One of the top issues in homes today is one where parents are completely frustrated at how picky or fussy their children are at mealtimes. Luckily, there is a very easy solution to this problem.
Meal times should and can be one of the most precious rituals in any family’s home. It’s a time when everyone’s schedules go out the window and you just sit together eating, catching up on each other’s days and enjoying one another’s company.
If your meal times are not like this then let’s have a look at some possible reasons why, along with an appropriate solution for each.
1) Your family doesn’t actually make meal times a priority ie: breakfast or dinner
Solution: If I told you that there is ALWAYS some way your family could sit down and enjoy a meal together at least 3 times a week, what would you say? If you simply cannot see how, then rethink the following:
* Wake up, job start and/or end times
* Location of where you work or live
* Certain scheduled activities that are always interfering.
You CAN do this. Take a no-excuses approach to making it happen.
2) Your kids only want chicken nuggets or sweet things.
Solution: If you do not provide junk food, your children will not have the option of eating it. If you you provide good food and they don’t want it that night, use a consistent rule that they must try it. If they refuse to try it, use my 4 step discipline technique. 75% of the time, they’ll say, “Mmmm, that’s good!” However, if they don’t like it, thank them for trying and then let them eat whatever else has been served alongside and ignore the situation.
Another great idea is to keep the lower shelf of the fridge stocked with fruit, yogurt, and vegetable snacks so they can help themselves if they get hungry later.
3) You try to control their eating too much.
Solution: Nothing will bring up revolt quicker than a parent insisting a plate be finished. If you worry over every bite your child eats he/she will become a fussy eater. Remember: children want control over their lives. They quickly figure out that food is one area they can gain that control. Makes sense, right? If you don’t make a huge issue, they won’t either.
4) Your kids aren’t open to trying new things or they will only eat “white” or “green” things.
Solution: Get your kids involved in cooking. When kids are active participants in the cooking of their food they become more interested and excited about it. There is an incentive to try new things! What often happens is that kids will end up trying something they’ve often refused just because they were not being asked, told or forced to eat it.
I strongly believe that family meals should be for communicating and enjoying. Let’s offer healthy food, taking into consideration our children’s likes, and then let the rest of the meal flow.
Do you feel you have to entertain your kids all the time even though they have truck loads of toys? Watch today’s pep talk for a great tip on why having less toys is better!
If you were to make a list of all the things you’d love to provide your children what would your list look like? Many people spend every waking hour stressing and worrying about how they can provide this and that for their children, but I want to propose that the BEST gift you can give your child is the ability to be happy and enjoy life.
Most of you reading this are probably thinking, “Yes, absolutely. That would be my greatest wish for my child – for them to be happy and to enjoy life fully everyday.” What goes wrong then between what we genuinely want to give our children and the actual reality of what they get from us?
Statistics show that more and more adults and young adults are popping some type of drug in order to make it through the day. Approximately 100 million prescriptions for Valium and Librium are filled annually in the United States alone!
The plain fact is that most of us do not know how to help our children learn how to enjoy life because we have not learned that simple secret ourselves! We can’t teach what we don’t know.
Here en lies the problem; in order to provide our children with our greatest wish we must be able to model what we are attempting to teach.
It is essential to show our children a portrait of a person who appreciates the small things, the magnificence of nature and the beauty of being quiet with ourselves. It is also essential to show our children a portrait of a happy, loving, communicative relationship, not only with our child’s mother or father, but with ourselves.
Pretend you had a video camera following you around all day. What would that video look like? Would it show you:
Rushing around from one activity to another?
Barking commands?
Constantly talking or having noise around like the radio or TV?
Speaking quickly, in a hurried, worried, stressed or anxious tone?
Constantly providing or being the entertainment for your child?
OR
Living life slowly?
Laughing and smiling a lot?
Enjoying moments of silence, not feeling the need to say anything or ask any questions?
Enjoying alone time while your child enjoys their own?
Doing an activity with your child that you BOTH enjoy?
Maybe you feel quite good about how your daily life is being lived but recognize that the words or phrases you use could be more positive. For example, you may use the word “Naughty” or phrases like, “Oh, come on!” when something isn’t working as you’d like it to, or “Things never seem to go right!”. These phrases can definitely be picked up on by our children and eventually, become their beliefs to live by.
If we TRULY want to raise happy kids who enjoy life to the fullest, then the first place to start in teaching this is with ourselves.
Right now, take stock of life and think about the speed at which you live, the tone that exists in your home and the messages that are being shared. Once you have a clear view, pat yourself on the back for all the amazing, loving things you do and then make it a priority to work on the things you feel need changing – it will make all the difference to not only your life but your child’s life as well.
The one thing working moms have in common is that they’re busy ladies with a lot on their plate. The second thing they have in common is that they feel guilty a lot of the time. One of the main sources of that guilt comes from the feeling that they don’t have time to spend quality moments with their children; “life is just a race” moms tell me.
A very important thing for working mothers to understand is that it doesn’t take much to satisfy their child’s need for attention, and if just a few things are put into place, they can be guaranteed that they are giving their child all they need to.
What are those things?
Well, we all know that children need focused attention in order to feel loved. And, if they feel this focused attention on a regular basis, they are better behaved and happier kids to be around. The point then is to create moments of focused attention.
