They Call Me Granna: Surviving Dinner
There is a tradition that the young learn from the old. Grandparents hand down their years of wisdom to the younger generation. The younger generation pretends to listen and then makes all the same mistakes. My children and grandchildren are far away from me in distance but we still remain close. I know they shake their head at me and say, "there she goes again." In the spirit of handing down wisdom I am creating a new blog series. "They Call Me Granna" will be focused on providing the great and bounteous wisdom of my years. Stop snorting. It's not polite. After seven kids, a divorce, single motherhood, and now living on my own - I think I've earned it. So find a moment of quiet, get a cup of tea, and listen in - and then do what you want with it.
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I was a picky eater. And I was stubborn. I remember spending hours at the dinner table refusing to eat. My father who starved in WWII at the siege in Leningrad, didn't understand it. My mother had war rations growing up in Canada. It was bewildering to them why their child wouldn't eat. Finally Mom would let me go from the table, my meal still uneaten. Dad would be angry that she did this. Eventually they gave up on forcing me to eat because I really was that stubborn and being hungry was easier than tortuous eating. Later I developed an eating disorder. What they didn't realize, is that I didn't eat because the food was awful. Powdered milk turned me off of milk for years. Greasy soups and stews with bones. Beet salad which may not sound too bad, but put beets, spam and sardines together and you're going to end up with a justifiable revolt on your hands.
On the other extreme are the parents who let the children dictate to them what to serve. These kids live on peanut butter sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, and dessert.
I did not raise picky eaters. My kids love food and equate dinners with good times. No one was forced to sit at the table for hours after dinner was over. But I didn't serve peanut butter sandwiches when it wasn't on the menu either. So here are some tips on getting those kids to eat. Note - obviously allergies must be taken into consideration as well as medical diets. If you have kids who have tons of allergies then I salute you and carry on with your very difficult challenge. You are warrior angels. Also pregnant women are exempt. If you are creating another human being you can eat anything you darn well please whenever you want.
1. Have a family meal together at least once a week. And we're not talking about grabbing McDonalds and eating in the car on the way to soccer, ballet, and the latest protest. We're talking about actually
sitting down to a table where there's real plates and cutlery and glasses and you can see other people's faces. The old fashioned way. If you can do it every night even better, but try and get that one dinner in. And no phones, electronics, or any other distractions. And that means you too Mom and Dad. Unless you are on call for your work, you don't need that phone. You can always call people back.
2. Learn to cook. I'm not talking about becoming a gourmet and having your own cooking show. Or going through Julia Child's book "The Joy of Cooking". I'm talking about learning to make something more than boxed mac and cheese or a can of soup. There's nothing wrong with serving those things sometimes, but do yourself a favor and learn some basic cooking skills. Honestly, it's not hard. If you can read a recipe and follow simple directions you can cook. Oh, and keep an eye on things. You can burn water.
3. You have to make the food taste good otherwise no one will want to come. That's why I didn't eat. I wasn't trying to be difficult. But eating food that tasted awful was torture to me. Not everything goes together. Beets, sardines, and spam certainly don't.
4. Involve your kids. Teach them to cook. Let them help plan the menus. If kids are involved in the choices they're more likely to eat and if they are cooking it they will eat it. You can even go further and plant a garden with them. They'll eat the veggies they grow. Have them set the table and help serve the food. They need to understand and experience the work that goes into preparing and serving a meal.
5. Make dinner safe. This is not the time to grill them about why they got a D in spelling or why they didn't clean up their room. This is not the time to ground them. You may have to confront issues, but not at the dinner table. Do it someplace else at another time. You don't want kids dreading dinner. They should want to come to the table. It's a time of connection and love, not punishment and making them wish they were any other place, otherwise as they grow older they will find some other place to be. 6. Make dinner fun and interesting. Ask them about their day. Ask them what they think about current issues and really listen to them. Kids love to give their opinions. Respect those opinions even if you don't agree with them. Remember rule 5 about keeping it safe. It's a great time to get to know your kids better. The conversations at my dinner table often got so lively and quick that it was hard for an outsider to keep up. But my kids loved it. By the way, subjects like politics and religion are important conversations and are not taboo as long as there's no name calling or demeaning people.
