Mealtime challenges
Photo by Jimmy Dean on Unsplash
In today’s episode, Dave and Jim discuss their mealtime challenges
During this episode we’ll discuss:
Mealtime when we were growing up
What mealtime looks like for us now
Our biggest challenges around mealtime and eating
Rules we have around mealtime and eating
Mealtime tips and tricks
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Transcript
[music]
Dave: In today's episode, we're sharing our challenges around mealtimes and some tips we use in our homes.
[music]
Hey, everyone, welcome to the papaestfatigue podcast, the podcast for dads by dads. If there's one daily stressor in my life it's mealtime with the kids, and it's not so much the activity of eating with the kids which I enjoy quite a bit. It's really more what are they actually going to eat tonight? Today Jim and I are going to talk about our challenges and give some tips that work for us that you might want to try for yourself. First, here's my deal. I'm Dave. I have an eight year old girl and a five-year-old boy.
Jim: I'm Jim. I've got an eight year old girl and a five-year-old girl.
Dave: Great. While this episode isn't really about the benefits of eating as a family, we thought it would be useful nonetheless to remind people of the value of this ritual. We've got a couple of data points here that I thought were interesting. Only about 30% of families regularly eat dinner together, but 80% of teenagers say that family dinner is the time of the day that they're most likely to talk to their parents. Regular family dinners are associated with lower rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, eating disorders, tobacco use, early teenage pregnancy, high rates of resilience, higher self-esteem. It's like all the things that you're worried about as a parent, just sit down and eat family dinners together, which I found that one was really funny. Also though for preschoolers, the organic language that happens at the dinner table actually turns out to have 10 times as many rare or uncommon words than they get in school or on the playground.
Then that's really important because kids who have a large vocabulary learn to read faster and more easily, or I guess they learn to read earlier and more easily. Then kids who eat regular family dinners at elementary school and high school get better grades, and that effect is stronger than doing homework, art or sports. If you think about this, it's really like a list of all the things that worry you about being a parent and hey, let's just have dinner and I'm not sure that it's quite that easy, but at least it lays the groundwork for I think having those conversations and basically aligning to put your kid in a good place.
Jim: Yes, it makes you wonder if it's a correlation question or a causation question and maybe the parents that have dinner together or the kind of parents that encourage those things, but that's a pretty strong connection I would say.
Dave: Yes. I think there could be something to that too where neither one of us does, decisions or anything, but I think there's a question about if you're the kind of parent that makes the time to do all this stuff, are you also the one that's heavily engaged in their schooling and helping with homework and all that other stuff? Whether it's causation or correlation, but I think it's still interesting as we frame up this conversation as it relates to mealtime because it's such a regular thing and if you struggle with it like we do, it's just a daily, what's for lunch, what's for dinner. Oftentimes it's also what's for breakfast. Three times a day, we're stressing over it. Jim, what did mealtime look like for you when you were a child?
Jim: I have memories of a family meal of sitting around the table, but it's not a real strong memory for me. Any of those mealtime that we had. I don't know if it was a regular Sunday night dinner like we do in my family or if it was just if everyone was home we'd eat together. My dad would travel for work, so he was gone frequently and for a big part of my childhood my mom was studying in a night program for night school. I've got an older sister and a younger brother, so we'd all kind of take care of each other. That would be my mom and the kids, or it'd be the kids taking care of each other, and then having a family meal together when we could.
Dave: The three of you guys ate dinner together, though it sounds like on a regular basis, the three kids?
Jim: Yes, usually because one of us would take the lead and would prepare the meal. Usually my sister or I, have my younger brother and then we would sit down and eat together.
Dave: I'm curious, what kind of meals are you guys cooking? It sounds like you were only a few years apart. This was maybe what high school-ish?
Jim: Yes. Those are some of the memories, it must have probably in late elementary school, by then my sister would have been in high school and yes, it was one of the reasons why I learned how to cook because my dad when he was the one that was in charge of dinner just would open a can of something which wasn't great. Then my sister and I and I guess my brother to a certain extent and had to get really creative and find some things that we like to eat. You can only have hot dogs and hamburgers so many times before I had to find something more interesting to eat.
Dave: During the summertime when I was growing up, I'm six years older than my brother, unfortunately for him, because that meant that when I was in high school and sleeping and during the summers, he was still getting up regularly. My parents would be off to work and I'm supposedly in charge of breakfast and I just never wake up. He started making himself cheese rice because there's always rice laying around the house and just throw it into microwave, put some cheese on top of it, and that was breakfast and I am a terrible brother for letting him do that, but at least there's a story for us a memory.
