How far should one parent online? Catch today's post in the Globe and Mail with comments by Judy Arnall, Canada's leading "parenting the digital generation" speaker and expert:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/personal-tech/parenting-in-public-stop-lecturing-on-my-wall-mom/article1442459/
Monday, January 25, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Children's Picky Finicky Eating - How to Get Your Child to Eat
PICKY EATING PROBLEMS
By Judy Arnall
Babies eat more food relative to weight in the first year, compared to any other year of their life. By age one, food consumption drastically reduces. Babies triple their birth weight in the first year, and toddlers only gain five pounds in the second year. If you can get one good meal into a toddler in a day, you are doing very well!
It helps to think about the division of responsibilities between parent and child as outlined by Ellen Satter. The feeding relationship helps to lesson the need to bargain, bribe, and punish a child to get them to eat. It allows for healthier eating habits and social eating relationships. According to an informal poll of my parenting groups, about 25 to 30 percent of parents feel their toddlers are picky eaters. Toddlers are definitely more interested in exploring than eating, so more food may be on them, the tray and the floor than in their tummies! That’s okay. It’s just a stage.
The Feeding Relationship
The parent’s job
What:
Parents control the money and shopping at this age and make most decisions of what to buy.
The parent controls what food is bought, stored, cooked, and served.
When:
The parent decides when snack and meal times will be.
Toddler’s tummies are about the size of a ping pong ball, and they need food and drink every two hours. Three meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and three snacks: mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and bedtime per day is recommended. The parent keeps the food onthe table for 20 minutes and then puts the food away until the next scheduled meal or snack.
Where:
The parent decides where eating and drinking will take place. Eating at the table should be encouraged to minimize the risk of choking while running, walking,or climbing. It’s also a good habit to get into, as non-aware eating can lead to weight issues. When children eat while watching movies, playing video games, or computers, they are not consciously enjoying the food or even paying attention to what they are eating. Although, I have noticed you can easily slip a plate of raw vegetables and dip under their noses while they are playing video games and the whole plate is gone in minutes. I don’t even think they notice what they just ate!
If:
The child decides if he will eat, according to his internal hunger cues rather than the clock or schedule. A meal is only a small part of the day’s food intake – only 1/6. If your child chooses not to eat, don’t worry. He will make up for it at some time later in the day, next day, or in a few days.
How much:
The child decides what quantity will satisfy his hunger. This also helps him decide his internal cues.
More Eating Tips:
By Judy Arnall
Babies eat more food relative to weight in the first year, compared to any other year of their life. By age one, food consumption drastically reduces. Babies triple their birth weight in the first year, and toddlers only gain five pounds in the second year. If you can get one good meal into a toddler in a day, you are doing very well!
It helps to think about the division of responsibilities between parent and child as outlined by Ellen Satter. The feeding relationship helps to lesson the need to bargain, bribe, and punish a child to get them to eat. It allows for healthier eating habits and social eating relationships. According to an informal poll of my parenting groups, about 25 to 30 percent of parents feel their toddlers are picky eaters. Toddlers are definitely more interested in exploring than eating, so more food may be on them, the tray and the floor than in their tummies! That’s okay. It’s just a stage.
The Feeding Relationship
The parent’s job
What:
Parents control the money and shopping at this age and make most decisions of what to buy.
The parent controls what food is bought, stored, cooked, and served.
When:
The parent decides when snack and meal times will be.
Toddler’s tummies are about the size of a ping pong ball, and they need food and drink every two hours. Three meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and three snacks: mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and bedtime per day is recommended. The parent keeps the food onthe table for 20 minutes and then puts the food away until the next scheduled meal or snack.
Where:
The parent decides where eating and drinking will take place. Eating at the table should be encouraged to minimize the risk of choking while running, walking,or climbing. It’s also a good habit to get into, as non-aware eating can lead to weight issues. When children eat while watching movies, playing video games, or computers, they are not consciously enjoying the food or even paying attention to what they are eating. Although, I have noticed you can easily slip a plate of raw vegetables and dip under their noses while they are playing video games and the whole plate is gone in minutes. I don’t even think they notice what they just ate!
