I was chatting to a young dad about his children. He mentioned that meal times were a bit argumentative and not very pleasurable. He and his partner had some difficulty getting the kids to eat meals. Healthy home cooked meals not purchased meals. I thought that I might write something on the topic of what my mother referred to as the Food War. Freud believed that this stage of life played an important role in how we turn out as adults. I know my Mother and Father in law embarked in a War with my husband when he was a young child over a piece of cauliflower that went for three days. My husband had a really entrenched hatred of vegetables for almost his entire adult life primarily out of spite for his parents insistence he eat them. The mere sight of a cauliflower sent him into the recollection of the "cauliflower war". He relished in telling us all how he won that war, despite being presented with the same cauliflower for three days running and not being given any other food. He resourcefully used his pocket money to buy chips and coke, he discovered that he could sneak food from the fridge and survived nicely. He sat defiantly at the dinner table for three hours every night for three days, staring down his parents and that shriveled up piece of cauliflower, as he described it, as Clint Eastwood or John Wayne would have done in an epic showdown on the main drag of a dusty western town against the bad guy.
My mother a former maternal and child health nurse regarded the Poo and Food wars as unwinnable battlegrounds. I'm not so sure. Perhaps viewing any interaction with your child as a war isn't the best starting place. I know Freud isn't the most popular psychologist. I do think he got at least a few things right. Freud's theory regarding defensiveness, I believe are right on the money. I think my friends kids are doing just that. They have been challenged and are countering this challenge with defensiveness. Perhaps they are building up catalogs of war stories to re-tell their own children as my husband did with the cauliflower war.
What do we know about kids. On the biological side kids taste buds are different to adult taste buds. When kids complain about food tasting bad it may very well taste horrible to them. Taste buds change as we get older. I know for example when my kids were younger my olive and blue view cheese was in no danger of being consumed by my rascals yet when they hit 20 it was a race to the olive jar. Perhaps disguising some of the more flavorsome veggies like cauliflower and broccoli in a bit of cheese sauce or as my mother did put them in spaghetti sauce chopped up so finely would never be found. I have found some great ideas on the net. It would be remiss of me not to mention Jamie Oliver's great ideas for food prepared for kids.
One of my palliative care patients said to me while contemplating his life. "Good food and beautiful wines have bought so much joy to my life, added to these family and friends sharing it with me...well that's it really". This was a fellow who had traveled the world, had a brilliant career and had numerous life time successes. When it gets down to it what gave him the most joy was a good meal accompanied with a lovely drop of wine shared with friends and family.
Food can provide such pleasure and my patient had some lovely memories which he recalled to me. Stories of sitting with his friends, on his patio on summer evenings, eating crusty bread, cheeses of all descriptions, sumptuous meals devoured with great friends washed down with red wine. All you have to do is listen to the passionate way in which foodies talk about the joy food has bought them. The preparation, the presenting of the food and the moment of consuming the food. I wouldn't want my kids to miss out on such a great thing as the joy that food can bring. It's really worth parents putting a bit of creative effort into food presentation and encouraging kids to eat healthy foods. Getting kids involved in the cooking process can have the side benefit of creating good cooks as well as encouraging reluctant eaters to enjoy food. This is an opportunity to create lovely memories for your kids to look back on. I loved getting in the kitchen with my dad, mum and grandmother as a child. I also enjoyed cooking with my kids.
My young friends kids ate a lot of snacks of biscuits,chips and fizzy drink. I'm almost certain that if they were presented with chips, chocolate and biscuits for dinner there would be no argument. You could do that however, if you present children with a good mixture of foods including healthy food they will eat a good balance. It's the parents job to make sure their kids get that variety of foods with the outcome being that the kids learn that food is a thing of pleasure not pain. If you enter into a food war you won't win. If you enter into a food adventure you might have some fun and discover one of life's great joys together with your toddler in tow.
My father's trainer, Percy Cerutty, would tell me when I was a kid. "Your body is the most complicated machine man has ever known, you must treat it with great respect." He was so right. I know if I am eating well, sleeping well and going for a good walk, everything else just works better. I'm not sure Percy would approve of the banana muffins and chocolate muffins I made with my son, I'm sure he would be pleased to know that we still eat his homemade cereal, when we have the cash to buy the ingredients, its a real treat.
References
No comments:
Post a Comment