Jim: It's two, meal group two of food groups that's pretty--
Dave: He's just missing a vegetable and you're good to go. [laughs] For me, I remember growing up with a lot of home cooked meals. Unlike you, my dad was always making breakfast every morning. He would get up early and do that. I didn't really grow up with cereal or frozen foods in the morning. Everything was made fresh which I appreciate, and certainly have appreciated even more so as I've gotten older and realized what a struggle that is to do every single day. For dinner, we did always eat as a family, probably lasted about an hour every night. My parents think made a point to eat together. They're both busy executives, but they made it a point for us to sit down and even those dinners, even though that they were busy, I don't ever remember really eating out that much.
I think that was more of a luxury thing. We're going to home cook everything, and growing up the rule was, eat this or don't eat, but that's your call. We're not going to make anything else. This is what is for dinner. I think that was always how it was growing up and that is something that I'm trying to do in my house because I'll get to some of the challenges that we're having over here, but a little bit later on, and then lastly, the kids have been responsible for the dishes every night. The only way to get out of that is if there was an extraordinary amount of homework or you had a test the next morning. Going back to I guess this concept of the family meal.
I remember even when my friends would come over for dinner, if they were hanging out with me and we're going to roll till dinner time, they're going to have dinner with us especially when you have guests over, it's going to be a two hour dinner. We're just hanging out, shooting the show with my friends. It was a lot of family time and I remember those moments fondly. With that as a backdrop in terms of how we grew up, can you talk a little bit about what mealtime looks like in your house today?
Jim: Most of the meals that we have is that we've got a bar or an island in our kitchen and then we had a couple of stools. Usually for a lot of the meals, breakfast and lunches, certainly either my wife or I will make something for the girls and they'll sit down and you will stand in the kitchen and be with them while they're eating their meal. Sometimes I'll cook eggs for breakfast or something lightweight. Weekends we'll do the waffles or pancakes or something on special Sundays. Then usually the parents will eat separately. If my wife's needs to work late, she'll get her own dinner a little bit later. I'll either eat with the girls or find something shortly afterwards.
We do eat together regularly twice a week. Once it's Friday night we have a Friday night movie and we get takeout, so we don't have to cook on Friday night. Then on Sunday we got a Sunday family meeting and so every week it's a ritual and we make it a priority to get together and have our family meal together. I guess most of it is just me feeding the girls and then we've got times where we will all eat together at least three or four times a week.
Dave: Can you talk a little bit more about the Sunday dinners? We've talked about that on other conversations about the allowance and how to handle allowance. I think your Sunday night dinners it feels like it's a very special and planned meal. Can you just talk a little bit about that here?
Jim: I credit my wife with coming up with the idea and I don't know what parent book she got it out of, or something that maybe that she did with her family. I'm not actually sure, but every Sunday night we'll have our Sunday dinner and family meeting and we do something called compliments and appreciation where we go around and each person gives one compliment and then an appreciation, some gratitude, thank you for doing this or thank you for doing that. I think it's a good exercise. We use the phrase, the fill up your bucket from that book. It seems to fill up everyone's bucket. Then we talk about the schedule for the week what's going to happen and give a heads up.
Then we have an open family meeting business section, anything else we want to talk about. Maybe there's some disciplinary things we want to talk about, or we have some changes coming up and I don't know our sleep schedule, let's say. It's a good bedrock. It's got a good rhythm to it that we do it every week. Then I'll usually prepare a nice Sunday dinner and something a little bit more elaborate than we would have during the week. Then we finish up and clear the table and then we have a family game night where we'll play a game together and every week we rotate who gets to pick the game, so it's fair for the younger one and the older one and I think that's good. You're talking about the language, I think it's a lot of interaction around things that are non-standard. The language that you use around games is different than you would use elsewhere talking about the schedule, all that stuff. I think I can see how our family meeting hits a lot of the points that you were pointing out.
Dave: I love that idea because I think it's just so intentional about, we keep coming back to this word intentional, but I think the parenting and laying it out and it provides like you talk about a checkpoint at the end of the week. There's a rhythm to it that you get into and maybe something where you've been busy during the course of the week and you haven't gotten around to saying something about something. There's that check-in at the end of the week, so I really liked that concept.
We were still trying to work our way through a number of other mealtime challenges, but I'd ultimately like to get to the point where you're at where, again, we have this deep and intentional family meal where I think there's a whole bunch of layers to it and I guess, is what it is. If I were to produce the family and all this stuff that happens in the course of the week, it can be summed up in what you guys are doing in that one meal, so I really liked that idea.
Jim: Yes, precisely. You can talk about it so reflection like girls, you had that great performance on Friday at the end of camp, or on Wednesday when you had your friends over, you played really well together and things of that nature. Then there's also, forward-looking, here's what we have on the calendar for the next week. Like I said, there's something about a rhythm, it's got a certain rhythm to it that seems to really help, a little bit of structure.
