You have child to is all glued to the Television and refuses to eat food. Here are few tips which will help your child fare better.
How to make the child come to the dining table instead of shoving food when they are glued to TV sets/PC.
1. Switch of the TV prior to serving food or any meals. The child should know what he/ she is eating rather than saying she does not remember what is eaten/ or served at all (which happens at home if accidentally watching TV)
2. Always serve meals not forcibly but with a smile on your face, start by saying “Today’s dish is yummy, just taste it”. Let me know how you like it. Take proper feedback.
3. Involve a child in preparing basic food like toast,noodles, juice or simple finger food like dry fruits or cut fruits.
4. I make sure that the food is given on demand not before hand.
5. Food should be tasty, healthy and according to liking of the child.
6. If introducing new food then one should give atleast a days time for the child to absorb the taste, do not surprise the child.
7. Stick to common flavors which the child would prefer like dal rice, curd rice, vegetable, salads, rotis etc. This saves on your workaround time too.
8. Giving familiar food for a child regularly makes his schedule more predictable. Experiment with food on weekends.
9. Include a variety in the food so if the child does not want one food, another should be ready, so couple of dishes like roti with small fillings, biryani, pulav can be included.
10. Make the platter more appeasing in sight so it is more likeable just like ones seen on blogs, treat your child more like a guest, so not only they know to eat but to decorate or garnish it as well. A well decorated plate is far more pleasing and would make the child eat faster. Include cartoon garnishes, colourful plates, nuts, fruits once in a while or on weekends.
11. I would suggest going the healthy way but if your child need a free time and on a particular day and wants to have only junk so be it. Don’t compel, it is not the end of the world. They will have food faster too without fussing. Next day, you can again get back to the routine
12. Allow your child to come up with options for food, most of the time they will guide you with suitable menus/ requests.
13. Explain the nutritive facts of food while the child is having food and why they should be eating it and why not more of junk. Most children are taught in schools and they immediately relate to it and start having the food happily. Somethings like iron and calcium should not be mixed, or explaining how a particular food will help in the long run inculcates an interest towards the food.
14. On weekends if you have time then you can include dessert so that the child keeps waiting for that day and feels special and looks forward to a nice meal.
15. Never shove food, if something is not likeable it is not good for the system either. Serve something else. From the tummy to the heart as the saying goes.
My daughter recently got her health checkup done at school where the Impression mentioned:- Healthy child Good nutritution There were few parameters like Blood pressure, Eyes, Lymph nodes, weight, height etc. I was overall happy, that she fared well.
Thanks for taking time to read. Have a great day.
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