Thursday, February 5, 2009

Kid Food

My kids were recently questioned as to why their loving parents (who were on a date at the time) cook adult food for them, instead of "food they like". See, I don't cook made-to-order meals. Once in awhile, we have mac n cheese or hot dogs, but chicken nuggets and fish sticks are not regular Clark fare. This is really what we eat on a regular basis. And there's a good reason for that.

When Kyle and I were dating, we got in quite a bit of babysitting experience together. We have seen what becomes of kids who eat "kid food" on a regular basis. A friend invites them over for dinner and said kid complains that he doesn't like what's being served and can he please have a pb&j sammy instead. We didn't want to grow ungrateful kids like what we had seen. We wanted our kids to be able to eat anything and just be thankful to have food.

This comes much easier for our African children, than our American-born children. Go figure.







6 comments:

Stacy - midlifearmywife.com said...

Amen! I always say I'm a mommy, not a short-order cook! It's ok to try a couple bites (chew & swallow) and tell me nicely that you don't like something. However, if you complain about what I serve - you get to wait till the next meal :)

I do make chicken nuggets though! I use regular chicken breast, cut into nugget-sized pieces. Then I dip them in an egg/milk mixture and then in my homemade whole wheat bread crumbs seasoned with herbs & spices - then bake at 350 for 20 or so min. We usually serve with sweet potato 'fries' and a green veggie. Nothing like fast food ones, but that was my goal :)

Nealy said...

I love the way you always have lots of veggies in your crockpot meals which are healthy and full of flavor. Do you think you worked this process into your daily cooking habits MORE after the Liberians joined your family which may have influenced the BEBs eating habits prior to the BREBs arrival? The Blue-Eyed Blondes are BEBs and the BRown-Eyed Beauties are BREBs. :)

mommy4 said...

That's great! But what do you do when you have a kid that has an aversion to certain foods. Like texture issues. I know you have some experience in that since you are a speech therapist. Do you have any kids like that?

PreparingMama said...

Spot on, Ginger! 'Kids food' full of chemical preservatives and artificial junk doesn't enter my home either. Stick to your guns!

Ginger said...

I don't have any with texture sensitivities, but really you just have to ease them into more and more textures. Desensitize their little mouth to different things.

debhmom3 said...

I might actually do a frozen dinner out of desperation or poor planning once in a while. The problem? My kids wouldn't touch a frozen dinner if it was the last food available on earth. I think most kids would prefer real food if indoctrinated young.