Dave: On our end, both my wife and I do, we intermittent fast, so no breakfast for us. The kids will always eat breakfast together, but we'll make the breakfast and usually, someone will hang out either. If it's during the school year, I'll be hanging out in the kitchen making lunch for them so I can keep an eye on the kitchen, making sure that everybody is eating, and on the weekend, it's a little bit more Lord of the flies Z as is summer where it's just kinda like, "All right, here you go." I guess when you're done, you're done. Sometimes already you're starting to see the thread of problems here.
We do always eat dinner as a family though so I do appreciate that and we do make that a focal point for us. On the weekends we eat lunches together also because we're there together. The main variation really in our schedule is going to be that during the summer, the kids are mostly eating lunch during the weekday on their own because either my wife's either taking a meeting or I'm running to something else and I don't have as much time. Not maybe the best modeling behavior for our particular situation, just leave the kids on their own, but that's just the way it's evolved at least over this summer.
Then at the end, the kids are responsible for clearing the table and emptying the dishwasher. The dishwasher was one of the first things I remember when the kids were younger. I was like, "At what point can I start assigning them chores?" The things that I don't want to do and the dishwasher was one of the ones that came up the soonest, so they're responsible. My daughter handles the top rack and the bottom and then the younger son is responsible for just getting rid of the utensils because also that's like a sorting exercise for him too. That's how things work at our house.
Jim: One of the things about the family dinner that you reminded me about the dishwasher and a little bit of responsibility is that we'll practice restaurant manners. You talk about the other challenges about them getting up during the meal or leaving without being excused, things like that. We got to practice restaurant manners and it's what I was thinking is how early do you train them to do chores? My wife and I started this restaurant manners thing really early on, put your napkin on your lap and being able to start, they don't know any different now. When you say restaurant manners, they know what we're talking about and they've got a practice that.
Dave: I like that because we don't have restaurant manners and I'm concerned that now the COVID is over, once we start really going back to the restaurants, it's going to be a mess. It actually is something that I've been thinking about and on the rare occasion, when we do go out, the kids are pretty good though. I'm always a little shocked at the fact that they can just sit there and they seem to be able to get it together when necessary, but the difficulty is in keeping them consistent. Actually, when they're at my parents' place, we used to go over there every Friday for dinner pre-COVID.
Now, we're slowly starting to get back into that rhythm, but they are properly behaved at grandma and grandpas. I think also part of that is when they go over to their house in general, grandma, grandpa, when we're not around, grandma's pretty strict is not the word, but she is just like you're right, "Hey, you don't get up and run."
Jim: The structure.
Dave: Yes, that structure. "You don't get around and run around, here's a napkin, wipe your mouth on the napkin." I think part of it is right. They know what they can get away with and they're going to push the boundaries every way they can. Sometimes at the end of the day, when you're exhausted, you're like, "All right, I'm going to let that burp slip or whatever that is." It's that as I think more of a reflection of us than the kids, we need to be better about that with the kids and enforcing those kinds of roles.
I think that's a good segue into the biggest challenges that you have around food and mealtimes. I think that yours are a lot smaller than mine, but significant nonetheless, I think for everybody. Everybody has mealtime challenges.
Jim: What I'm going through right now is looking at quality and quantity of calories and just making sure that they're right. Making sure that they've got enough calories and of the right kind, particularly, fruits and vegetables. I'm not alone in this, parents struggle with this all over the place but making sure that they eat something from the earth. We call it, eat something from the earth, either fruits or vegetables and make sure that they take at least three bites of something. The challenges I don't like it or I don't want it and frequently there'll be a big challenge at the beginning until they start eating and then there are three bites into it and then it's fine.
They love it and they're eating the meal, they're not thinking twice about it. The mealtimes I think are pretty well-taken care, what's the problem now and maybe it's summer, and everyone's unstructured, but we're having a lot of snacks and a lot of candy and a lot of treats. I had to explain to them what the word treat means. Treat means special, it's not something you have every day. I don't know if entitlement's the right word, but they've lost the sense of like you said, you have like dessert night, is that what you said? One night where you have dessert?
Dave: Yes, we'll get into that, but yes, sort of. [chuckles]
Jim: Yes, we're a little bit more liberal with that. Then the candy from the birthday parties or the pinatas or whatever that seems to just float around and we really got to-- sometimes they'll ask, find a piece of candy, frequently I'll find wrappers in the couch and I know that they've been digging in there anyway. I'm trying to cut out on the sugar, cut out on the junk food, and get them to eat more substantial things for nutrition.
