Eating Out

A while ago I read an article about a family who try to fit as many activities in after the children finish school and before they go to bed. They call it the ‘5 to 9’ (5pm to 9pm).
Having a look at the blog they write, they’re very keen on eating outside. They pack up a camping stove, a saucepan and some ingredients, and cook their meal in the fresh air in all sorts of different locations. Their exploits can be followed on: http://www.dotrythisathome.com/
I thought this all sounded like great fun, so we’ve been ‘eating out’ about once a week since the summer. I must admit it takes us a while to get everything together, and then to put it all away again afterwards, but we’re getting better at it! Sometimes we take a little gas camping stove, other times we cook on an open fire.

 

We’ve tried lots of different settings for our meals: the seaside (sand EVERYWHERE!), woods and hills… Our favourites usually contain lots of interesting climby things for the boys to explore and are very peaceful and quiet. An added bonus is if you can park the car close to where you’re going to cook so you don’t have to lug everything for miles!
The food can be as simple as hotdogs or pasta with pesto, but we usually try to make something a little more complicated, like a goulash or a chilli con carne. The different setting might be a good chance to try your Picky Picker on something new, but make sure you take plenty of bread, apples and biscuits to fill them up if they’re still a little unsure of what you create!
Whatever you choose to make, the whole process of cooking and eating outside is great fun, and the fresh air really seems to increase little appetites!

Pick Up Sticks!

When my boys had their first stir fry I was really surprised by how much they all enjoyed it: they literally woofed it down, cabbage, cashew nuts, ginger and all. The reason? The sheer delight of being allowed to eat a meal with two sticks! How this can be so much fun is a little beyond me, but my Picky Pickers just loved it, and the forks and spoons I also set out were left untouched.

So, sometimes for a treat, and obviously if their meal isn’t soup, we let them eat any meal with chopsticks. Using them takes the focus away from the actual food a little, and makes them concentrate on the process of eating itself. Plus, it’s a handy skill, and none of them will ever have to ask for a fork in a Chinese restaurant!

Slow and Steady…

Serial dieters wake up on a Monday morning resolved to change all their eating bad habits instantly. Their plans rarely work: lack of planning and trying to do too much too quickly, equates to failure every time. The same can be said of trying to change your Picky Picker’s eating habits. It’s not going to happen overnight! Baby steps are required. Focus slowly on introducing new tastes, whilst gradually cutting down on anything you feel they eat too much of, or shouldn’t be consuming at all. Each new taste will need to be tried many, many times before it’s accepted as regular food, and not as something strange and alien.
There is absolutely no point in putting a plateful of completely unfamiliar food in front of your Picky Picker and expecting them to polish off the lot. They won’t, and it will cause them, and probably you, an awful lot of unnecessary stress.
It can be heartbreaking to have a lovingly prepared meal picked at unenthusiastically, or turned down completely, so try serving a small portion of something new, combined with a larger helping of something familiar. Ask your child to eat at least one proper mouthful of the new food. Hopefully the next time you serve it, they’ll eat more of their own accord and, after a while, you can serve a bigger amount of the new food, and you can move on to the next food you’d like them to enjoy!

Give a Little…

Be prepared to give in a little to your Picky Picker sometimes! When I was little, I’d eat baked beans, but only if they were served in a separate bowl to my other food, and with just the tiniest bit of sauce left on them. This way they couldn’t ‘infect’ my toast! But who cares? The important point is that I ate the beans. My demand caused very little inconvenience, and made me feel I had some control over what went in my body. Now I eat baked beans normally, ‘infecting’ anything they like!
If your child wants some of their food separated, my advice would be to just do it. It’s really not a big deal and it means their food gets eaten. If you’re concerned, and your Picky Picker is insisting upon absolutely everything on their plate being carefully segregated, you could always gradually move non-liquidy foods closer together (even my 7 year old self would doubt that a fish finger could do much to a boiled potato if they dared to touch!).
These funny whims will most probably all be grown out of given time. If not, with a bit of luck their university flatmates will tease them so mercilessly, they’ll give up their fads then!

Time to Digest

Just imagine how you’d feel if you were sitting enjoying your supper, when suddenly someone appeared at your shoulder and started nagging you to ‘Hurry up!’ and ‘Get a move on!’ because you have to ‘leave in two minutes!’

It wouldn’t be very pleasant, and would certainly ruin your meal. Yet this is what many, many parents frequently do to their children at breakfast on school days in particular, but also notably at teatime when they have to hurry out to after school activities.

So, what can be done to make food time less rushed? The most important thing is to leave plenty of time to both cook the food and to allow it to be enjoyed. There’s no point blaming the children if you forgot to put the tea on in time! If you’re running a bit late, it’s better to whip up a sandwich or some scrambled egg on toast than attempt something more and leave them with little time to eat it.

Even if you’re not eating with your children, try to take the time to sit down and chat to them about their day as they eat. Or at least potter around tidying or getting things ready in the same room.

It takes a while for a young child to eat a meal, and there’s no point rushing them! If you really do feel they’re being unnecessarily slow just explain when you need them to have finished by, and that they won’t have time for pudding if they don’t get a wiggle on. Seeing a sibling get their yogurt first can be a big incentive to eat up!
If they’ve had ample time, but still haven’t finished and you really have to leave, just take the plate away and get them ready. Maybe they’re just not hungry, but if they are still peckish, they’ll eat quicker next mealtime!

Late Night Tastings

Allow me to let you into a little secret: nothing encourages a Picky Picker to try a new food more than being told the food is for a special grown-up supper later and it’s time for them to go to bed!

Oh, the excitement of being put to bed and smelling gorgeous foody smells wafting up the stairs, only to have Mummy or Daddy pop their head round your bedroom door ten or fifteen minutes later with the words, ‘The supper we’re having is amazing, would you like to come down and have a taste?’

Would any child stay in their bed given an opportunity like that?

A couple of weeks ago, our two eldest boys came into the kitchen whilst my husband was cooking for the pair of us. They were on their way to bed, but begged to be allowed to try the fresh crab we were having for our starter. They did so, trying four different combinations of the crab with various add-ons to see which they preferred. Half an hour later, they were invited to come down and try our rainbow trout (having first been told in gruesome detail about all the bits that squirted out of it whilst we were filleting – they’re boys, they love that stuff!) with spinach, lentils and pancetta. They loved it all, and had to be shooed away from our plates before they woofed down the lot, yet neither had tried crab, trout, or that particular type of lentil before. What a result!