A Lesson for Picky Dinner Eaters

Getting back into the school routine compresses time for making and eating dinner. The structure of school may also prompt children to indulge their want to be picky eaters at home. It’s a nightmare.

Mrs Neu confronted this with her grandkids, and it prompted her to write about what dinner was like for her as a child. Mrs Neu grew up in a small, railroad town in the Sierras called Portola. 

When I was a child, there was no concern about what I wanted to eat. Dinner was prepared and I came to the table and ate. Sometimes we ate breakfast for dinner because Dad was getting up from a day of sleeping and going off to work on the railroad. Sometimes we ate dinner in the morning because he was just coming home. When Dad was gone, my sisters and my mom and I would often eat over at a relative’s house. And of course, we ate every Friday dinner at Grandma Patterson’s house, and Sunday dinner at Grandma Joy’s.

The food was served up in bowls and passed around the table. My sister’s and I helped ourselves and ate.

Maybe there was so much going on with the people at the table that the food wasn’t important. We were too busy visiting to care what was served.  We also didn’t have the opportunity to snack so we were truly hungry.

There is probably a lesson in her remembrance of dinner as a child: 

• Don't make what's for dinner a choice
• Mix things up
• Make dinner social
• Cut back on snacks so your child is truly hungry for dinner.