by Nancy Gapasin Gnass
If you want your child to eat well, you should do it together as a family. Create space for family meals where you sit together at the same time. Serve healthy food so you can model healthy eating. Family rituals around meals can help your children establish a healthy and happy view of eating through this bonding time together. Rituals at family meals can create enjoyable expectations for your child and everyone else at the table that provides structure to help dining go smoothly. The research on benefits of family meals together abound. Studies shows that kids who have frequent family meals have a less likely chance that they will not use drugs in the future, higher academic achievement and self confidence. Part of the reason is there is time at the table to share your stories with your child. When children take time to listen your stories of growing up and life with your own parents and family, they get a sense of their Inter-Generational self: the idea that their identity is linked beyond themselves as an individual. Children who are able to answer the Do You Know (DYK) Questions regarding the history of their family understand their intergenerational self and have shown to have more self confidence and resilience. This confidence and resilience also comes when you make eye contact, one of the most intimate connection humans can make, as you share and talk, which builds the connection and bond between you and your child, and others that may be at your table. These conversations also can lead to sharing your values and building ideas of morality, truth, and ethics in your child as you share and listen to stories from each other and discuss their meanings. All this comes with just taking time to eat together. With this shared, your child will be happier and healthier and so will you.
To start, first choose a meal to share together each day, often it will be dinner and sometimes breakfast during the work-week. You can begin practicing these ideas even when your child is not yet talking, to make it a part of your parenting habit. Here are some rituals you can try to incorporate into your family meals.
Daily ideas:
Put away and turn off the electronics.
Have a moment of silence, gratitude, prayer, and/or join hands before the meal
Share a story of your day
Share "peaks and valleys" or "rose, thorn or bud" of your day
Toast your family, or something special
Create or find a motto for the week, then talk about how you're thinking about it or applying it
Share a story, fiction or nonfiction, ask each other what they think about it
Listen to each other, and don't interrupt
Weekly Ideas:
Light a candle
Share stories of you growing up and traditions of your family
Each person share what you are grateful for
Plan a fun thing to do together for week
Have a 'picnic' dinner, and eat on a blanket on the floor inside or outside
Make pancakes on Saturday mornings
Have breakfast for dinner
Pizza night
Un-cooking night, left-overs, cold foods (cheese, bread, raw veggies)
Create a Monday morning breakfast tradition of always having the same food
Taco Tuesdays
Friday nights with neighborhood friends
Sunday dinners with family or friends
On Other Occasions Ideas:
Decorate the table
Use special dishes to eat on
Make a traditional recipe that you ate as a child with your family
Have a “Your Are Special” kind of plate to celebrate accomplishments, birthdays or just because
Have a dinner party
Did you have family rituals growing up in your home? Incorporate the practices that you enjoyed.
---------------------Time magazine came out with an issue on "What To Eat Now" which includes the 50 healthiest foods. Don't forget that modeling healthy eating is the best way to get your child to eat healthy. Include these foods in your family diet.
50 Healthiest Foods
Book Discussion
We will discuss Chapter 4- No-Drama Connection in Action this week (beginning 3/14) of No Drama Discipline by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson.
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