Dave: I have two comments about yours. First of all, I would love to have the problems that you have around mealtimes. That seems like a great problem to have. The other thing that you reminded me of just talking about finding candy wrappers in the couch. It's amazing how these kids can just squirrel away candy and then you just pop up in the most random places, but honestly, there is one thing that I do let them get away with because at this point, our five-year-old, he's not super good at keeping secrets.
He'll kind of tell you the secret, whispering it to you, but it's really supposed to be a secret between him and his sister, but it'll come up to me and say something like, "All right, we're going to eat the candy now." I'm like, "No, that's between you two." I actually do because I appreciate the bond that they have as siblings, I will play ignorant when there's like a secret, like, "All right, we're going to go eat candy now, right? Don't tell dad." I'm like, "All right." I'm clearly standing right there, but it's something that I'll pretend I didn't hear that because I do like them having little small secrets that they can share as siblings.
That's one little area where I'll let them slide on a few things. Honestly, your problems would be a dream for me. Starting at the top and I would say it's really focused around our youngest. Again, not entirely his fault, there's been some slacking on our end, but the first thing is he is constantly bringing toys to the table, which is problematic for a number of reasons. One is he doesn't focus and two is that we're very small people and we actually eat our meals at a preschool table.
My wife and I sit at this table and it's a tiny little table, barely fits the four of us and when he brings a Lego, there's no space to eat anything anymore. There's a whole bunch of problems with that, but the main issue is that it's just distracting to everybody and now, he's playing when he should be eating. I think one is that the focus at mealtime for him at least is not quite there yet and we do have to say, "Look, when it's time to eat, time to eat." I guess, as a corollary to that, he gets up and walks around all the time, grab a bite.
Also, I think part of it is that we have a playroom, which is our dining room.
We've lost the use of our dining room so the kids have a playroom and it was mostly made a lot of sense when the kids were younger, but it's right next to where we eat. It's literally just three steps and you're in the playroom and that is an issue. Like I said, though, he's great. Those issues are not issues that we see at grandma's house. He's got toys over there but he's not bringing them to the table, he's not wandering around so this is really I think a reflection of I don't want to say it lacks attitude, but the fact that we have not been really enforcing the rules at our house so that is definitely on us. The other thing and I would say, I guess the biggest thing for me is that and this is not on us entirely is that he's very, very picky, and he's not willing to try new foods.
There are certainly things where you're like, "I know you're going to like this," but he just has that blocker, he's not even willing to try it. It gets to the point where now travel becomes an issue where you're out and you're like, "Well, what is this kid going to eat?" The last time we were in Japan granted he was only three but we would go to restaurants and he wouldn't eat anything so now we've got to go to the convenience store and get like a rice ball which he’ll always eat that. It's not unhealthy but it's mostly carbs and starch.
There’s a little bit of protein in there depending on what you get. This pickiness is really starting to become an issue and certainly, we do travel or we did travel a decent amount and traveled internationally a decent amount and sometimes when you're in Asia, he's looking for cheese or strawberries and in some of these countries you have to go to like a specialty grocery store to get cheese or strawberries and then that just becomes a whole nother problem.
Beyond just the fact that he's picky, it pervades a whole, there's all these dominoes that fall because of this pickiness and we're really starting to try and figure out how to address that. I would say that our daughter did also go through a similar phase when she was younger but now that she's aged she’s come out on the back end and she's pretty good at at least trying everything. There will be things that she's like, "I'm not going to like that," and then she gets a few in and she’s like, "Yes, it’s pretty good."
Actually, I have a list of menus or recipes that they actually eat because for a while it was just so few things. Even with our son, I could count them all on my hand everything he’d eat.
Jim: I really empathize with you and your younger child, your son, and that I think you have the right idea. He's a little guy, he's a thin little guy but you don't know if that's because he's picky or if that’s as a consequence of either a picky eater or he's thin because he's not eating but I think you got the right idea because it almost seems, I don't want to give unsolicited advice but it almost seems like a behavior thing like he can pull your strings and he can command the situation.
Dave: Oh yes. I think a lot of times we’re just, I don't want to say discipline is not the right word but I think a lot of times when there are new challenges with kids, oftentimes it's the parent is unwittingly doing something.
Jim: Exactly.
Dave: The kid’s just seen their--
Jim: [unintelligible 00:22:54] sequences.
Dave: Yes. The kid’s seeing their shot and they're shooting their shot. I think that we just have to tighten up, and I don't know if part of that too is he's the youngest. As a five-year-old, I still love to carry this kid. When I pick him up at school I'll carry him to the end of the block, and I'm like, "Do you see here that you're the only kid being carried around here? There are a bunch of three-year-olds and four-year-olds that are walking but you're being carried. We're going to have to stop this."
