Clean up your plate!
My husband, David, and I have had many conversations about what our parenting styles and beliefs are/will be when we have children and, on most fronts, we agree. However, his parents were more strict than mine and the difference in how we grew up rears its head when we get to the subject of meals.
David was raised in a house that definitely followed the “clean-your-plate” model for meals and, while it didn’t affect David much as he was an extremely unfussy eater, it did affect his sister and she found dinner time to be less than enjoyable. My parents on the other hand were of the “try-a-little-bit-of-everything-and-if-you-don’t-like-it-you-don’t-have-to-eat-it” school of thinking. As such, our view on how to approach mealtimes is quite different.
Personally, I think it’s wrong to force children to eat things they hate or, worse than that, clean their plates when they are already stuffed. I don’t think that teaches them healthy eating habits. Also at a food and nutrition class in University I learned that children actually taste things in food that adults cannot. This is particularly true of dark green vegetables, which often have a very bitter taste to children because they are able to taste a paticular element present in those types of food, an ability that our tastebuds lose as we get older. David however, worries about them becoming wasteful and not understand the value (or luxury) of food.
I think there must be a happy medium here. I am sure we can find a way to instill our “waste not” values while still allowing for more freedom at the dinner table. Perhaps we can encourage our children to take smaller portions of everything to begin with and then top up later if they are still hungry. I guess all of this depends on how picky our children are when it comes to food. Every child is different but the one thing I do know is that I want family dinners to be fun and a time to connect not stressful for our kids and a time for epic battles about finishing their brocoli.
~Laura
Labels: Children, eating, food, Laura
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