An adult interlude ...
Results for previous entry Adult food were quite satisfactory. Couscous is a lovely stuffing medium, and the combination of lime and dried fruit works very well. A jar of whole spice garam masala should be placed along side of my Good old standbys of a previous post. The rice was yum and well received. Relief!Adult conversation turned (inevitably) to feeding kids.
My most intensive cooking time for my boys (until bachelorism, where cooking is making a comeback) was from late nappies to kindy - them, not me.
Rule 1: Size matters
Rule 2: Time matters
Rule 3: What matters, matters
The most important thing you can teach a child about food, is how to eat something they don’t particularly like.
Size matters
Some children of course will just eat what’s put in front of them. They feel hunger strongly and will only complain if what you dish up is truly disgusting. Most, though, find mealtime a challenge for various reasons. Back to size.
Place your hand, fingers stretched out, on the kitchen bench. That is about a meal. A little less than a meal maybe, but in the general neighbourhood. Now think of how much smaller a four-year-old's hand is compared to yours.
For a little dude about 1 metre high, an adult size serve of food looks like a sack of potatoes. Even if they know they can eat it, it just looks … big!
Time matters
It takes time to learn about time. For children, a week is a month, a day is a week. Five minutes is an hour.
Put something in front of them that they know will take half an hour to eat … it’s not so much the food, it’s getting their heads around anything that can take so long.
For both rule 1 and 2, my advice is think small. By all means, cook what you think they’ll eat. But don’t serve what you think they’ll eat. Serve them half first, and let them eat it, and achieve it. Let them take a break, leave their seats, see if the rain has stopped or what the sunset looks like, then come back to the table and have a second helping.
What matters, matters
The most important thing you can teach a child about food, is how to eat something they don’t particularly like.This is something that “cooking for children” books don’t tell you, because all of their recipes are so great that any child will love it (unless you’ve been a bad parent, which you probably have been…).
Managing likes and dislikes is exactly the same as managing emotions. A huge amount (possibly the full helping) of growing up is about finding a way to distinguish between minor and major catastrophies - can you be the judge?
It is important to recognise that kids have a right to likes and dislikes. It’s also good to teach them to make decisions and judgements. Their likes and dislikes really matter to them, and they should really matter to you. It’s also important for children to learn that not every dislike is a game-breaker.
If there is a plate of food that contains stuff your child likes and stuff your child doesn’t, you can say: Which is the stuff you will eat all of, which is the stuff you will eat some of, which is the stuff you will eat a tiny bit of…? If they make these decisions easily, good. If they are really stuck, you can offer them something on the plate that they don’t have to eat at all, provided they eat more of something else. You just need to be giving them healthy options.