The child’s job
If:
The child decides if he will eat, according to his internal hunger cues rather than the clock or schedule. A meal is only a small part of the day’s food intake – only 1/6. If your child chooses not to eat, don’t worry. He will make up for it at some time later in the day, next day, or in a few days.
How much:
The child decides what quantity will satisfy his hunger. This also helps him decide his internal cues.
More Eating Tips:
Food jags are normal, where the child eats nothing but peanut butter and jam sandwiches for three weeks or a longer period of time. That’s okay. As long as it’s a healthy food, don’t worry about their nutritional intake. Most parents who worried about nutrition, found that their toddlers did eat a variety of foods when they kept a log of their food intake over a week or two week period.
It takes 15 tries to accept a new food. Have a one bite routine – try one bite (the no-thank-you bite) and see if your child likes it. If they don’t, let them spit it out. Don’t turn the one bite routine into a power struggle. Young children have very sensitive taste buds and they definitely will change overtime.
Toddlers usually don’t eat much at dinner. They are tired and cranky at the end of the day. Track their lunch and breakfast intake.
Toddlers usually prefer finger type foods.
Cut a bathmat in half and use it on the highchair seat so they don’t slide out.
To save time, don’t use dishes. Put the food right on the tray. Then the plate won’t be thrown.
Give baby a spoon for each hand and then you can feed him with a separate spoon. It keeps his hands busy.
Give a butter spreader to help preschoolers cut food.
Let a toddler practice drinking from a sippy cup in the bathtub.
Fill toddler glasses only one third full, and make sure all dishes are plastic.
Cool hot food by dumping in an ice cube.
Be aware of micro-waving mugs with the attached plastic straws on the outside.
The liquid in the straw heats first and can cause burns because the toddler drinks it first.
Clean highchairs and strollers in the shower. Run water and let the encrusted food soften. Works as well outside in the summer with the hose.
Dumping, mushing, and throwing food are exploratory behaviors. A little food exploration is part of development. When the food deliberately hits the walls, or the food exploration is testing your patience on a stressful day, it’s a signal that mealtime is over. Remove your child from the eating place.
If the toddler doesn’t sit still at mealtime, schedule a burn up activity right before mealtime, and they will have used up some energy. Before a restaurant visit, go to a playground. In fact, this works well for any event that requires a certain amount of sit still time: weddings, church, movies, concerts. Be thankful for 10 – 15 minutes, as this is all you might get!
Let them feed themselves with non-messy foods like peas and bread pieces while you can still feed the messy stuff with the spoon.
Try serving finger foods with dip or sauce. All children love sauces to swirl.
Serve mini portions of old favorites: pancakes, muffins, meatballs.
Let them pour their own juice using the dishwasher door as a counter surface.
Then you can just close the door after they spill and the mess goes into the dishwasher.
Serve a tray of carrot sticks, broccoli florets, red pepper, and salad dressing as you are getting dinner ready. Guaranteed it will be gone!
You can pretend to sprinkle sugar over the cereal and nobody will notice the difference. Just wave your spoon over and your toddler will think you put sugar and salt on their food.
Young children tend to like their food separated. Avoid casseroles if possible.
Serve dessert along with the meal. Don’t elevate the status of dessert as more desirable by declaring it the prize for eating the lesser-valued dinner items.
Purée vegetables to hide in soups and sauces.
Make sure dessert is healthy. Fruit, yogurt, ice-cream and oatmeal cookies are all very healthy choices and part of a balanced diet.
Avoid classifying food into “good” and “bad” categories. Use “more nutritious” and “less nutritious” so you get your child into the habit of making better food choice decisions.
Avoid punishing or rewarding a child with food items.
Treats are occasional foods. They wouldn’t be called treats if they were served every day.
Designate a treat day.
Avoid bargaining using food. Parents who say, “Eat four more bites of your hamburger and then you can have your toy,” are setting themselves up for power struggles. Children learn very quickly that parents want them to eat, and by refusing, they can get attention and control. Give children attention for positive behavior and control in the form of choices. Don’t make eating a power struggle.
