Want to know my secret to making dinner and having the kids eat it?
Social media is full of parents expressing their frustration at cooking dinner only to have their children not eat. And I understand this dilemma.
It can be difficult to schedule a time to get the whole family together to sit down and eat. There is so much gong on in our lives, so making time for the family to have dinner together is important. Part of having dinner together is much more effective when the family actually eats what is in front of them.
The struggle to get kids to eat their dinner is real.
Fortunately we have an established dinner time for the family to sit down together and eat every night. Yes, there are times when one or another family member can not eat with the rest of us, but for the most part we eat dinner together as a family 7 nights a week.
And I do mean eat.
My secret?
I don’t care if the kids eat or not. I don’t cook two meals. There are no concessions to food preferences. If you do not like what I fix, then don’t eat it, but I am not going to make something else. I am alright with my kids going to bed hungry. They won’t starve.
Some will bring up how difficult it is to listen to their child(ren) whine about what is or isn’t for dinner. And it is. I just tell my kids that I don’t care.
This isn’t to say that I intentionally make things for dinner my kids won’t eat, because that isn’t the case. And I do make some small concessions. For instance when I am making enchilada casserole I do not put any olives on top of a section of the dish before baking then serve my daughter from this section as she dislikes olives.
So yeah, that’s my secret. Stop caring if your kids eat or not. Chances are they won’t starve. If the complaining is too much, don’t give in because that just means they win. I’m not saying it is easy, but ultimately it is a heck of a lot better than having to fix two meals.