At least for now, I do enjoy it. He is the baby but I think that certainly there are things that he's been getting away with and that we just need to put our foot down. I think certainly part of the challenge that we have is just the communication between my wife and I. We have to be on the same page in terms of I understand that she's concern that he's not eating and so she's like, "All right well, let's find him something to eat," and that was the challenge because I'm like, "Well, I don't want to do that because then he's going to--"
I'm not putting this all on my wife because I certainly do that too because even now where we've gotten on the same page, I think we're just at my parent's place and he wasn't going to eat anything and so I'm like, "All right, look, I'm going to shred you some cheese," because they'll always eat shredded cheese. He’s like, "I don't want to eat that." I’m like, "All right, do you want me to stick it in a grilled cheese sandwich?" Because it's still the same thing.
My wife said, "No, he's going to eat the shredded cheese or not." I'm like a complete reversal. It used to be me that was like, "No, don't do that," and now that we both agreed I’m the one that's like, "Well, he should eat some. I’m a little concerned." I think that that's the thing is that we just have to stick to our guns and honestly, this is a conversation that should have happened two years ago when he was three. We should have.
I tried to implement that and we just didn't do it. We just have to do it, go cold turkey and we have to stick to it. I think it might take a little bit of time but he'll learn and the same way that it's just breakfast is evened out and it's now that breakfast is on a fairly normal path, it relieves a lot of pressure. If we could just get him to eat or at least to try stuff that would take the pressure valve off quite a bit. I agree with you, that's something that we got to work on. Jim, as we're thinking about this do you have any rules that you guys have around food and at mealtimes? Because again, we have to implement some of these things because of how we've been doing things so I'm curious given the struggles that you guys have if you have any rules.
Jim: We’ve had some similar experiences, no toys on the table that's a rule for the same reasons. They get distracted, they won't eat, they got to try three bites of everything, they’re going to stay in their seat, if they're going to get up for any reason if they need to use the washroom or get something they have to ask to be excused and ask for permission. Just more the sitting at the dining table than anything else. Of course, not talking with your mouthful, chew with your mouth closed, that sort of basic things.
They got to clear their plate and I guess it's pretty for rules. Every once in a while, there was a time where I got pretty lax and would let them listen to stories on the app, there's something called Storyline or Epic. I let them listen to a story while they had their meal mostly so, I don't know. Entertain them, but give me some time to get some things done but what I found is that they did not eat. They got so absorbed in watching the show and maybe they intentionally drag the meal out so they could have screentime.
I think they just got distracted so they'd forget to eat so that's another rule, we don't do that anymore. No screentime. The only time we eat in front of a screen is the Friday night movie night where we get the takeout. Other than that there's no screentime at the table.
Dave: On the stay in your seat, I've actually gone back and forth with this. We have chairs that have almost like bars in the back so they're not flat solid pieces of wood on the back and a couple of times I've actually buckled him in the chair. Now I'm actually thinking the child, that he can get out of it. I'm thinking of basically getting just a more difficult buckle because I'm like, "Look, this is got to stop and if you can't do it yourself, I just going to lock you in this chair and you're not getting up until the dinner's done."
I have something in my Amazon Card this stuff like ready to hit the button on that. I've done it [unintelligible 00:27:16] [crosstalk]
Jim: [unintelligible 00:27:16] For the dinner table?
Dave: Yes. No, I've actually looked at four, five, and six. I have looked in [unintelligible 00:27:20] to see if they could work. I’m actually pretty serious about it. We’ll look at it. I will try a little bit before we get to that level of extreme but it is something that I'm looking at. I really like the three bites of everything actually because we don't have that rule. It's just like one bite and then they'll take a small bite of it I’m like, "Wait, that doesn't count. You got to go again." [crosstalk]
We may as well just say three big bites and call it a day and I think that's better because one bite it doesn't give you, at that point, you're just eating it because you're eating. You're not even trying to assess like, "Oh, actually, maybe this thing might actually be good." It's just like, "I got to do this."
Jim: If they do three bites of everything, that's pretty much dinner.
Dave: It's true. Well, and I think certainly when they were younger it was like, "Oh well, they've had broccoli when they were whatever two and they don't like it." I think that the data was the kid has to have it between 10 and 15 times before they really decide that they don't like it. There's science around the number of times you have to try something before they actually have sort of grown an aversion o it and this one bite thing, it’s just not getting us there.
I like the three bites. Well, actually while we do have a lot of challenges one thing that we don't necessarily have challenges with is he'll eat a ton of fruit which I guess the challenge with that is sometimes he'll just only fruit which is not great either and I would say in general, they're decently good about vegetables. Our daughter, in particular, can eat artichokes all day long, they're both pretty good with [unintelligible 00:28:50] so there are some things good with, raw carrots.
