How to Not Let Food Frustrations Ruin Family Meals

When I cook a meal “out of the norm” for my kids and their expectations, I feel a twinge of anxiety, a gut instinct foreshadowing the complaints in response to the dinner inquiry. “Tofu teriyaki stir fry!” I announce, quickly adding, “with peppers, broccoli, and coconut rice – I know you like those.” I chose this meal specifically because while my kids have protested stir fry in the past, my son recently helped make Tofu Teriyaki Stir fry with his class at the local food center, The Hunger Coalition. Guess who was the parent volunteer that day?

Of course, protests ensued, and I remained calm, receptive, and true to my values with the hope of cultivating my children’s values through time, repetition, and practice.

We often discuss core family values: kindness, respect, honesty. We stand by personal values: integrity, compassion, patience. We value wellness: sleep, movement, plenty of vegetables.

Why don’t we build in food values along with the others? Why do we struggle to serve food we want to eat and love – and want our kids to eat and love? You’d think years of practice would help us figure out the magic words, transformative recipes, and honest persuasion. Instead, we revert to behaviors that work, avoid battles which inadvertently encourages pickiness, and provoke mealtime weariness when aiming for wellbeing.

Over the years, I’ve unearthed key concepts underlying food frustrations. First, we are not taught about food values, so we don’t create meals anchored in them. Second, we adults have our own puzzling relationship with food, yet rarely work on it with therapy or self-help books. Third, we fixate on “healthy eating” instead of connection, often tainting peaceful family meals. Further, food is complicated by allergies, time constraints, overwhelm, poor habits, family dynamics, and more!

Nevertheless, when we address three main concepts, we cultivate positive food experiences, curious eaters, deep nourishment.

Determine your food values.

Ask yourself what you enjoy about food. Family recipes? Cooking from scratch? Consuming food prepared by someone else? Seasonal food? Eating together at the table, regardless of the meal? What you enjoy about food becomes your values around meals. If you love your family’s Italian food, focus on preparing Italian meals so your children will appreciate these recipes too. No need to learn to cook everything – unless, of course, you truly enjoy experimentation!

Commit to developing food curiosity.

Often, we become complacent in mealtime habits, how we talk with kids about food, and our relationship with eating. We want mealtime to be better, yet don’t make time to observe our behaviors, nor unearth what’s beneath them. Think about food from a new perspective: that of wonder, discovery, and curiosity – like young scientists. When we remainopen, we can let go of food ideologies, perfection, guilt, complaints, old patterns – often negative associations with food. When kids grumble before tasting a bite, ask (in a neutral tone) what they’re concerned about. Flavor? Texture? Previous experiences with tofu? When they make crude noises about cooked peppers, inquire how they’d like to try them differently next time. Curiosity can soften frustrations, relax nerves, and shift perspectives.

Create rituals around connection, not nutrients.

Adequate nutrition is important! However, studies show that meals eaten together – without multi-tasking – is key to fostering healthy eating habits. Kids learn by observing others’ behaviors (we learned that way, too), so when we create isolation during meals (sitting alone, texting, reading, watching TV) or other negative associations (yelling, blaming, shaming, rewarding), kids develop negative connections with food. When mealtime rituals include intentional connection, kids develop positive associations with food. Further, we receive more nutrients out of any meal – homemade or processed – when eating in environments focused on connection and calm.