I Need To Talk About Not Talking About Dinner

I’m fairly obsessed with food. It’s the reason I chose a career where I get to talk to people all day about food. It’s the reason that even while taking a break from working in dietetics, I’ve dedicated some of my free time to doing this: blogging about kids and food.

I seem to always be thinking about food so there’s a simple tip for feeding kids that I really struggle with: Don’t spend meals focused on what your child is (and isn’t) eating.

This advice is hard for me not only because I love to talk about food but also because it takes effort to come up with dinner conversation topics at the end of a loooong day. At age one and two, our boys’ conversation skills have been pretty limited. Conversations with them are often one sided, disjointed or filled with gibberish. And to be fair, as parents of two toddlers, we aren’t the best conversationalists either. Often we feel too tired to engage in a meaningful exchange by the end of the day.

When the conversation isn’t flowing, it’s natural to fall into talking about the activity at hand—eating—filling the air with narration of who is eating what, what is going fast and what has not been touched by the kids.

What’s the rationale of focusing discussion away from the eating at mealtimes?

The idea is that intense focus on how your child is eating is a covert form of pressure even if you come with the best of intentions.

Talking on and on about how a kid is eating can make them feel like they are under a spotlight or a microscope. It can make mealtimes more stressful especially for kids who struggle with picky eating habits. Pressure and stress are two things that tend to make kids less likely to want to try new foods and can negatively impact appetite, which is exactly what we don’t want to happen when we sit down to eat.

Not to mention that time together as an entire family is usually limited and therefore coveted. Ideally meal times provide quality time to connect.

(Conversations shared at mealtimes also help kids develop vocabulary and social skills. More on that here.)

What are ways to steer the discussion to other topics?

I constantly catch myself slipping into conversation about how the kids are eating. Here are some things we’ve tried to use to change the topic:

Talk about the meal without analyzing the eating:

You can of course discuss the meal without focusing on what your children are eating. “Remember when we got these yellow tomatoes at the market?” or “I’m glad I didn’t burn the green beans like last time!” You can discuss where the recipe came from or how it was prepared. Talk about the flavors, textures, colors, etc.

Have a nightly ritual:

Rituals are a way to build in connection without having to put so much thought into getting the conversation flowing.

We’ve cycled through a few different nightly traditions. Growing up, my father encouraged us to share our “fabulous reality” which means share one moment large or small from your day that sparked joy. Currently at my house, we try to share (mostly the parents) a highlight and low point from the day plus a hope/wish for tomorrow. Alternatively, you could share something you are grateful for daily.

Reflect on the day:

Whether you spent the day with your kids or apart, you can simply review what you did. Even if your day seems uber boring, your kids might find it more interesting than you would think.

Play a game:

This or That: Come up with 2 things and ask your child which is better. For example, cat or dog, boat or airplane, Sesame Street or Daniel Tiger.

The color game: One person thinks of an object in the room and says “I’m thinking of something blue”. The rest of the room tries to guess which blue object you are thinking of.

20 questions: One person thinks of an object and the rest of the group gets to ask 20 yes or no questions to see if they can correctly guess the object.