There are a few vegetables that we can go back to kale, actually kale and soup she's good with when it's cooked down a little bit it's less raw and kale chips. My wife sometimes makes kale chips, it's pretty easy. Vegetables and fruits we’re actually relatively okay with thankfully but because we have so many issues, there are again a number of rules that we have. The number one way that I think about these rules is that I try and be conscious about the relationship that we're creating between them and food.
One thing that I have been cautious about is saying, "You have to eat everything on your plate." Part of that is I read somewhere that if kids don't have the ability to determine when they're full, as they get older they just don't know what full means and I think certainly as an adult when I've tried to lose weight I think part of it is you don't actually realize you're full, your head says keep eating and then next thing you know you're ready to pop and at some point you needed to slow down and say, I'm actually full. Even though I'm not clear that I am. I want to get them in that mindset now to say, "This is good."
Part of this is also, so when she started in pre-K three at school, we transitioned from a daycare where they provided lunch to pre-K three, there was no lunch provided. I handled all the lunches. We had a parent-teacher conference, I think it was two months in. We had the typical questions, like, socially how she doing and all that stuff, but one of the big questions was, how is she eating? They just straight up, looked at us and laughed. Because they're like, "The amount of food that you gave your daughter at the beginning of the school year was ridiculous."
I was like, "Maybe she'll eat this." You just realized that, at least for me, I oftentimes I think they're going to eat more than they're actually capable of eating. With the son, at least for him on a good day, he's not necessarily always going to eat a full sandwich. When I make his lunch he'll eat a half sandwich and then he's got some fruit and there's going to be maybe a little snack on the side and that works for him. If I try and drop in a full sandwich, that's just too much food for him. I don't want them when we're at home to go, "You have to clean your plate." That's one thing.
The other thing, again, related to this relationship with food is food is never a reward, or to comfort. I think that's very easy to do. You always hear about people emotionally eating. I remember when I was in college, I did a telephone. It's one of those where you basically call the donors of the school and you're like, "Hey, please donate 20 bucks to the school." You're basically a telemarketer for the school. Some people didn't always have great experiences at the school. Our school also had a veterinary school. You'd call people up who liked their animals, came to the school and they died. They were like, "Why are you calling." Because I remember there were times when I just had these terrible, terrible days where just people are yelling at you for six hours on your shift. Then I would just go home and binge eat something.
I am capable of emotional eating. I think that I don't want to train them early on that, "Hey, the reward is ice-cream." It happens certainly, but I try to disassociate the food and the sweet with the reward piece of it. It might be like, "It's hot out, so let's have an ice cream." It wouldn't be like, "Hey, you got a great score on that exam. Here's an ice cream."
The same thing with comfort. It's funny because there have been a number of times when my initial instinct, when I'm interacting with the kids is like, I'll give them this and that'll make them feel better, or I'll give them this to reward them. I've trained myself out after a while, but I did find myself saying, "Oh, wait a minute. I shouldn't offer that piece of candy, or I shouldn't offer that lollipop, or whatever."
I think that those are probably my first two rules around handling food. That's not really necessarily specifically about the kids. The other thing is, we talked about this trying everything. We are working on this whole, you don't have to eat it. You don't have to eat the whole thing. You don't have to like it, but you have to try it. If you try it and you don't like it, we might consider making something else, but I'm really trying to, I've mentioned a few other podcasts, I train the kids that we run a restaurant. "Oh, you don't like that, I'll make you this, or what do you want for dinner? I'll make you this."
We have to get away from that. I do want to get back to the way I grew up is like, "Here's dinner, eat it, or don't eat it. I don't care. I'm not making anything else." We're slowly starting to filter that in. That's another rule that we have getting back to the snacks also, so that you were talking about, one other rule that I have is, and this is, was even very particular during the school year where he would, our son would often come home and not have finished his lunch. Of course he's hungry and I'm like, "If you want a snack at home, you have to eat your lunch first. There's no way around that. I made that lunch for you. There's a rhyme and a reason, all the food groups are in there. You're going to eat that first. Then if you're still hungry, I'll give you a snack."
I think ultimately we might be moving away from snacking entirely, which will be a little bit difficult because they do snack at school. I always feel like, they should be eating every couple of hours. They're small. They get hungry. Their stomachs are smaller. The meals don't last them as long, but I do find that we are snacking a little bit too close to dinner time. I think that's another concern is that by the time dinner rolls around, he's already snacked. They could be healthy snacks too. It might've been like whatever carrots or a yogurt, but it still creates a problem around dinner time. Because now we're eating, he's not hungry and what's he going to do? He's going to pick up a toy and play.
Those snacks, create a domino effect down the line that we're really trying to tackle. Those are the big things. Then I guess one of the last things I have is the dessert night thing. We do have a dessert night. While generally again, we don't force the kids to finish their plate. That is, I guess the one exception is if it's dessert night, if you want to have dessert, that's a privilege, you don't get to have that. If you're only going to eat half of what was put on your plate.
