If you are a parent and you are Name Your Link
First of all, meal time should be a time where both parents and children sit together so that dining can be pleasant. Also, children can learn to eat healthy foods by observing the most important teachers – their parents. This means that you should prepare food for yourself that you want your children to eat. As a parent and a powerful role model, you hold the key to getting your child to eat different foods. Ultimately, their diet is shaped by our parenting.
Instead of blaming the kid for limiting their diet, as a parent, you need to look at who is buying and preparing the food your child eats – you. This means what they eat is up to you and you alone.
If we encourage a child to eat a specific food from a young age, while withholding foods that may not be as healthy, then that child will come to enjoy a particular type of food. Children limit their own diet because of the types of foods that parents supply to their children, and then how that parent goes about trying to control what the child eats.
There are different ways that parents have contributed to their child’s picky eating habits. Some of the ways a parent does this is by making a child different food if they don’t like something, forcing the child to eat a small amount of a specific food they don’t like and then letting them eat other food, or by bribing children to eat food for a reward (like candy).
The problem with bribing your child is that essentially you are telling your child that the food you want them to eat isn’t good, so other choices are being offered as a reward. By doing this, you make the food the child is supposed to eat seem unappealing, while the reward food seem scarce and delicious – which makes treats very appealing. In way, dessert time after dinner can become the same type of problem. A healthy meal should have no unhealthy foods attached to it that are used as a promise or a reward. Promises and rewards don’t make a child want to eat meals, they simply make them want to get “done” with the meal and onto the good stuff.
Also, children are pretty good at knowing when they are hungry and full. They don’t tend to over eat like us adults do. So, when your child says he or she isn’t hungry at mealtime, don’t force them to eat. However, they can’t eat junk food afterwards. Let your child know that meal times are the time to eat, and that if they don’t eat, they will have to wait until the next meal time to eat again.
Transitioning To A Healthy Lifestyle
Ultimately, parents need to control the dietary options a child has by only providing a wide variety of healthy food options. Parents also need to allow their child to choose for him or herself from those options during meal and snack times. A parent can do this by providing healthy foods for snacks in between meals and healthy food at meals. Parents have to stand firm about junk food – which means no snacking between meals. This includes drinks, like juices and milk. Children should be encouraged to drink around 20oz of milk and usually no more than that. One way to help keep your child from drinking too much milk and spoiling their appetite – which is often the case, is to measure out the amount of milk you want your child to drink and keep it in the refridgerator.
So, how does a parent deal with the transition when beginning to serve their child healthy foods? The biggest problem for parents is having “food battles” with their child. When you first serve healthy foods, your child may put up a fight and protest or refuse to eat the healthy foods. However, rest assured, people won’t starve themselves. If your child truly is hungry, he or she will eat whatever you put in front of them. You have to be strong and not back down, though. If you give in and give your child something else, then it ruins the whole process.
A really good way to get children use to eating vegetables all the time is to serve them in unique and novel ways during every meal time. For instance, if you have breakfast then you can incorporate vegetables into eggs; for lunch you can cook vegetables on top of a pizza; finally, for dinner, you can cook a healthy amount of vegetables into a casserole. The trick is to provide a wide variety of vegetables all the time.
Sometimes, children may refuse to eat vegetables simply because the vegetable is strange and they have no idea where it came from, what it is, or how you cooked it. To fix this problem, have your kids help you out in the kitchen, cooking and preparing the food. This will give you a good opportunity to talk about the food as well.
There are many different options for a parent who wants to get their child to start eating nutritious food. The first step is to always remember that as a parent, you are the one with the control. Find Name Your Link
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