The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! We have advice and practical tips to make it a simple and free process for you.
…but will they eat it?
Once you have started understanding your child’s preferences, engaging them with different veg, and making slow but important changes to the food you are eating, you will have got the veg as far as the plate. But how do you get that veg from the plate to your children’s bellies?
We got expert Dr Clare Holley, a child psychologist specialising in encouraging children to eat veg, to share her secrets to success.
Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. The serving process can be a great way to add to their sense of involvement in a meal, whether they have helped make it or not!
Know your kids
I have offered ideas below for ways that children with different interests can be involved in serving up the meal, but of course, you know your child best, so feel free to adapt them to suit or come up with your own ideas with them.
Serving is a great opportunity for engagement and responsibility, meaning a child can take pride in helping get a meal on the table and feel more comfortable eating it.
Every child has different interests and strengths, so you can adapt these ideas or come up with new ones that suit them better. Big or small, any involvement will improve the chances of the food on the plate being eaten!
Design a menu
Whether it is just using one of Simply Veg’s free digital templates, or designing their own menu from scratch, let them know what you will be having and settle them with pencils or pens and paper to create something they are proud of.
Silly meal name
We love coming up with silly names for dinners, and kids usually come up with the best ones! We love “Dig down pie” for a shepherd’s pie they have to “dig” through with a spoon, or “Soupa Doupa Noodle Showdown” for a stir fry. See if they can work in the name of their favourite TV or video game star, or make everybody laugh with a pun-based dinner title. Make sure to use their name when you serve the dinner so they feel included.
Meal planning
When you are deciding what meals to have in the week ahead and what veg to include, see if your child would like to help you choose. Can they figure out which veg they think will go best with which dinners. When you serve a dinner they have helped choose, remind them and maybe even call it theirs!
Serving
Serving should be a chance for fun and engagement, it’s not just plonking the food down on the table. Give your children a role such as laying the table, making a craft ‘centrepiece’, announcing when the meal is ready (especially if they came up with a silly name for it), handing out menus if they have created one, or even serving the food itself.
If they are helping you plate up, watch out for anything hot, but don’t worry too much about mess, keep it fun and relaxed. Any extras toppings you’ve left to the end like grated cheese, herbs, or build-your-own meals are perfect for younger kids to put in bowls, or they could help you ladle dinner into bowls or plates to serve.
Getting kids involved here is great, but it doesn’t have to be every night. In fact, doing it just sometimes for fun, particularly if you just enhanced a dish or are trying something new, can make it more exciting and kids will be more keen to get involved.
Dr Clare Holley PhD, FHEA
Clare is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Loughborough University. Her research expertise is around children’s eating behaviour, with a focus on how we can promote healthy eating behaviours and reduce unhealthy eating behaviours. She has a particular passion for all things Veg, and has been researching effective ways of increasing children’s vegetable consumption for 10 years.
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