Food fuss pots

In the Coram Early Childhood Centre, we find each mealtime can be a good opportunity for adults to encourage children’s interest and enthusiasm for food. In your own family, it helps to focus children’s eating on proper, friendly mealtimes.

• Offer a range of meals over a week. Keep trying with some new foods and variations of previous themes.
• Let children exercise some choice: what she’d like in her sandwiches or which fruit and vegetables he’d like cut up today.
• Your child can help you plan ahead with menus for the week. Children are sometimes more interested to eat a meal they have chosen.
• It’s important to make food part of social mealtimes. Eat together as a family as often as you can and show enjoyment in your own food.
• When it is only the children who are having a meal, still sit with them to keep them company. Children can easily get distracted from eating, if you are busy or out of the room.
• If children need encouragement to eat then start them with a small helping. They can always come back for seconds if they want. Children are sometimes happier if they can dish out their own food in the proportions they want.
• Avoid complex rituals to persuade children to eat, but some compromises are wise. Perhaps you cut the crusts off sandwiches, make an attractive layout of food or let them have custard in a separate bowl.
• After a meal, ask your children if they have finished. If they have eaten very little, simply say, ‘The next meal is teatime (or whatever)’. If they complain later, try for a calm comment like, ‘I’m sorry you weren’t in the mood for lunch, but there’ll be plenty for tea.’

For more information:
See The Coram Family website.