not liking meals

How can we instill the right eating habits?

Children in our school sometimes leave their lunches half eaten, or even untouched. They rush off to an important game, unwilling to miss even a minute of their exciting play. In response, it is our practice as teachers to insist that everyone sit down for a period of time at the beginning of recess to make sure they eat the food their bodies need. Even those who are finished can enjoy a few minutes at the table with those who are not.

I believe that children’s bodies will tell them what they need if we remove the distractions. There are many distractions: overstimulating foods (like sweets), overstimulating company (like each other), and overstimulating habits (like impulsive eating, without a routine). Our bodies function much better when we are calm.

One reader writes of a child who does not like meals and complains about eating. I wonder what experience this child associates with meals. Are they testing the child’s patience? Are the expectations unclear for the child? Do the meals follow a predictable routine? I would suggest making a set of concrete guidelines for eating, and then repeating them as often as necessary. Children tend to complain less when they know the complaints really won’t change anything.

It is often very hard for adults to be utterly consistent with children, yet consistency is what gives them emotional stability. Their play often follows repetitive and predictable patterns. They are always trying to make sense of what is going on. I think one of the deepest sources of anxiety in children is the unpredictability of other people, especially caretakers. If parents allowed this yesterday, will they allow it today? When they say something will happen, will it really happen? These questions apply to all of the ways we regulate children’s lives, and especially to something as basic as eating.

Sometimes complaining itself becomes a habit, without any particular goal in the child’s mind. Then I begin calling attention to the behavior. “I notice you are using a complaining voice to say that. Is there another way to say it? A cheerful voice is much more enjoyable. If you can use a cheerful voice, I will want to listen to you.” Self-awareness helps children understand how they influence other people. As they understand their power better, they will use it for better ends.

: : : Make routines; keep them; celebrate them.

teaching letters during a tantrum

Aimée is a calm, independent, resourceful four-year-old child. She also throws tantrums periodically. We do not let her cry for long periods at the dinner table. If she does not make an effort to control her voice, we bring her up to her room until she can be quieter. This response, of course, often escalates the crying to screaming (but if we become afraid of making a child scream, the screaming child becomes the emporer).

One day I had her in the bedroom, physically barring her way out, and holding her feet if she tried to kick me (something she knows I will do). I do not get angry at her when this happens, but I admit to feeling numb and irritable. After a few minutes, I started picking up some nearby letter blocks, saying the sounds of them, and making words. I left pauses for her to repeat what I said, but went on if she didn’t. A few minutes later she was repeating everything and trying to make some of her own words. Then we went downstairs and continued dinner.

A child often has insurmountable feelings. She literally can’t stop them, nor wait for them to subside. Trying to control her feelings is like trying to pick up water with her hands. When Aimée has the thought of frustration and refusal in her mind, that is all she has in her mind. It takes experience, brain development, and practice to change one’s state of mind. By using the letter blocks, I was simply giving her mind something else to focus on. The activity was unexpected enough, unusual enough, and interesting enough to make her forget the anger and weaken its hold. We didn’t solve any “problem” or make any “agreement,” because those are analytical, adult processes. Once the feeling is gone in a child, it is really gone.

aimée’s little cry

Aimée is my four-year-old daughter. She is very self-disciplined most of the time, and has rarely demanded the kind of parental “surveillance” that I often see going on in families. I don’t think she ever deliberately threw food on the floor, for example. (I consider myself mainly lucky for this, but perhaps clever enough to recognize when I can leave her alone.) Tonight she was with me for dinner at a friend’s house and for some reason decided she needed to scoop spaghetti up with her hands and stuff it into her mouth like a banana.

I objected as soon as I saw it, and told her she needed to keep it in the bowl. She didn’t cooperate, so I moved the bowl away from her and said she could have the spaghetti if she ate it properly. She just burst into tears and wailed about wanting to eat it that way. (Here’s what I didn’t do: argue, raise my voice, repeat myself, or appeal to reason. All of those reactions are more likely to escalate her feelings.) I reached over and rubbed her back a little, thinking that she must be so tired after such an active day with friends. I may even have said that out loud. A few moments later she stopped crying and seemed ready to try again, so I gave her the bowl.

Children usually have pretty compelling reasons for doing what they do. As it turned out, Aimée thought she could avoid spilling spaghetti everywhere by holding it with both hands. I showed her that biting it and letting the rest fall in the bowl would accomplish the same purpose. Could we have reached that understanding without her little crying episode? I don’t know. Sometimes I need to be very uncompromising before she even wants to negotiate. A four-year-old child knows what power is and wants as much as possible. If she doesn’t get it, how can she grow up? That little moment of crying is a plea for the distant time when I will no longer interfere with her eating habits!