My daughter loves to help mix and stir, and my son simply loves to watch the action. Buy a small stool and keep it within reach so your tot can climb up and help or watch you prepare the meals. Little by little, dinner time will get easier when you make it an opportunity for your kids to earn your praise.Īs soon as they are able, let your kids start helping you out in the kitchen, even if it’s in a small way. When you practice praising the small accomplishments, your child will inherently want to do more to earn your accolades. Start small and work your way to longer periods of time. When he accomplishes that, praise him highly and then don’t make a big deal if he runs around the table for the rest of the meal. If your son has a problem sitting still for 10 minutes straight, encourage him to sit still and eat for two minutes. Many moms have difficulty keeping their kids seated at the dinner table throughout a meal. When they use a fork correctly for the first time, make a big deal of their accomplishment. When they try new food, even if they spit it out, praise them for having the courage to try something new. It may seem tedious, but praising your child for even the smallest of good behaviors during a meal will make a huge difference in their overall mealtime behavior. If you want your kids to exhibit good manners at the dinner table, brush up on etiquette and start practicing as early as possible. While neither my husband nor I had bad manners, we knew we’d probably need to start self-enforcing some key behaviors, such as staying seated until everyone finished the meal. We also knew this same concept was true for table manners. If we wanted to teach our kids good eating habits, we had to model them. That meant my husband would have to eat more than lettuce and carrots as his only source of vegetables, and we would both have to curb our enthusiasm for ice cream regularly. We knew that if we wanted our kids to eat good, healthy food and try a variety of it, we needed to lead by example. When our daughter was old enough to eat with us at our dinner table, my husband and I had a “come to Jesus” moment about our eating habits. When they know what to expect, when to expect it, and how long it will last, they’re more likely to be able to keep their crazies in check for that time. Some nights you can’t help a later dinner, but if you’re keeping dinner time to about the same time every night, it will help keep your kids’ behavior in check. He now sits and finishes his meal before he’s excused from the table, and he’s only two.Īs for a routine, having your meal prepared and ready to eat around the same time every evening is key. He learned after about three or four unfinished dinners that mommy was serious. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sent my son to bed with a half-full belly because he refused to stay at the table. Granted, these rules can be hard to enforce, but staying firm is important. Rules such as no playing at the table, no eating anywhere but at the table, and no getting up from the table until you’re finished made some good, solid guidelines for a peaceful meal. Setting down some firm mealtime rules and establishing and sticking to a dinner routine early on will significantly impact how your toddler acts at the table. But it doesn’t have to be this way! Fortunately, you can take some simple but effective steps (the sooner, the better!) to encourage a more peaceful and enjoyable toddler mealtime experience. Refusal to eat a certain food, or anything at all, playing with food, throwing food, crying when the food is the wrong color, texture, smell, taste, etc., running around the table, exercising rude sounds…you name it, your toddler probably has done it at dinner time. Sounds fun, right?Īll joking aside, mealtime with toddlers can be challenging. Not only is the real-life toddler meal experience precisely nothing like that pretty little description, but it is also likely to be more similar to the seventh circle of hell. However, it doesn’t take long for that idyllic image to be shattered once you have a meal with a toddler for the first time. I’m sure every mom envisions some semblance of that happy family mealtime picture when she has kids.
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