Positive and Fun Meals!

Food should be positive, fun, delicious as well as healthy but we live in a time where everyone is overly health conscious and kids pick up on the stress of that. I try to avoid the talks about “good and bad food” and just present it as food. “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.” I’m not a force feeder and I feel that if you keep offering food in a positive way without any negative food comments at the dinner table then children are more likely to eat it. Little minds are easily influenced and I’ve seen kids go from absolutely loving something like broccoli and then refusing it after they heard an adult or peer say, “Oh yuck! I don’t like that!”. So, my rules at the dinner table are simple…

• Keep negative comments about food to yourself
• Take one bite of everything at least, please
• You are welcome to seconds after all portions are consumed

Of course there are the other general rules of manners at the dinner table but that is a topic for another day! Oh and these rules apply to the adults at the table as well!

A meal is a time to connect, bond and enjoy each others company. It should be a positive and thankful time for everyone involved. We have such busy lives that these little moments in time are valuable and should be appreciated.

I offer a lot of variety and small portions so it expands the palette gradually. A typical meal will have one part meat, two parts veggies, one part fruit and usually rice. If I am offering something new to a child that I am sure they will frown upon I will only give enough for just one bite. It’s less intimidating for a child to eat a single bite of something new than stare at a huge mountain of it. If I am offering something I know a child does not like then I will give them two bite portions. Why? Because if a child is known to dislike something we generally always encourage to at least have one bite so they expect that. If they eat the second bite we can positively enforce it with “Wow! Great job! You ate it ALL!” Sure, the portions were only two bites but that fills a child with pride to know they really did eat all of something they dislike. Eating all of something is much more of an accomplishment than just eating two bites. If they choose not to eat it all then I just ignore it and say something positive about what they did eat.

However, sometimes kids just aren’t into food that much or become bored easily. Thats why I try to make meals simple and fun with ideas from the Japanese bento. Bentos are traditionally a Japanese lunch that is taken on the go and served in a box. I have a lot of fond memories of bentos from my childhood. I loved all the cute containers, contrasting colors and neat shapes of common food. It always made lunch more enjoyable! I try to use a few ideas with every meal to make our meals a little more visually appealing. Even if its something as simple as using cookie cutters to cut meats into heart shapes, or cutting hot dogs into the shape of octopuses. Children respond positively to a plate full of fun and cute things.

Every child is different and because of such its hard for us to figure out what grabs their attention. Its a constantly changing and evolving process but I find that if you get down to their level and see through a child’s eyes it all becomes a little clearer. Sometimes we can’t change their stubborn nature or apprehension on trying new foods. But, we can change how we present the foods in a positive and fun way so hopefully it sticks.

My Toddler. My Garden. Just some basics.

Let’s face it… toddlers love to get dirty! Teaching children to garden has many more benefits than developing fine and gross motor skills. They learn to follow basic instructions, “Dig a hole here please!”. They start to process the basics of how plants grow, “Please put these seeds in the hole and cover them up. Now lets water them.” They have fun because they can actually get dirty and play with water and we encourage it! Sunscreen, a hat, lots of kid sized tools and patience will give you a good start to the toddler gardening experience.

The first thing I am going to suggest is to remove any cellphones, PDA’s, iPods or anything that can get damaged by water. I always fully expect to get soaked when I garden with toddlers. Why? Because most kids love to help water and they point the hose where they are looking! “Look its a bird!” and for some reason the hose has to look straight up as well! This is a perfect activity on a very hot summer day. Then again if you have a watering can this helps eliminate the soaked factor, however, I still say keep electronics out of the way! I learned the hard way!

I prefer to grow edibles with children simply because they are more likely to try something they have grown in the garden. I focus on positive encouragement when it comes to food because its important to me that children keep the negatives off of the dinner table. Yes, most children will recoil at certain new foods and can be extremely picky but I think its all about how you present the foods. The right enthusiasm goes a long way. My daughter will not eat a bowl of yellow pear tomatoes or cherry tomatoes that I buy from the store. Actually, she won’t eat any kind of tomatoes that aren’t in marinara sauce or ketchup unless she picks them straight from the garden. I asked her once why she will eat what we grow and not what we buy and she said, “Because I worked hard to help you grow these… and they taste better.” I think she was indulging me on the first part though. Hmm.

Cucumbers, sunflowers, lettuce, corn, tomatoes, squash, pole and bush beans, peas and pumpkins are all fun to grow! Even a novice gardener with a very black thumb can grow these… with some help by the kids of course.

Keep gardening times short! You will want to give the kids tasks in 15 – 20 minute time frames. I break it all up with different activities and present it in a fun way… “Now we are going to fill these cups up with soil!” then “Okay kids lets play with bubbles!” and finally “Lets look in this bag of seeds. Can you put a few in the cups of soil?” Sometimes you have to put off a task for the next day. It all depends on the child(ren).

Gardening Duties for the Wee Ones:

• Pick out new plants or seeds (with some helpful positive direction of course!)
• Fill up cups, pots or recycled container (like yogurt cups with holes cut out) with soil
• Put seeds in soil and cover
• Put in marker (after you label them)
• Pull off dead heads. Give your kid(s) a basket and allow them to pick off all the dead flowers.
• Water the plants (dodge as much as you can!)
• Pull weeds! (Show the difference between seedlings and weeds)
• Collect worms!
• Harvest the goodies!

These are just some basic ideas to get you started. Figuring out how to get your toddler in tune with your garden is a forever evolving process. And, sometimes… no matter how much you try there will be destroyed flowers. They are, after all, toddlers.

Strawberry Allergies No More!

Strawberries are very easy to grow and are a very beautiful addition to the garden. Unfortunately, we had a no berry zone in our garden for many years. My daughter has a lot of severe food allergies and one of her biggest allergies was berries. I say “was” with a smile on my face because she tested negative to berries this past year and we have slowly made them a regular addition to our meals. She is seven years old now and was diagnosed with life threatening food allergies when she was only a month old. Its been a very limiting road for us with food, however, we have always enjoyed everything we can. I am so much more aware of food, ingredients, preservatives, chemicals and organics because of this life change it was only a natural progression that I took to growing our own. I never would have thought that I’d be growing, jamming and canning our own food but here I am making so many foods from scratch and enjoying every step of the way.

After we slowly tried all the berries we could she decided that strawberries are her favorites and blueberries are a very close second. Since she is crazy about strawberries we had to grow them for the first time this year! I really do love to garden with children and most importantly I love growing our own food. With a lot of patience and the right timing gardening is really enjoyable with them. Earlier this year we picked up three different varieties of strawberries from the nursery so we could compare them. The first strawberry that started to form was watched by my daughter daily. She would go outside to “check on it” as often as I would let her. She would gently keep checking the mulch around it and make sure it wasn’t too thirsty. That first strawberry was such a milestone for us because not only could she finally eat them but we enjoy their beauty daily since they line our walkway to the front door.

Okay, in all honesty the first strawberry was real small and very runty but it was delicious! Or so she told me since I didn’t even get a nibble! I had hoped that we could eventually grow enough so I can make some strawberry jam but the ripe strawberries rarely make it inside the house and are gobbled down immediately.

Who knows, next year we might expand our tiny strawberry patch and be up to our ears in jam but for now we enjoy each and every one like it was her first and appreciate her food allergy accomplishments.