How To Avoid Mealtime Struggle With Your Child!

Mealtime struggle is a real and major issue for many parents. But this dinnertime battle can actually be avoided! Encouraging your child towards healthy eating habits is a task that requires a lot of patience and gentleness. Below are the 8 pointers that every parent must memorise to avoid the mealtime struggle.

1. Introduce Different Healthy Foods From The Start- As soon as you wean your child off breast milk you can experiment slowly with different healthy foods, such as carrots, bananas, peas, cucumbers, chicken with a couple of exceptions until the child is 1 such as honey, eggs & cow’s milk. Avoid sugary foods and artificially flavoured foods. Even when the child is big enough try to avoid giving them junk food high in preservatives. Remember if you get your child introduced too early to junk food then getting them on track to eating healthy will be a struggle.

2. Let Your Child Participate In Mealtime Preparation- Getting your children involved in mealtime preparation is actually a great way of encouraging your child to eat healthily. Let them have their hands on for trivial stuff whilst cooking such as kneading the dough etc. This way when they have their hands involved, their curiosity will be aroused and there’s a big chance they’ll want to try it. Of course, give your child tasks according to their age. For e.g., once a teenager, allow them to cook a meal once a week.

3. Stop Calling Your Child Picky- Remember every child especially under the age of 5 has their likes and dislikes. Calling them a name just makes them more rebellious, for this reason, avoid using negative words.

4. Stop Worrying- Most parents worry that their child isn’t eating. Sometimes parents need to know that there are different timetables for children and you just have to go by that. Children also as said earlier have their likes and dislikes. No child will starve unless they’re genuinely sick. As the child gets bigger and whilst he/she undergoes a growth spurt, parents need to take advantage and introduce new foods.

5. Keep Trying To Introduce New Foods- Remember it takes time for the child’s palate to expand. You need to keep experimenting and re-experimenting with foods. Try to expose your child to maybe 1 or 2 new dishes a week.

6. Stop With The Bribery- When you involve candy or junk food to the child for eating something healthy, the child thinks that he/she should always be rewarded for eating something healthy. This way you are actually sending a wrong message to your child that unhealthy food is good and discouraging the child from developing healthy eating habits. Instead, teach them the effects of healthy food on the body versus junk food.

7. Check On The Snacking Timetable- Is your child already full from snacking? Is he/she actually over-snacking? Sometimes the solution may be as simple as this cut down on the snack, snacks are only to supplement the meals not replace them. If the child is drinking a lot of milk or juice or eating high-calorie content foods such as crisps etc you may need to work around that by limiting.

8. Practice Before You Preach- Kids learn from you. If your eating habits are poor then you can’t expect a child to follow your orders.