Most people enjoy eating. Some enjoy it too much! Then there are the Ectomorphs who can breathe heavily near a steaming pot of soup and be filled up for a week..God Bless them; they are enviable in some respects, but I enjoy food too much to actually be jealous.

Eating is supposed to be a pleasurable experience. That’s the natural order of life…think about it. If food is not important or not pleasurable or not sought after, we would all be Ectomorphs and food would be at the bottom of our “to do” list.

So if food is so important and so pleasurable, why is eating the worst struggle of the day with my child?

Let’s put two truths out there right now. You cannot make someone eat, and you can’t make someone poop. Having said that, let’s proceed with all the usual reasons why a child is stubborn about eating. Pooping is another whole ball game.

The desire to eat begins at birth. Most children love to nurse. Human milk is sweeter than condensed milk and being near mom is what all babies want. Human milk has everything in it that each individual child needs for the first six months, so breast feeding is a win win win all the way around.

There are those who say “Food before one is just for fun.” That’s not only false, it’s a dangerous idea. There is little iron in breast milk, so children who are exclusively breastfed throughout their first year may fail to thrive.

Also, children who are not taught to eat foods in the first year will necessarily be picky eaters which might last a lifetime. Here’s why. The sweetness of breast milk does not translate favorably to the tang of fruit or the neutral flavor of most vegetables with the cognition of a year old child. He has put enough, toys, soap, sleeves, fingers, animal tails, cardboard, and whatever in his mouth to know what tastes good and what doesn’t. He’s discerning because he’s human. If he’s never had a spoonful of peaches or applesauce or plums, he’s going to find it sour reject it like soap.

So when do you begin to feed a child fruit and veggies? About the time they can pick up something and shove it in their mouth. The infant uses his mouth to learn, to test, to taste the world, so when he begins to taste the world on his own with his own two hands…the food alarm should go on with great bells and whistles.

Next step…establish a meal time!  “Too much to do and too many places to go,” is a common plea when cornered about meal time. But a real meal time, when the whole family sits down to eat together…TV off…and discusses the day, is more important than reading to a child. That conversation, that time together does more to keeping children on a positive road to life than anything else in their whole lives. FACT.

My beautiful fifteen year old grandson leaves whatever he is doing to attend dinner with his family every evening. When he explained that he wants to eat with his family to his friends, his friends were jealous. “I wish I had a family to eat with,” said one of his friends. Children love their families!

Meal times should be established and kept while there are young children in the home. This helps young children understand the order of the day. “I eat dinner with my family; I take a bath; I watch TV; I go to bed.” Children LOVE order, and they miss it when evening is chaos. If a child does not learn to sit down at a table and eat a meal with his family, how can you expect him to understand how to do that in school?

“But I don’t cook,” say many modern men and women. This is a primary reason many young children don’t eat. There is no one to cook for them, so most of their food is unimaginative and the variation is limited to a few things: macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, canned spaghetti, pizza and cold cereal.

There is no nutrition in boxed macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets (mostly skin) and canned spaghetti. These foods do not have enough food value to be called food by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They are extremely high in salt and sugar and fat and chemicals.

Fast food, which most children don’t really eat, is a nightmare of grease. A doctor friend of mine told me that there are children with eighty percent clogged arteries at age six from all the fast food.

Now let’s write the scary scenario of a three of four year old child going off to school for the first time. It’s a good place where the staff cares about giving the children good nutrition and lively fun meals. Breakfast is a homemade blueberry muffin, four ounces of orange, and a cup of milk. The child does not know what the muffin is, has never tasted a fresh whole orange, and doesn’t drink milk because soda doesn’t go bad in the fridge. He leaves it untouched.

Lunch: Homemade spaghetti with meatballs, a salad, fresh apples and grapes. It doesn’t resemble canned spaghetti, so the child doesn’t know how to eat it or if he should. He doesn’t get apples or grapes at home, he has never really tasted a salad, so he just sits and waits for this little nightmare to end, and his calorie count is zero for the day. Not good.

Snack: Homemade chocolate chip cookies…recognizable…but they have a strong taste of chocolate which is unfamiliar…so we eat half. Calorie count for the day? 75. Needs? 1000 – 1400.

A whole can of Spagettios will add calories, but not nutrition.

By the time a child reaches six, his eating likes and dislikes are usually set, and they are set at home, not at school. The bland no taste glue of canned and fried mainstays and fast food create a block that some children never get over.The very idea of eating something as exotic as broccoli, or asparagus, or a salad, or an ethnic meal of sweet and sour, or curry or anything pungent or challenging is off limits for life.

But what if parents cook? Maybe food is abundant in the home, and little Johnny balks at every night’s dinner?

On the high end, it’s true that some children stop eating for the day at 4:00 p.m. They are tired and they have consumed the necessary calories during their day. This is usually a temporary thing, and sometimes a no growing time in their lives. If a child has consumed what he needs, bring him to the table for the sake of family and let eating be his choice.

