When you have young children, it can be tempting to feed them early, then sit down to a separate meal once they’re in bed.
But setting a routine where you eat as a family, for even a couple of nights a week, can lay the foundations for healthy eating habits, positive relationships with food and social skills that extend into adulthood.
Here’s why – and how you can make family mealtimes with young children more manageable.
Reducing fussiness
Preschool-aged children who regularly eat with their families eat more fruit and vegetables and are less likely to develop fussy eating habits.
One reason is children learn through observation. When parents and older siblings eat and enjoy a wide variety of foods, children are more likely to try and accept those foods themselves.
Allowing children to touch, explore and play with food in their first year supports sensory development and confidence with eating. It can be messy – much of the food will end up on faces, hands or the floor – but this exploration is a normal and valuable part of learning to eat.
Family meals provide repeated, low-pressure opportunities for children to become familiar with a variety of foods. Over time, this exposure can increase acceptance of foods that they initially refuse.
Tuning into hunger cues
Regular family meals create predictable eating routines. And eating at the table, rather than in front of screens, helps children pay attention to hunger and fullness cues, reducing the likelihood of overeating.
Children who share family meals at least three times a week are more likely to eat nutrient-dense foods, maintain a healthy weight, and are less likely to have disordered eating.
Learning social skills
A relaxed, supportive mealtime helps children develop positive attitudes to food and encourages exploration without pressure.
Family mealtimes are opportunities to slow down and connect. Studies link regular shared meals with improved communication, greater family closeness and stronger self-esteem in children.
Mealtimes also play an important role in teaching table manners, and self-regulation of their emotions and the amount of food they’re eating. Observational research suggests everyday family meals are a key setting in which children learn how to sit, use cutlery and engage appropriately at the table, helping them learn broader expectations about interaction and self-control that extend beyond eating.
4 ways to make meal times manageable
Having young children at the dinner table can be challenging. Here are four tips to make them more manageable:
1. Be realistic
Modern life’s demands make it unrealistic for everyone to be around the table for every meal. So, set a target that works for your family, such as having three family dinners weekly. If someone works nights, make breakfast your shared meal.
But put devices away so everyone’s focused on eating and connecting.
2. Don’t create separate meals
It’s tempting to make different meals for toddlers, but this creates unnecessary work and can establish fussy eating.
When families eat together, meals are more likely to be home-cooked and nutritionally balanced. They tend to involve planning and preparing one dish for everyone, rather than relying on convenience or “fast” food.
Children are more open to trying new foods when there’s something familiar on their plate. Try tweaking family favourites by swapping ingredients, such as using lentils instead of beef in bolognese or roasting carrots to make “orange chippies”. Grating veggies into sauces also expands kids’ diets without overwhelming them.
3. Abandon rules that have never worked
Many of us remember being required to finish everything on our plate or be denied dessert unless we ate our vegetables. While well-intentioned, these coercive food practices can teach children to eat in response to external pressures rather than internal hunger and fullness cues.
Coercive food practices among parents are associated with poorer self-regulation of eating and emotional overeating in young children.
Over the long term, studies link these experiences in childhood with less intuitive eating and more disordered eating behaviours in adulthood. So these old-school rules can have lasting effects.
Simply offer the family meal and allow them to dictate how much they eat.
4. Involve your child and make food fun
Including children in preparation and serving gets them interested in and used to family mealtime routines. Ask them to pick healthy recipes and complete child-appropriate tasks such as washing veggies. When they’re old enough, ask them to set the table.
Younger children often respond well when healthy foods are presented in playful, engaging ways. Try offering a mix of colours, textures and shapes to keep their interest.
Switching up the setting can help too – even a simple picnic in the backyard or local park can make mealtimes feel fresh, special and fun.
Nick Fuller is the author of Healthy Parents, Healthy Kids – Six Steps to Total Family Wellness. His free, practical recipe ideas can be found at feedingfussykids.com.
