Picky Eaters

Want your kids to be more adventurous at dinner time?

Getting kids to eat different and new foods can be a challenge at times and  I am sure all parents will struggle with this at some point in their lives.  The struggle comes from not wanting to wage war during dinner time, forcing your child to eat or giving up entirely and letting the child eat whatever they want. I usually cook dinner most nights and I only cook one dinner.  I refuse to cook multiple meals to please every one's appetite, I mean if I wanted to be a short order cook, I would get a job at a restaurant. 

So how does one get their kids to eat without dinner time turning into a battle of the wits?  Here are some of the tips that really have helped me in helping my kids eat better and not be so picky.

1.  Don't disguise food.  Lately, it seems everything I read about raising healthy eaters involve some sort of trickery, disguising food so your child does not realize they're actually eating healthy.  This is a mistake; if you disguise everything to taste like chicken nuggets, you've only managed to enforce to your child that the only food they should like is chicken nuggets.  This could really backfire on you down the road.

2. You have to try everything every time.  We have a rule in our house:  You must try everything on your plate every time.  Just because they didn't like meatloaf the last time I served it, doesn't get them a free pass to not try it this time.  I realize that my kids are not going to like everything I make, they are real people with their own tastes and preferences, but they still have to try it.  When I say "try it", I mean one bite, not eat everything on their plate.  When serving a main dish that I know is not a favorite, I do try to serve side dishes that I do know they like.

3. Model good eating habits.  Since instituting rule #2, I have also applied the same rule to myself.  If I expect my children to follow this rule, so can I.  If you are not willing to eat the veggies how can you expect your kids to be excited about them?

4. Don't force kids to clean their plates.  I just do not like this idea as I feel it sends the wrong message about food. 

5. Deflect the attention away from the food. When my kids are about to try something they're less than thrilled about trying I ask a fun question right as they're taking the bite.  Engaging them in a conversation I know they'll be excited to talk about.  I find that if I can deflect the attention on something other than the food, they'll end up forgetting about what they're eating and finish most of it before they realize what happened.  I have found that if my husband or I make a big deal out of taking just that one bite and silently wait for a reaction we get a dramatic display of how terrible the food tasted. 

6. Make dinner time fun.  Create a fun dinner time atmosphere, where everyone tells funny stories, jokes and talks about their day.  My kids love to cook, so I try to find something for them to help with as I am preparing dinner and  they get more excited about the food, they "cooked" themselves.

Sending Sick Kids to School

Why do people love to bring their sick kids out in public?  This is something I will never understand.  Yes, I realize that sometimes kids get sick at the most inconvenient times like right as school is starting but that is not an excuse to keep them there.

Today as I dropped my son off at preschool, another mother was carrying her daughter into my son's classroom.  She stopped to chat with the woman I was talking to and mentioned her daughter was not feeling well today but that she was pretty sure it was just allergies causing her to be sick.  Fine, I'm thinking she probably just has a runny nose and cough, two ailments that don't require a kid to be quarantined at home.  Right as she was walking away though, the little girl happened to mention how she just threw up all over another kid!  The mom, who happens to be a teacher at the school, just sort of laughed it off and mentioned she was sure it was just the allergies again.

If your kid just threw up all over another kid at school, it's time to go home.  I was stunned into silence as I watched her walk into my son's class to drop off her sick daughter. 

Don't Be A Slave to Sleep Schedules

Don't let the fear of interrupting sleep schedules

keep you locked in your house!

After the birth of a baby, most of us will spend an insane amount of time trying to get that baby on some sort of schedule.  Trying everything in our power to ensure that the baby actually sleeps during the night and takes regular naps during the day.  Once the schedule has been set, the thought of actually disrupting that schedule may seem as appealing as stabbing a sharp knife through your hand.

That being said, you also don't want to live your life always navigating sleeping and eating schedules.  It is OK to skip a nap every so often or push bedtime back an hour or so to enjoy a family dinner or party with your kids.  Babies are resilient and will survive if nap time has to be adjusted every once in a while.   Trust me, if you try to plan every single event around nap and bedtime, you will pretty much count yourself out of any social event in your life for about 2 years or so. Not fun.

Just look at how much fun you can have during nap time:

What is Dyslexia?

What is Dyslexia?  A common term that most people are familiar with, but do they really know what it is and how it manifests in our children?  Dyslexia, most people will say is a learning disorder where a person sees and writes letters and numbers backwards and out of sequence.  Actually, dyslexia is a neurological issue that affects the language learning center of the brain.  A "normal" person uses a specific area of the brain when reading and learning, a dyslexic on the other hand uses completely different areas of the brain therefore causing a need to learn differently.  This does not mean a dyslexic is unable to learn,  just that they will learn in another way.

My husband was recently diagnosed as being dyslexic and I am writing to highlight some of his struggles and how it has had such a lasting impact on his life.  Our school experiences effect our lives dramatically whether they were great or not so great.  So, if your child is struggling no matter what age they might be, use every resource available to help them succeed.   Not being able to overcome their obstacles now will have a dramatic impact on who they will ultimately becomes as adults.