I do struggle a little bit about does that line up with the previous statement of, we don't ask the kids to finish, but I will say that our son, if he doesn't want to eat something, he won't, and there's no amount of like, "Hey, you can have dessert, if you've finished this." If he's done, he's like, " No, I'll skip dessert. It's fine. I am not going to eat that." Which I am like, "Great, that's fine. You seem to know your boundaries. If you don't want to go for dessert, then knock yourself out and that's fine."
I think our rules are pretty specific to the fact that, our son in particular is a little bit more difficult when it comes to mealtimes. That's how we got around those. Jim do you have any tips and tricks relative to how you guys handle mealtimes and reinforcing, I guess, the behaviors that you guys want to see in the kids?
Jim: The reinforcing is important and similar to you with the relationship to food, if they're done eating they'll ask to be excused, "Are you full?" Yes." You're excused. I think that's another reason why the screen time is a problem because they get distracted. Part of it is a physical education is learning to recognize when you are seated and when your body's had enough and your stomach is full. Before they be excused, are they full, he has to drink enough water, he has to finish your veggies before you have a second slice of pizza, that sort of thing.
Again, just trying to-- there's a certain physical education and then also objective leads, just trying to make sure that they've got the right quantity and character of calories. As I said earlier, snacks are a problem and I'm trying to try to pair those back. What happens, I think is they get bored. You're thinking, whatever you said reminded me of this, that mostly the breakfast, they got to have a mid-morning snack. Then we have lunch. Lunch is usually on the earlier side. Then we've got another afternoon snack, but no snacks after three, because after three, like you said, it interferes with dinner. I'll pair them back, they've to get really hungry towards dinner time, just wait, we're half an hour away from dinner.
Because I think, having that schedule means that I make the snack is that they've got some sandwich, or carrots, or something like that. Slices of apple. Whereas if they just try to snack, they'll grab the candy, or the potato chips, or we were laughing about those veggie sticks earlier, things that are just trash. I think that sometimes it's just boredom, that they're not really hungry.
They're just, they want some food entertainment. Trying to stick to that schedule, the morning snack, afternoon snack and no snacks after a certain time, have been helpful. Again, this isn't a unique idea with me, as far as getting them veggies, I'll sneak them into smoothies, put some spinach in there, or something else. At least they're getting something green on days when they're not eating enough. Something that I practice is finding something that they like and holding them to it.
I've got a couple of stories that I can share about this. One is that they used to go to a daycare where the lady was vegan. She'd make these very elaborate lunches and she'd send us pictures of them. They were [unintelligible 00:39:01] with shredded kale and beansprouts and nutritional yeast. The girls would eat them. They eat them and they wouldn't complain.
There'd be one, or twice, or once, or twice. The older one would come home, very hungry. Because she decided she wouldn't eat the meal, but she didn't get anything alternatively. That's what the lady was serving. They can't fool me when they say like, they don't eat veggies. I am like, "I know you do, I've seen the picture, you eat stuff that I would even have a hard time chugging down."
Anyhow, finding something that they like and then holding them to it, for example, as a broccoli for a long time, they liked broccoli, they ate broccoli. Then we have that for dinner and they say, " I don't want it." " Yes, you do. This is like your veggie. That's the one that you said you would eat." Even if they don't want to be experimental, find something that they like. Then also do be experimental. For example, we had roasted cauliflower a couple of weeks ago and the younger one just fell in love with it. That's great. I didn't like cauliflower until it's my 30s. Good on her.
Dave: My children also love broccoli, but they're particular. Our son will only eat the top, and our daughter will only eat the bottom. It does work out pretty well but when you're cutting them, there's always way more tops and bottoms. I always have a mismatch because I cut them all up and then there's like, I got a ton of tops and missing some of the bottoms. I can usually get the whole crown somehow but I do often forget which kid likes which part but that's a funny one. Relative to our challenges, my number one thing is that they have to stop believing that they live in a restaurant.
I've just stopped asking what they wanted. Even for breakfast, like during the school year, I'd be like, "Alright, here are like five different choices. What do you want?" That's the problem. The problem is that then they go, "Well, I want six." I'm like, Well, I don't have a six, you don't want to do these. I think towards maybe the last month of school, I stopped doing that. I just put something on the table and like eat it or don't eat. I don't care. Surprisingly, I rarely get talked back from that. It's pretty rare when somebody says I'm not going to eat that.
Jim: Taking an option away.
