Stress-free family dinner… is there such a thing?
I’m not sure if I have a good answer to this. I think stress-free family dinners are only found at the bottom of a pizza box, and even then you have to worry about your finances. But dinner always comes around once a day and as a family, we are always trying to plan it and prepare it and enjoy it as stress-free as possible.
I recently got together with some other bloggers (Rebecca from Playground Confidential and Buzz Bishop from Dad Camp) and we discussed how to deal with some of the stress that dinnertime brings. Here’s one of my nuggets of wisdom:
I choose my battles. Some nights I insist [my todder] try something and don’t give other options. Others, I make substitutes, like Mom and Dad have chicken breast, toddler and baby have chicken nuggets. Sometimes I just accept they won’t eat and don’t make it a fight. Sometimes I will exchange their dinner for yogurt or bread. [read more of the conversation]
You can see the rest of the mildly funny and entirely real conversation on the McCain All Good Blog. Come back again soon for more of our conversations! I’d love for you to pop on over there and tell us how you make family dinners as stress-free as possible.
Food is a battle I don’t fight anymore, because of my oldest son’s pickiness. The last thing I want is to create negative associations with food and meal times for him. The kids sit down with us for dinner, but they don’t always eat at that very moment, and they don’t always stay until everyone finishes, but at least, we do sit down. We just eat fast. :)
Alison recently posted..Spreading Love
I love that policy. It gives your children freedom, saves you from the stress for force-feeding, and still dinner about family time.
Laura O’Rourke recently posted..Stressfree Family Dinners
I don’t fight food battles either. It’s too stressful & I don’t want food to become a source of angst for any of us. I leave healthy snacks out for D to graze on. I always fix her a plate or even let her nibble off of mine. She’ll eat when she’s hungry. We do sit down together & pray together, but more often than not, she’s done after 5 minutes and we let her get down so we can finish our meal in peace!
Rach (DonutsMama) recently posted..On Doing and Being