This whole journey began one night not so long ago when my husband watched a show called Demystifying Dyslexia.  One segment on the show profiled high school students and their struggles not only with school, but also at home.  My husband related with the kids and realized that his struggles were exactly the same.  So, we started researching on the Internet, calling psychologists and neuropsychologists, basically looking for any resource available to really figure this out.  Finally, meeting with a psychologist to get a real diagnosis.  One of the best resources we found was the International Dyslexia Association.  They have chapters all over the world and we started by calling our local chapter and talking with a representative who gave us a number of people to contact, letting us know what to expect and tips on what to avoid.

Some of his struggles include:

1. Terrible note taking and list making
2. Not very good at remembering dates and time.
3. Difficulty learning a foreign language
4. Good at leaning complex math concepts, but unable to write down the steps.
5. Undiagnosed vision problems, sees double and shadows behind words and letters
6.  When reading out loud, very choppy
7.  Replaces words when reading.  During reading, when he comes to a word that he does not use often or recognize his brain will replace it with another word that looks similar.  For example, when he was reading out loud as I was reading over his shoulder, he came to the word tinges, but he replaced it with things.  He does this often because an average person will just sound out a word that is unfamiliar, but that is difficult for a dyslexic, so his brain will just fit another word in from memory that looks the same.
8. Difficulty organizing anything
9. Becomes tired after reading for a short time
10. Terrible at spelling

Being dyslexic also has great advantages.  Some his strengths include:

1.Being able to see the whole picture
2. Thinking outside the box
3. Being able to grasp difficult math concepts
4. A great strategic thinker
5. Great people skills
6. Very intuitive
7. Excellent memory of places and events


During this process, he really delved deep into his past and stories from school came flooding out.  For example; not being allowed to participate in the spelling bee in elementary school and not being allowed to try out for school plays. Also, being asked to be the quarterback on the junior high football team and after the initial excitement wore off, the fear of not being able to learn and remember the playbook set in and resulted in him making up some excuse and quitting the team.  After high school at 26 years old, he did try to go to college.  At that point we were recently married and he thought, maybe he did just goof off in school and now that he's older and more serious he'll do fine.  Unfortunately, that was not the case, he took a couple of classes and in one of them, he was asked to read aloud.  Such a simple task, but one he was barely able to get through and thus ended his college career.

Most of his memories of school are tragic and ego-crushing accounts of being told he was lazy, not trying hard enough, that he would never succeed in life and that college was not an option for him. 

Despite all of these obstacles, he has managed to be successful.  He started and runs a successful business, he will tell you though, he only started his business out of desperation because he felt he could not really do anything else.


Dyslexia not only affects learning, but also the social and emotional well being of a child. The International Dyslexia Association explains this here:

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS RELATED TO DYSLEXIA
 
The frustration of children with dyslexia often
centers on their inability to meet expectations.
Their parents and teachers see a bright,
enthusiastic child who is not learning to read and
write. Time and again, dyslexics and their
parents hear, “He’s such a bright child; if only he
would try harder.” Ironically, no one knows
exactly how hard the dyslexic is trying.

The inconsistencies of dyslexia produce serious
challenges in a child’s life. There is a
tremendous variability in the student’s individual
abilities. Although everyone has strengths and
weaknesses, the dyslexic’s are greatly
exaggerated. Furthermore, the dyslexic’s
strengths and weaknesses may be closely related.

These great variations produce a “roller coaster”
effect for dyslexics. At times, they can
accomplish tasks far beyond the abilities of their
peers. At the next moment, they can be
confronted with a task that they cannot
accomplish.

This "roller-coaster" effect would be very difficult for a child to understand let alone verbalize to a parent or teacher  how they are feeling.  It could however, manifest in an extreme dislike for school, learning and finally result in low self-esteem.

The same article goes on to say: Researchers have learned that when typical learners succeed, they credit their own efforts for their success. When they fail, they tell themselves to try harder. However, when the dyslexic succeeds, he is likely to attribute his success to luck. When he fails, he simply sees himself as stupid. Research also suggests that these feelings of inferiority develop by the age of ten. After this age, it becomes extremely difficult to help the child develop a positive self-image. This is a powerful argument for early intervention.

I imagine that in regular students,  trying hard equals success, but in a dyslexic that does not prove to be true because the correlation between trying harder and good grades has been broken at an early age.  Simply trying harder does not always equal good results so when they actually do well it must not have anything to do with them.

It saddens me to think of a child thinking that success can only come to them as a result of luck and have nothing to do with their own efforts.  I do believe it because I see it in my husband.   He has created a successful business but is less likely to attribute his success as a result of his hard work and intellect and more likely to make comments like, "anyone could do what I do" or "it just happened to work out".  Businesses do not just happen to succeed, but yet he attributes "luck" to a lot of his success. 

The good news is that the problems associated with dyslexia can be fixed and the earlier the better, hopefully before their self-image is destroyed because that will be a lot harder to "fix".