For fun, serve food on doll or play dishes.
Preserve the social function of food. A comforting, social, happy atmosphere at meal and snack time and a wide variety of healthy foods is all that’s needed for childhood nutrition.
Judy Arnall is a professional international award-winning Parenting Speaker, and Trainer, Mom of five children, and author of the best-selling, “Discipline Without Distress: 135 tools for raising caring, responsible children without time-out, spanking, punishment or bribery
“ She specializes in “Parenting the Digital Generation” and picky eating habits http://www.professionalparenting.ca/ (403) 714-6766 jarnall@shaw.ca
Copyright permission granted for “reproduction without permission” of this article in whole or part, if the above credit is included in its entirety.
How to Get Your Child off Computer/Video Games
Top Ten Tips to Limit Your Child’s Screen Time without Scream Time!
By Judy Arnall
Eight year old Kyle received no less than nine new computer and video games for the holidays and his parents are wondering how to keep him under the health professionals’ recommended screen time limit of one and a half hours a day without Kyle throwing a fit.
It can be difficult to impose rules on time spent in front of the TV, video machine, DVD and handheld players, but it’s not impossible. Here are the top ten ways to help your child manage screen time and not destroy your valuable parenting relationship.
- Redirect to other stimulation. Have board games set up, sports equipment ready to go, or recipe ingredients laid out ready for a baking session.
- Be involved and knowledgeable of where they travel on the Internet and whom they play games with. Spend time building the parent-child relationship by taking an interest in their on-line gaming and chatting pursuits. It’s easier to direct them to your activities after you connect for a while in their playground.
- Don’t punish – problem solve! It’s not a battle of you against them. It’s you and your child against the problem. You are both on the same team! Work the problem out together to everyone’s satisfaction and enjoy the new rules and increased connection.
- Model a balanced life that includes seven keys to health and happiness. Invite your child toparticipate with you in your pursuit of the seven keys of a balanced life. Many children willget active if the parents or the whole family is involved:
- 7 Keys to a Balanced Life
Social time - time spent with friends
Physical activity time - exercise, sports, active play
Mental exercise time - educational activities, games, puzzles, homework, reading
Spiritual time – volunteering, meditating, solitude, unstructured play, church
Family time – doing projects
Financial time – job
Hobby Time – leisure pursuits and projects - Negotiate! Make good use of Family Conferences, "parent concern" Consulting, and negotiation sessions to discuss time limits that meet everyone’s needs.
- Issue time tokens. Each hour of physical activity will garner a child an hour of screen time.
- Get it in writing. Draw up a daily schedule and discuss where screen time fits in with the day’s already scheduled activities. Children can sign into time slots.
- Contract. Draw up a weekly or monthly agreement that has limits decided by both the parent and child together. Display in a prominent place. Point to it when the complaining occurs. Discuss when the contract is up for renewal.
- Change the environment. Sometimes, it’s easier to move around the setting than to change the other person. Seriously consider whether adding more equipment and hardware will add to the screen time and decide to not bring it into the house. Move the computer and gaming systems into the main family area. Having one unit for the children to share means more fighting over screen time, but can also mean more time spent in learning the valuable skill of negotiating and less individual screen time.
- (Bonus!) Teach your child the fine art of Haggling! "Hey, Eric, Wow, you made another level! Good for you! Now, I need you to do the dishes. What time would you like to get at them?" Insist they give you a time and haggle when they give you an outrageous one. Choice from your child makes it easier for them to abide by it.
Remember that you have the most power to negotiate rules and limits before the power button goes on! Go for it!
Judy Arnall is a professional international award-winning Parenting Speaker, and Trainer, Mom of five children, and author of the best-selling, "Discipline Without Distress: 135 tools for raising caring, responsible children without time-out, spanking, punishment or bribery" She specializes in "Parenting the Digital Generation" and is available for keynotes or breakouts on many net generation topics http://www.professionalparenting.ca/ (403) 714-6766 jarnall@shaw.ca
Copyright permission granted for "reproduction without permission" of this article in whole or part, if the above credit is included in its entirety.
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