Dana Obleman: Hi, I’m Dana Obleman. Welcome to this week’s video blog. Today, I want to talk a little bit about mealtimes. I get emails and questions from parents everyday who are agonizing over their child’s eating habits. Today, I just want you to take a pause, take a deep breath, and try to relax a little bit around your child’s diet.

I’m going to give you a few tips today that I feel are your responsibility, and some tips on what is your child’s responsibility. In the Food Sense Program, we talk about that a lot. The division of power, so to speak. As a parent, your job is to provide some structure around mealtime and appropriate timing for meals. For example, if we’re talking about a 12‐month‐old, little tummies need food often. They are not the same as adults.

They definitely cannot go for hours without food. They’ll get grouchy and aggressive and you name it. A good rule of thumb is every two hours, you should be thinking about either a snack or a meal. If you’re out and about, that’s fine. You don’t need to be home for every eating occasion, but make sure you pack some snacks along, so that you have to opportunity to offer your child something every two hours.

If it is mealtime however, I believe there should be some structure around that, too. I’m not a fan of the child who just runs around the house, and every five minutes stops to eat a bit of food. I think we need to teach children to sit down for meals. What that involves, as far the family is concerned, that mealtime is a time for discussion and conversation about the day. These are all great habits to get into at a very early age.

For mealtime, sit down together and have a meal. That is your job. Your job, also, is to provide some healthy choices. By that I mean, if it’s snack time, some banana, maybe a few pieces of bread with butter. Whatever it is, that’s your choice. A good rule of thumb around choice is three options. Maybe some raisins, some cheese, and some bread. That’s the snack, or that is the meal, and that is your decision.

Now, here’s the tricky part. Whether or not your child eats any of it or all of it is up to the child. That is their business. That’s where the waters get a little muddy. As parents we think, “Oh, he’s not eating any of it,” or “He’s only eating the raisins,” or “He’s only eating the cheese.” That’s where we get all worried. We intervene, and we push our will upon our children at this point. We shouldn’t. All that will teach them is that there’s a battle involved when it comes to food. That some foods are better than other foods. It can cause all kinds of problems. Not only with your relationship with your child, but also your child’s relationships with food. My rule of thumb around parenting, in any area, is that my job is to create human beings that become fabulous adults. I don’t want my kids to have any kind of food issues, or negative association with food, or overeat, or all the problems that we end up with as adults.

That’s my number one rule. You have to give your child the power to make some decisions around food. Now, that does not mean that every time they ask for something, you hand it over. No. If they don’t eat anything at the meal, mealtime is over. Now, there’s no more food until the next scheduled snack or mealtime. That’ll teach your child very quickly to monitor his own feeling of hunger and fullness.

If he’s hungry, and he didn’t eat anything, and he has to wait another two hours for something, that will provide an internal consequence that, “Actually when things are offered to me, I better make a decision to eat, because I won’t be able to again until the next meal.” Structure and choice, your job. Eat or not, their job. Thanks for watching today. Sleep well.