TMC mom:
My 10 year old daughter's best friend has very peculiar eating habits. She only eats 3 things - waffles, chocolate and peanut butter. I kid you not. Every time this little girl comes to my house, her mom packs a Tupperware box filled with these things and that's all she eats. I'm finding it really hard to watch this little girl live on such an unbalanced diet -- esp. when she's at my house. What do I do?
Uncle Brett:
This seems to me like it's actually two questions rolled up in one. The first is a personal one about responding to the daughter's pal; the second (implied one) is about kids and nutrition. Given my preference for making things personal, I'll start with the friend. You can't fix other people's kids if they haven't asked for your help, so the solution here is easy: just buy some Kellog's Eggo Flip Flops. One of the consulting companies I work with helped develop these. They're round, frozen toaster-waffles with one flavor on one half, and one on the other (they look like a pie graph of a statistic with a perfectly even split.) I'm pretty sure they've cross-branded with some candy companies, so there's probably a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup flavor by now. Having these in the freezer would save the girl the hassle of bringing over all these separate ingredients, and cut down on all the wasteful consumption of plastic in the Tupperware. In terms of creating a understanding of, and desire for, a healthy diet with your own kid, I recommend a three pronged approach:
1) Provide sensible and realistic portions of a balanced group of foods at every major meal. The tri-color system is a good one to keep in mind (something beige, something green, something orange). Or the three-group approach also works (protein, vegetable, starch). If you regularly serve your child foods outside of the white or off-white color family (pizza, macaroni, some sort of "nuggets"), and act as if consuming all of these things is an expected part of a normal dining experience, they will learn to share your expectations.
2) Distribute these foods at a regular and routinized number of intervals during the day. Like most things in kids' lives, mealtimes benefit from having a consistent system attached to them, with their own rules, locations, and expectations. This provides a framing structure, helps kids know what to expect, and prevents blow-back from other unrelated things finding their way into feeding time.
3) Avoid using food as a bribe, punishment, reward, or weapon. Unless your child is suffering from overt signs of malnourishment--weight loss, weakness, palpitations, diarrhea--I suggest you put a moratorium on all food-related nagging. Just set the food out, give them sufficient time to graze, then call it a day. Oh and in terms of the dessert dilemma, make sweets a scheduled treat--every Saturday afternoon, when you're out to eat, at Grandma's--and skip them the rest of the time. If you make them a bookend at the end of a meal, you're just creating a thrice daily battle for yourself...and modeling poor habits and goals for your child.
*Brett Berk, M.S.Ed has worked with young children and families for over twenty years, and is the author of The Gay Uncle's Guide to Parenting (Random House, 2008). Visit him at www.askgayuncle.com
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