Resources: The International Dyslexia Association


  

Oops...More Public Highschool Blunders

What is happening in our public high schools? A group of seniors at a western Pennsylvania High School were treated to a video display at an assembly on the importance of giving blood.  According to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the power point presentation that the kids were supposed to see was saved on a flash drive owned by one of the employees of the Central Blood Bank.  Also saved on that flash drive were pornographic images and unfortunately the file with the "graphically educational" images were mistakenly played instead of the appropriate file teaching the students the benefits of giving blood.   Apparently, the blood bank employee gave the flash drive to the assistant principal to play without telling him which file to play. 

I giggled when I read this story imagining myself as a senior in High School sitting in that assembly as I am sure I would have found it quite amusing and somewhat would have reaffirmed my opinion that the people in charge really were morons (I still don't feel that way).  I bet my parents would have had an altogether different reaction though.

I am gathering it was an unfortunate mistake and not done purposely, but I bet everyone did learn a valuable lesson that day; unfortunately I doubt it had to do with the benefits of giving blood.  I guess if it had to happen, at least it happened with an audience of 17 and 18 year olds and not during the elementary school presentation.

How To Put An End To Sharing Battles

PLEASE; we say it's the magic word, but do we really know how powerful it can be with our kids?  My 5yr old and 3yr old spend A LOT of time playing together, so inevitably they spend about half of that time arguing. I try my best to stay out of their arguments and not get too involved. Honestly, most of the time I have no idea what happened or who was right, so I find it best to get them to work it out between themselves. Most of these arguments revolve around sharing toys and taking turns, and the backyard swing set is the scene of many of these battles. Basically, there are two swings and normally 3 kids playing so someone always gets left out. Once this happens the one who’s not swinging will make their way up the stairs, crying, to find me in hopes I will make someone take a turn. Usually, I would just say, “You need to work it out between yourselves”, or “Don’t worry, you’ll get a turn soon”, or yell outside, “Make sure everyone is sharing”. After saying these about a million times, I decided to try something different.
So the next time my son came crying up the stairs complaining that he wasn’t getting a turn on the swing, I told him “well maybe if you go down there and ask really nicely they’ll give you a turn.” I’ll admit I felt a twinge of guilt as he made is way down the stairs, feeling as if I just sent him into battle without an adequate weapon because I was pretty sure this tactic would fail. I heard him say, “Gracie, may I please have a turn on the swing?” My daughter said “Sure!” and happily hopped off the swing. I almost fell off my chair in shock, because about two minutes before, my son was down there screaming and crying about wanting a turn on the swing and was basically ignored. This must be a fluke I thought to myself.

It turns out this tactic has about a 99.8% effective rate and it makes me feel good too because it gives me something concrete to tell them to do without having to get involved. As I’ve been really paying attention now, I find that if one of the kids is throwing a tantrum regarding the swing (happens daily) the other kids will just ignore them or yell back at them, but when are asked politely, one kid will always eagerly offer up their swing. Now all I have to do is get them to remember to ask nicely on their own, without reminders from me…..

Breastfeeding in Public

I am always slightly amused and mystified as to why people get so angry and offended at the sight of a mother breastfeeding her baby. Sometimes in life people need to understand and realize that not every moment of every situation is about them and a little compassion and understanding can go a long way. What exactly about the act is offensive? The off-chance that you might catch a glimpse of cleavage? I imagine a person would have to be staring intently to see any cleavage from any of the mothers I have ever witnessed breastfeeding.

Most people who are offended by a woman breastfeeding in public are offended by the act and not the mere sight of a woman’s breast. I wonder if these same people are also outraged when they walk down a beach and see half naked woman prance around in bikinis. I doubt they even give it a second thought. I imagine you could argue that you would expect to see an exposed woman at the beach but not at a restaurant or mall, if that’s the case then people should come to expect to see a breastfeeding mom whenever they are at a place that they might also see a baby. If they come to expect it, then maybe they won’t be so shocked and disgusted.

I have also heard the argument that if mothers just planned a little bit better they would never have to actually breastfeed in public. HA! HA! I laugh because a person that actually has a baby would never make that comment. Kids and babies like to laugh in the face of our well laid out plans. Sometimes babies eat every hour and half during the first few months of life. So, if I were following the “just plan better” advice, I would feed the baby, then spend about 15 minutes getting ready to leave, get the baby buckled into the car, drive about 15 minutes and then I would have exactly 45 minutes before I had to leave and drive home to feed the baby again. Sounds fun! What if I have to drive further than 15 minutes? What if I have older kids that have obligations outside of the home? It’s not always feasible to “just plan better” , as there are events that might require a mother to be out of the house for longer than an hour an half. Even if a mom has nothing to do, but feels she just needs to get out, then so be it. By law (in most states) she has every right to feed her baby in any public place.

Most breastfeeding mothers I know are not trying to make a statement by nursing in public or trying to be offensive; they’re simply trying to meet the needs of their baby in the most discreet way possible. Breastfeeding in public is not something most mothers enjoy, so the next time you see a mom breastfeeding her baby, instead of giving her a disgusted look, try a simple smile and remember she is probably more uncomfortable than you.