Development Path
Hopefully by now you are starting to build a picture of your children's safe foods.
Moving from these will happen naturally through safe exposure to other foods, however it can be helped here and there by providing safe development paths.
There are no hard and fast rules on development, but there are some things that can help your thinking:
- Expose them to new foods based on their preferences, not your own. Your own likes and dislikes count for nothing.
- Make it child friendly:
- Avoid multiple textures / flavours within the same dish, children like to understand one texture and flavour at a time
- Don't make it too bland, children like strong flavours just the same as anyone else
- Avoid things with blemishes, 'brown bits' or other signs that they might be 'bad', children are programmed to avoid these
- Use naturally safe foods... in nature sweet, oily, fatty, meaty foods are more likely to be safe than anything green or bitter
- Keep it fresh, avoid anything that looks or smells even slightly 'off'
- Remember texture matters and can be assessed with the eyes much more easily than taste can, so try to keep to textures you know they like, especially in the early days
- Don't keep asking them if they would like to try it, they are trying it with their eyes, they will tell you when they are ready to try putting it in their mouths
- Touching food and putting it to their lips are all part of learning about it, so try not to discourage them from 'playing' with their food
3. Avoid Long Term Eating Disorders
Coercing our children into eating food they don't like, don't consider safe or don't need has potential long term implications, but so does any corruption of our relationship to food.
The reality is that food is a very powerful force in our lives and as we are so often told, power corrupts.. or at least has the potential too, if we don't guard against it.
Whether the source of the corruption is us, another family member, a carer or our children themselves, it is our responsibility to watch out for it and do what we can to reestablish a healthy relationship.
As adults we need to watch out for:
- offering food as a substitute when our children are really seeking love or attention
- using food as a bribe or reward, a control mechanism
- offering food to get love or affection in return
- using food as a salve for emotional pain
- using food as a distraction from unwanted behaviours
We also need to watch for our children using it as:
- a means to get attention
- a relief from boredom
- a way of controlling what they eat
- a way of avoiding other things they don't want to do
- a delaying mechanism
- a controlling mechanism
All these behaviours distort our children's relationship to food and sow the seeds of long term issues.
The vast majority of these corruptions can be avoided by following one golden rule:
Never allow eating outside of planned meal / snack times
This is essential. The moment you relax the rule the corruptions sneak in.
The one exception is using food as a bribe or reward... an absolute no no!
Whether it's you can't have any pudding unless... or, I'll buy you an ice cream if you stop whinging, or any one of the thousands of other potential
4. Provide Safe Opportunities To Learn About Food
As already established, we learn about food through our eyes, looking at food and in particular, observing others eating, then by touching and smelling long before they risk putting something in their mouths.
The more we can provide these opportunities the faster our children will learn.
Family mealtimes are the holy grail, but as previously discussed, often extremely difficult to achieve with the pressures of modern family life.
Where they can be achieved it's important to make the most of them.
Try to stick to the following rules:
- Eat the same few favourite things over and over again, don't try to bring something different to the table every time, they need to see the same thing eaten many times to feel safe about it
- However, don't restrict yourself to eating the same restricted range of foods that they eat, if you do it will just reinforce that their food is the only safe food
- Build your meal around things they consider safe. They need to see you eating their food and other things that naturally accompany it.
- Keep things separate. They are unlikely to be happy if the things they consider safe are potentially contaminated with unsafe foods.
- Where possible allow them to serve themselves, or at least be in control of what goes on their plate
- Don't talk about eating, other than to reinforce their defensive mantras.
- Only talk about food where it would be natural and normal to do so.
- Even if you are eating at a different time, eat in front of them as much as possible and allow them to eat from your plate if they show an interest
- If you are going to be eating when they are asleep, or out of the house, involve them in the preparation of your food and try bits in front of them where possible
- Give them what you had for dinner for theirs the next day, or a safe subset of it
Once you feel you are ready to remain neutral move to the next step, creating a development path.
5. Create A Development Path
Hopefully by now you are starting to build a picture of your children's safe foods.
Moving from these will happen naturally through safe exposure to other foods, however it can be helped here and there by providing safe development paths.
There are no hard and fast rules on development, but there are some things that can help your thinking:
- Expose them to new foods based on their preferences, not your own. Your own likes and dislikes count for nothing.
- Make it child friendly:
- Avoid multiple textures / flavours within the same dish, children like to understand one texture and flavour at a time
- Don't make it too bland, children like strong flavours just the same as anyone else
- Avoid things with blemishes, 'brown bits' or other signs that they might be 'bad', children are programmed to avoid these
- Use naturally safe foods... in nature sweet, oily, fatty, meaty foods are more likely to be safe than anything green or bitter
- Keep it fresh, avoid anything that looks or smells even slightly 'off'
- Remember texture matters and can be assessed with the eyes much more easily than taste can, so try to keep to textures you know they like, especially in the early days
- Don't keep asking them if they would like to try it, they are trying it with their eyes, they will tell you when they are ready to try putting it in their mouths
- Touching food and putting it to their lips are all part of learning about it, so try not to discourage them from 'playing' with their food
6. Wait!
It can take months before you'll see any sign of progress, then, all of a sudden, when you least expect it, they'll say... can I try some of that?
When this magical day arrives be prepared... don't pounce! Better to say, 'are you sure?' and 'don't forget you don't need to eat anything you're not sure of' than, 'yippee! yes, of course you can, here, have as much as you want'.
Then, act cool, as if what they are doing is the most natural thing in the world.
At some point you can ask, in as neutral a way as possible, what did you think?
xxx
Created 12/03/2019
Last Updated 12/03/2019
