Feeding children family style in child care

1. Family-friendly Feeding Tips
Sit-down meals and sit-down snacks between meals are essential for taking care of yourself and
other family members. Have food you enjoy-the cook has privileges. For you to keep up the day-
in-day-out commitment to family meals, the food has to be rewarding for you to plan, prepare
and eat. Meals have to be your idea-not just offered when somebody asks for something to eat.
Be considerate of other family members, but don't cater to them. Don't try to please every eater
with every food at every meal. Settle for providing each eater with one or two foods they
generally enjoy at each meal.
Include 4 or 5 foods: Meat or other protein; a couple of starchy foods, such as rice,
potatoes, bread or tortillas; fruit or vegetable or both; butter, salad dressing or gravy;
and milk.
Don't limit the menu to foods that are readily accepted. Children and adults will learn to
like new food if you match a familiar food with an unfamiliar one, a generally liked food
with one that isn't liked as much. Always put bread on the table-family members can eat
bread if all else fails.
Let children and other family members pick and choose from foods that are on the table.
Don't try to persuade, entice, encourage, or cheer-lead them to eat anything they don't
want to eat.
Don't short-order cook or put substitutes on the table. Family members who aren't excited
by today's meal will get lucky some other time.
Let yourself and your child eat as much as you are hungry for.
Remember Ellyn Satter's division of responsibility in feeding: You do the what, when and where of
feeding; other family members do the how much and whether of eating.
Copyright © 2012 by Ellyn Satter. Published at www.EllynSatter.com.