Dave: Right. It's just like, here it is, do what you want with it but that is what is being served. That has been helpful and I think also was somewhat surprising to me when I just went cold turkey and there was no pushback. I think as other parents are thinking about how to work through because I think this whole like, oh, they didn't eat what I made. So many people have this and so I think it's one of those just put it there and you might be surprised that how they react to it. Another thing that I've started to do is adjust my serving sizes in particular, when there are specific things that I want to eat and why I want them to eat.
If we're having chips and a sandwich for lunch, we don't get chips too often but if they have chips, I'll only give them like four or five, and then they have to eat half the sandwich if they want four or five more. Then once the sandwich is done, then you get a little more but I think that was one of the early things too that I was noticing. Our son, in particular, he'll just eat the stuff he wants first, and then leave everything else behind, and then he's not interested in eating anything else after that. That's one of those things that I've been doing a lot.
One thing that I did pick up from school, at our school, what they do is they reward good behavior with these, I think at the time, they were almost little cheap poker chips or something like that but it was to reinforce good behavior. I started implementing that with our son because he's five. That type of thing still works. This actually ties into their allowance. Now we just moved to Legos. I don't remember what we used to do before. Every time he does something that we want to reinforce, he just puts a Lego in this little drawer that we have, and then after a certain number of Legos have been collected, he can effectively use that like allowance money.
A certain number of Legos equals a certain number of there's like $1 value. It ties into this larger reward piece and that seems to be working. The reason I bring this up is that he does get to pick a reward if he tries something. Again, that's only because he doesn't try a lot and so I'm trying to reinforce this positive behavior. That does seem to work more or less. Well, I guess, maybe less than more, but it does seem to work. There's that. We also do want them to drink at least a glass of milk and sometimes he's hesitant. What I'm really desperate, we'll just have a milk race. I'll chug a glass of water and he'll chug a glass of milk.
He's almost always up for that. They're so competitive at this age. It's like how do we tap into that competitive nature to get something done that we want done? That can also be like, oh, let's clean up the house. Who can clean up this thing fastest? I think chopping into those competitive juices is always good. In terms of just school stuff, I tend to make four batches of baked goods at the beginning of the week and then we can reheat it or freeze. It's like pancakes. They just get thrown in the toaster oven and we can eat those all week long and I don't have to make breakfast again.
My dad will make us waffles sometimes and then we'll just freeze them all and then we can stretch them for a month or something because he's not eating them every day. I also during the school year, think about when I'm thinking about dinners, I'm also thinking about because I plan the meals for the week on a Friday. I'm like, okay, which of these dinners can likely be repurposed for school lunch and where does it make the most sense during the course of that week to plot that in and based on all of the other recipes, and how many leftovers I expect, and how many things I expect that they're going to like.
One other thing that we do for our daughter is now that I'm moving towards this, this is not a restaurant, eat what I serve, the transition point that I've made for her is, hey, you can pick one meal out of the week. She has a list. I've been collecting this list over, I don't know, six months to a year. We do have maybe 20, or 30 recipes that we can go to that she's like, I'll eat any of these. She gets to pick it and at least is something that I made. I know it tastes good so we can do that. Then also when I make new recipes because I usually try and rotate. In a seven-day a week, I try and get maybe four to five new recipes in a week, and then she'll tell me, add that to my list.
It's just like a Google Sheet that I have, so I can check in on it. That works out pretty well for me to be able to say okay, here's the list, pick whatever you want this week and that's your meal for the week. Then I guess the last thing that I think about often is, with our first like I mentioned, she was a little bit picky and didn't eat a ton of stuff at the beginning. We did go to the pediatrician, and we said, "Look, we're a little bit concerned." She said, "Look, the kids are not going to starve, relax." Doing the research at the beginning of the show, I came across this quote that I liked, and it's from Dr. Natalie Mirth, who's a pediatrician and she's a registered dietitian.
She said a hungry child will eventually eat. Your best shot is having your child hungry at mealtimes when there is a variety of food. I think that goes back to again, the point that we were both making about late afternoon snack times is that even if it is a healthy snack at four o'clock, if dinner's coming up at five or 5:00 or 5:30, they're not going to be hungry. It's just throwing your whole rhythm off and I think what you're trying to accomplish. I think one of these things is I'm really starting to revaluate the afternoon snack and I think like you were probably going to start looking at having a cutoff. It might be a little bit later for us dinner was on the table, maybe at 6:00 or 7:00, depending.
Maybe the cutoff is like 3:30 but I think that's a good rule. That's it, you're done. You got to wait now. Those are the things that work for us. We hope you found today's episode informative. If you'd like to support the podcast and hear more discussions around fatherhood, please subscribe and drop us a review. If you have any questions, hit us up on the Facebook page, facebook.com/papaestfatigue, that's P-A-P-A-E-S-T-F-A-T-I-G-U-E. Thanks for listening.
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