If you run out of things to say there's also word games. "I went camping and I brought a ..." and you name something beginning with A. The next person repeats the phrase, says your A object and then adds another object beginning with B. You'll help enhance memory skills as well as learning the alphabet. You can also play games where you go around the circle naming a city beginning with C. There's a ton of word games out there. You can also do story chains. Or ask them questions like "if you could have three super powers, what would they be?"
7. Unless you have to be somewhere, don't rush dinner. There shouldn't be time limits on eating. Let people enjoy themselves. Dinner is to be experienced, not just something to tick off a list. 8. Here's where it gets tricky. All right, are you ready? Dinner is what is served. That's it. No substitutions. If you don't like it, you don't have to eat it, but you don't get anything else. If you're hungry that's your choice. Of course there's exceptions which I pointed out at the beginning. But for the most part, dinner is on the table. It's not in the kitchen in the cupboards or the fridge or hiding in someone's backpack.
9. Everyone is required to have a spoonful of everything. If you don't like peas, you can handle having a spoonful of peas. Now the exception here is things like condiments, spices, - those extras. And certainly if you're having taco, sandwich, or make your own pizza night - people can pick and choose what they want.
10. Uneaten dinners get wrapped up and put in the fridge. If they're hungry after dinner and they didn't eat their dinner, they get to have their dinner. Otherwise you've got kids that refuse dinner but are then after dinner foraging in the kitchen. Don't let them get away with this. Now, if they've eaten their dinner and they need a snack later then you can allow it or guide them. But they have to have eaten their dinner.
Honestly - it's the rare child who will starve themselves. And you are not starving them. You are offering them food and they can take it or leave it.
11. Try new things but not all at once. So introduce a new dish and have a favorite standby as well. You want to try a new vegetable? Great. Serve it alongside potatoes and their favorite chicken. No one should end up hating their entire dinner.
12. You are not running a restaurant (unless you really are running a restaurant). You are not required to make a bunch of different things to please everyone all the time. If you're serving fish, you are not obligated to make a burger for the kid who doesn't like fish. They either eat the fish, or they don't.
13. Do not punish children for not eating by making them sit at the table after everyone is gone. It doesn't work. It creates resentment and eating disorders. And it breaks the important rule of being safe at dinner. You can wrap up their dinner in case they're hungry later that night. 14. Leftover night! This is when you pull all the leftovers out of the fridge and people can claim what they want. So someone has spaghetti and someone else has turkey and mashed potatoes and another has soup. If more than one person wants something and there's only enough for one, you can still half it and they can choose something else as well. This is not the time to agonize over balanced meals. This is about getting rid of the leftovers before they go bad. 15. Have them thank the cook(s). Before they leave the table they need to say thank you to all those who prepared the meal. This teaches them appreciation and when it's their turn to cook then they will appreciate that appreciation.
16. Everyone clears their own spot. Even little ones can do this. No one should be left cleaning up all alone. Make clean up part of dinner and family time. Rotate jobs so the same people aren't doing the same things. Again, this is still safe time and it can be fun as you continue to encourage conversation and laughter.
Now, I'm not saying that this is going to guarantee Hallmark commercial dinners every time. There will inevitably be fights, and tears, and tantrums, and someone will probably storm off from the table at some point screaming "I hate everyone and no one understands me" and then everyone will have to go to her room and say "we're sorry Mom". People are human. Kids can be difficult. Parents get testy. Hormonal teenagers exist. Love doesn't always fit into a song. But dinner is doable.
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Today's Canadian Woman is Jean Paré (1927 - )
If that name sounds vaguely familiar but you just can't place it, take a look at your cookbooks. Jean is the creator of the Company's Coming series and pretty much everyone, or every Canadian, has at least one of her cookbooks on their shelf. Now there's a place to get good, simple recipes that don't call for complicated or hard to get ingredients. She's sold over 30 million cookbooks. She is also a recipient of The Order of Canada which is the highest civilian honor in the land. Amazingly, although the books are easy to get either new or at any thrift store, Company's Coming doesn't seem to have a website. So I'll just link you to Wikepedia and you can search from there. And although she has a picture on the back of her books, I can't find one online. Jean Paré
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Questions.
What tips do you have for dinner time?
Do you have a favorite cookbook? How often do you sit down with family to eat?
