Author's Method of Conversations at the Table in the Family, or How to Stop Children's Tantrums and Whining

Healthy eating habits, a healthy attitude towards food and your body are among the most important life skills that you can pass on to your child. This is exactly why parents resort to repeated commands, pleading, bribing, and begging at the table, so that the child will eat broccoli puree or finally try fish. Most of these tricks help achieve the goal but make family meals tense. They increase the risk that unpleasant emotions will provoke a tantrum and add stress to everyone. Is there a reliable recipe for teaching children to eat? And what to do if everything goes wrong?

Conversations at the table are a key element of our interactions with children regarding nutrition. The way you guide the eating process can reduce conflicts around food. Stephanie Myers suggests that parents use open dialogue instead of persuasion and coercion, which will become a reliable foundation for a child's healthy relationship with food not only now but also in the future.

«The ideas outlined in this book should help with common problems that parents face, such as situations when children are picky during dinner, constantly refuse vegetables, and relentlessly beg for sweets. I will not give you advice like 'involve your children in the food shopping process', 'avoid pressure' or 'turn meals into a positive experience'. Instead, I will teach you what to say so you don’t start bargaining with children about food, regardless of who is at the table - a three-year-old or nearly a teenager.»

Stephanie Myers