Here are seven ways working moms can give their child focused attention when they have little time to give:
1) Create a ritual. The definition of a ritual is: a series of actions regularly and invariably followed by someone. With this in mind try to think of what small ritual you can create with your children that can happen everyday, without fail. Perhaps each morning you and your children light a candle (or turn on battery operated ones) at the breakfast table and you share your intention for the day. Perhaps you do and say certain things each night at bedtime. Whatever it is, keep it simple; the more simple, the more impact it has.
2) Schedule one-on-one time. Working moms need to be organized. Carry this organization through to spending one-on-one time with each of your children once a month. Brainstorm activities you and your child would like to do together then once a month pull one of those ideas and schedule it on your calendar. It doesn’t have to be long; 30-60 minutes is all it will take. (Children who I surveyed told me this!)
3) Plan a theme night. This is one of my favourite things to do. Choose a country and plan a family evening around the theme of this country. For example, if you choose Japan, your family can brainstorm costumes, music, dishes to cook, movies to watch, etc. Plan these theme nights every 4-6 months and just watch the bonding that occurs!
4) Make reading together YOUR thing. What could you do to make reading a special event between you and your children? Could you read a chapter book out loud each night for 15-20 mins after dinner? Could you cuddle in bed each night and read them a story? Could you make up a story each night or save this for Sunday night?
5) Bake on the weekend. Get a great cookbook (choose it together) and bake one thing each weekend from the book. Think, “Julie and Julia”, the movie with Meryl Streep. How exciting would it be to bake through a cookbook (baking book) and experiment together?
6) Make grocery shopping YOUR thing. Create a tradition that after the weekly grocery shop you all go for a hot chocolate or special drink.
7) Go to the Library. Create a special tradition around the Library. How about Friday after the school pick being your time to go hang out at the library and collect books? Or, does your library have weekend reading, rhyme or story times? Be sure that your kids choose their books first so that they have something to look at as they respectfully give you time to browse.
As you can see, all of my ideas are based around keeping things slow, simple and meaningful. You don’t have to have all the time in the world to spend with your kids, it’s just about making the time you DO have, count.
This week I spoke with Nancy, mother of an 8 month old and a 2.5 year old toddler. She wonders if her kids will miss out on becoming “socialized” if she decides to stay home rather than put them into a daycare or day home. “Don’t they need the company of other children their own age for socialization?”
I’ve heard this concern before. Some parents who expect to have a single child feel they, in particular, should maximize efforts to have their baby or toddler be in the company of other toddlers for reasons of “socialization.” In this context, what exactly do parents mean when using the word and what is it they expect to have their child learn during this “socialization” process – that wouldn’t be learned if their child was at home in the care of a warm, engaged parent, grandparent or nanny?
Research has never shown that toddlers require the company of other toddlers in order to become social beings. In fact, a casual observer can see for himself that when toddlers are together in a playroom it often doesn’t go well at all. Children this age do not really play together – they play parallel to each other. Most two-years olds are in the “me! and mine!” stage developmentally, and may actually feel threatened or become stressed in the presence of other toddlers. We often see aggressiveness (hitting, pushing and biting) emerge as kids eye the same toy. The TOY reigns supreme in a toddler’s mind and it’s not until after age three that a child’s attention shifts to caring more about the other child..than the toy.
In the meantime, babies are busy starting their own socialization process shortly after birth. A 4-month old who has learned to wake up more times in the night than when he was 2 months, is busy doing social learning: “Mom is available in the night and I can make her come more often! Hooray!” (Not quite the social learning mom was hoping for!)
A baby who is starting to talk is learning language as a result of having established a social relationship with an attachment figure.
A toddler who throws a temper tantrum because mom wouldn’t pick him up on demand is learning social lessons and experimenting with where his power lies. All these examples represent the age-appropriate socialization process necessary for children under age three to develop well. And all these social accomplishments are dependent upon an interested adult, not upon other toddlers.
After age three we see a new awareness emerge as a child stops and takes note of the presence of another preschooler. Does he see me? I see what he is playing with and I wonder if I can play too. Interest develops in whether we can play together…it looks like fun…I think I’ll approach… Now the company of other children a couple of times a week will further the socialization process begun at birth.
A young child under age three will cope with the presence of other young children when necessary but will always rely on the adult on the horizon for a relationship upon which to base their social impressions of the world. Nancy, upon hearing this, said she felt comfortable waiting a while and was relieved to hear she wasn’t guilty of depriving her child of daily contact with a group of other children.
One of the top issues in homes today is one where parents are completely frustrated at how picky or fussy their children are at mealtimes. Luckily, there is a very easy solution to this problem.
If you were to make a list of all the things you’d love to provide your children what would your list look like? Many people spend every waking hour stressing and worrying about how they can provide this and that for their children, but I want to propose that the BEST gift you can give your child is the ability to be happy and enjoy life.
The one thing working moms have in common is that they’re busy ladies with a lot on their plate. The second thing they have in common is that they feel guilty a lot of the time. One of the main sources of that guilt comes from the feeling that they don’t have time to spend quality moments with their children; “life is just a race” moms tell me.
