Is this going to affect how well my child eats?
Many great cooks have grown up in homes where the food offered may not have won any awards. What we know about feeding children now is that how food is offered and respected in the home plays more importance than what is offered. Many of us make changes to our eating and cooking once we start a family. This may be to make the offerings more family and budget friendly. Having a few basic dishes, you can prepare can make the world of difference and reduce time and effort in getting food on the table.
Our five top tips
- Smart use of store-bought foods can be used to make life a little easier. In this blog we have some food ideas that may work for you.
- Have sit down family dinners as often as you can. In this blog we have some ideas how to make family sit down dinners work
- Eat with your children as often as you can.
- If you don’t like cooking or are not that interested in food, try not to be too negative around others. Food is essential for life and feeding yourself is about self-care.
- Create opportunities for your child to be engaged with food in other ways. Read more about how this can be through gardening, simple household food tasks or reading books about food. Find some suggested books on this link
Being able to feed yourself is a life skill so while we do not all have to be gourmet cooks, having a few kitchen and cooking skills is a good idea. It can make eating more enjoyable and affordable. Some community and child and family centres offer cooking classes for parents so look out for these if you are interested. This is a link to Tasmanian Child and Family Centres