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Week 3 Challenge - Family Meals with Preschoolers
Eating family meals together is good for children and the family unit. But do you ever feel like your attempts at family meals are diverted by short-attention spans, sporadic hunger, food dislikes and battles over table manners? If you have preschoolers in the family, soften your vision of family meals and incorporate these tips for making family meals a success.
It’s common sense that eating meals together as a family is a good thing. Even if the meal lasts only minutes, all members of the family are sharing a common experience. Recent social and nutritional research backs up this thinking with measurable benefits for children. Kids who have regular family meals seem to have healthier diets, higher self-esteem, fewer eating disorders, and positive social behaviors like less smoking and drug use. While we all want these benefits for our kids, families with preschoolers may be frustrated at their inability to make calm family dinners a reality.
If you are a family with a preschooler, please realize that the benefits of family meals mentioned above came from studies that looked at teenagers and older, school-aged children. With preschoolers in the house, consider the utopian family dinner to be a great future goal and one to actively work toward. The focus now can be on helping your preschooler develop an appreciation of family meals and something they forward to..
What to Work on This Week
1. Each day, try to have one family meal or snack where all family members who are home sit down together at the table to eat.
2. Let your preschooler know that eating meals together is important and pleasurable to you.
Tips for Success
Expect the family meals to be short. Preschoolers are just learning to sit - a ten-minute meal at the table is a success!
Be flexible. Whenever the whole family is home and hungry, plan a meal or snack and make that your family meal! Perhaps your preschooler is rarely hungry at the dinner hour. Try a family breakfast if the rest of the family is home then. Even snacks can count. If your preschooler is consistently hungry at 4 or 5 pm but the rest of the family likes eating later, make it a sit-down family snacktime with plates for everyone and a large, healthy snack for your preschooler. Even adults who prefer to sit down to the evening meal at 7 or 8 pm will enjoy a small snack at 5 pm.
Plan ahead. If you want to have a meal at a certain time, keep juice and high-calorie snacks to a minimum for one to two hours before the meal. This way, your preschooler will be more likely to be hungry and participate at mealtime.
Get your preschooler involved before you call them to the table to eat. It can by hard to stop playing on a moment's notice. To make the transition to mealtime easier, ask for help with pre-meal “jobs” - helping with simple food preparation, passing out the silverware, placing durable plates or cups on the table, or setting out napkins.
Prepare food early, if possible. Leave only heating and simple preparation for the pre-dinner hour so you don’t feel rushed or get frustrated with a preschooler who needs your attention. Try a slowcooker - it's a great tool for reducing meal-time stress. Or when you do cook, double the recipe so you have leftovers or freeze meals for later.
Don't force your preschooler to eat certain foods. Include foods in each meal that your preschooler enjoys and offer other foods for them to try.
Have a house rule that eating and drinking are done at the table only. This will help preschoolers stay at the table when they are interested in eating. Now is the time to mold this behavior. Consistency in the early preschool years will pay off.
Invite friends and neighbors for dinner occasionally. The focus turns toward the fun of having guests and adult conversation. You might find that your preschooler goes with the flow of dinner when guests are present.
Next Week
Healthy Snacking - We'll take a look at the quality of common preschooler snacks and give you ways to boost their nutrition.