On the low end, a real taste-buster is the parent who short order cooks…Johnny doesn’t like…and the list goes on and on, so the meal provider substitutes a substantial meal for something gluey in a can or frozen package. There is a certain amount of discipline that goes along with the civilized table, and giving too many options on too many nice meals is not only insulting to the cook, it opens a doorway of selfishness and narrow mindedness that will rear its ugly head in many areas of life in the future.

If a child just sits and refuses to eat, let him refuse it. You can’t make a person eat. But not eating is not an excuse for leaving the table. He should stay at the table until the family meal is over. And after dinner treats should never be an option. Just don’t lecture or argue. Just smile and say, “I love you.”.

Eating should be fun. Arguing about it is NEVER fun. And the truth is neither adults nor children like every single food. So think about these things next time little Johnny is grabbing defeat at the cost of victory:

Make a meal at least four times a week that includes new things just to try.

Pick a meal time for the whole family that will fit into everyone’s schedule.

Turn off all outside noise like TV, music, and phones.

Eat at a table or at least where you can discuss the day. Discuss the day.

If you child refuses to eat, clear his plate into the garbage and let him sit without. It’s a choice he has the legitimate option to make. You can’t make somebody eat.

If your child becomes disruptive or balky…there is always the sweet quiet of his room.

If your child wants a substitute… tell him breakfast is in twelve hours. He won’t starve in twelve hours.

And BTW…if you don’t want your child to have soda, canned spaghetti, chicken nuggets, chips, store-bought cookies and other junk…don’t buy them. If the foods you don’t want your child to eat are NOT in the house, he can’t eat them. If you pass by the fast food on the way home without stopping, he can’t eat there.

Every new school year in August, when the very little children arrive for preschool, it’s always an eye opener for parents, because there is a vast crevasse between what teachers expect and what children are able to do.

Nature gives us guidelines for development many parents just don’t see. The first year of a child’s life is meant to teach safety. The child needs and wants to understand what feels safe, and who can be trusted. Life is small for a child, and his world should be cozy and uncomplicated.

At a year, nature throws in a complication…walking. As children delight in movement, they will spend this second year, age one to two, honing their body skills and learning what they can and can’t do. They spend most of their time climbing, falling, toddling, and running. It’s important for them to begin to put safety with kinesthetic play, and this is where parents play a new role. Parents who teach children what is safe and what isn’t have a huge advantage the next year, because the toddler will have learned what “no” means.

By age two, and the beginning of a child’s third year, the child has learned just exactly what his body will do and what he can do with it. Now it’s time to put that to use. It’s time to learn to dress including shoes and socks and coats and hats. It’s time to learn to sit at a table and eat politely with others. It’s time to talk and make conversation to understand that includes pronunciation of words and proper usage. It means to use the toilet, and that includes wiping, clothes management, flushing and washing hands. It means to take commands like “wait, no, stop, sit.” It means to go to bed when told, to play with toys in a constructive manner, and to understand that the word “no” is not a weapon but a loving reminder.

If children learn to manage their own bodies by the fourth year, or age three, the next step is to begin to listen for information, because a child discovers that there is more to this world than movement. He watches his parents talk, and he discovers that there are ideas, and he learns that communication matters, and he hungers for it like candy.

Most preschool teachers, especially those who have been teaching a while, will expect a three year old to be able to sit for a few minutes and be curious enough to listen to some things. When listening skills are no where to be seen by age three, the trained teacher will study the child to see where he or she is developmentally, and how much of the last year he or she needs to complete before preschool will make sense.

Constructive play is a big indicator of development. The four stages of building are 1, carrying the materials which usually begins by six months of age. 2, towers. Towers are a favorite beginning building activity, and children can usually manage to do this about age one. 3, snakes. Lining blocks, books, cans, toys, stuffed toys in a row is another favorite thing to do, and this usually happens just shortly after the mastery of towers. Stage 4 building is being able to join the tower with the snake. This usually happens before age two if children are given the tools and toys to work with.

Children who are exposed to blocks and building toys will begin to understand what creating means.They will enjoy beginning a project with an idea. They will work hard to complete the idea, and when they finish their project, they will have a great sense of accomplishment. The idea and accomplishment link are self esteem builders. So is cleaning up the project when it’s done. This is called early discipline.

Art is another indicator of development. Crayons, paint, colored paper and scissors are all things that can be managed by an emerging two year old turning three. Learning to use these materials help little hands grow strong and imaginations come alive.

Playing with other children is not as easy as it sounds. Most children play in tandem until late three or four and communication develops. A play kitchen or dress up encourages expression and communication skills through the drama a child experiences at home and brings with him to share. Good communication skills are honed by doing. A good preschool should dedicate a lot of play space to kitchen and dress up because this avenue of development is important to something a child will do all his life…communicate.

Never underestimate the power of play, the significance of toys, or the need for play. How to play is the most important concept a loving parent can teach a child, because play is something every human being seeks all their life. It’s the fun stuff we get to do when the work is done. We all learn more from the hours we engage with pleasurable activities, activities that have a point, activities that produce, activities that encourage other activities. more so than the drudgery that is put upon us in a demanding world  by mindlessness and unimaginative work.

Play with your child and teach him how. Talk with your child and teach him to respond. Build with your child and enjoy his accomplishments.

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