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When I saw an article in the New York Times titled 6 Food Mistakes Parents Make I got a little giddy. I was having an annoying day and needed some shallow feel-good material, so I figured, great, I am going to read this article and feel good about myself for not making the mistakes other parents make when they try to get kids to eat.
Well, turns out I’ve made them all. Yep, all six.
#1: Sending kids out of the kitchen. I usually cook without my daughter in the kitchen so she is not involved in how her food gets made. Apparently, if she were, she would be more likely to eat herring (which is something I cooked with recently and she claimed looked like a dead fish, which well, it was.)
#2: Pressuring them to take a bite. I ask my daughter to take at least one bite of everything on her plate. According to one study from the article this might actually cause her to hate those foods. Nice.
#3: Keeping “good stuff” out of reach. We don’t have cookies or other sugary stuff lying around and it mostly comes out for special occasions. Not a good idea because restricting foods might lead to your kids overeating those foods later. Cookies, cupcakes, cakes, popsicles — all going to line my counter tomorrow. (No, not really. I am stubborn that way.)
#4: Dieting in front of kids. I don’t diet in front of my daughter but she has wondered why I don’t eat pasta. (I try to eat less white carbs at night). I definitely don’t want her to figure in my preferences and “rules” into her food choices, so this is something I watch very, very carefully.
#5: Serving boring veggies. My favorite healthy side dish standby are steamed veggies — which I should start dressing up with fun stuff, like cheese, so that my daughter eats more of them.
#6: Giving up too quickly. And I definitely give up too soon when trying to get my daughter to eat new foods. I often heard that 10 is the magic number — of times you should offer a new food to your child before they might accept it — but who has that kind of patience?
So, what are some food mistakes you make as a parent?
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Parenting & Family.
Tags: family dinner, food, kids, mealtime, parenting
September 17th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I don’t know if I agree with #3. I think it depends on how extreme that gets. My mother grew up in a house where there were literally never any sweets, sodas, cakes…nothing. Their special occasion was a bottle of 7-Up and nothing more ever. So when I was growing up we always had plenty of cokes of all kind in the house! haha But, on the other hand, having it around and easily accessible so they don’t overeat doesn’t sound logical to me, either. Why not just be moderate and limit how much and how often they get it?
September 18th, 2008 at 2:52 am
I saw that article today, too, and I loved it. Because it reminded me, yet again, how the path of good intentions can lead me to royally screw things up.
Yes, I’ve made them all, too, each and every one of ‘em. And I’m in the middle of a massive hunger strike with my oldest, so this forced me to re-evaluate the way I’ve been handling it.
The biggest mistake I make is making too big of a deal out of it. Begging, pleading, cajoling, even — and this is the hard one to confess! — bribing. But in a non-bribing way, of course. “You can have that after you eat your good food.” It’s still coercion, though, no matter how I spin it to myself.
So today, I just let him be. Between late afternoon and bedtime, he wound up scarfing two bowls of Cheerios and four bowls of Kix. Not exactly the most balanced diet in the world, but not the worst either.
And he’ll swing back to normal in a few days if I just let him be.
September 18th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Oh, shoot. I’ve made them all too. I am like you that I don’t “diet” obviously - I eat the pasta sauce on veggies instead of on pasta, and so far nobody has said anything.
I am not sure about #3 though. I make treats, but some are all sweet and some have veggies in them (Sneaky), but they only get them when I say it’s OK or it is all they would eat!
September 18th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I’ll gladly take this article with a grain of salt–sprinkled on my veggies to make them more interesting.
The thing about “rules” is that I just get this overwhelming urge to break them.
September 18th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
You know, once I served green peas to my son 30 days in a row…no comments, no bribes, no “just one bite”…I just put them on his plate. He never ate a single pea…not in 30 days.
But, just so you know…I’ve made all 6 mistakes as well.
September 19th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Karla — I just laughed reading your comment — our daughter is just like that. No amount of patience or repetition works — if she doesn’t want something, she won’t eat it.