This month, the culinary whiz kids and I whipped up Penne alla Roma, (p.34)

As with any cooking activity, I considered which tasks my small friends could capably and safely take on and which could only be done by me.

Chopping ingredients with a sharp knife and cooking anything on a hot stove fell to me. Reading our recipe, slicing some veggies with a plastic knife, adding ingredients – and having opportunities to see, touch and smell them! – were rich and developmentally appropriate activities completed by my child care boys.

This recipe called for some herbs we have not previously used while cooking together. One herb reminded us of the smell of pizza and another of spaghetti sauce. Some strongly-flavored ingredients I handled myself: Chopping onions – and tearing up – is not an activity I felt to be safe or pleasant for the boys. Instead, they worked hard and happily sliced up clean baby spinach and Roma tomatoes. Sully, at just 3 years old, needed some help periodically. I watched for moments he needed AND was open to my assistance and encouragement. (Cutting is not an easy skill for a young child, so we frequently have opportunities to practice with homemade playdough and plastic knives.) I think these pictures show how intently the boys took this task:

In Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense, Ellyn Satter suggests that this list should help us to guide our work feeding preschoolers:

This list reminds me of a story:

Years and years ago, before I became a family child care provider, I worked in a child care center. There was one particular 3-year-old child in our school who was not a good eater. His parents were dealing with a lot of serious extended family problems, and they probably did not have either the time or energy then to help him with his feeding issues. So, they gave him mac and cheese or grilled cheese or cheese pizza every night for dinner. They knew he would eat these meals without complaint.

You may be able to imagine the type of experience we teachers at preschool had, given that not all our lunches were on his approved list. Lunches were miserable. For him, because he was too upset to even come to the table. For the other children, because his tirades were tireless. For we teachers, because we knew that our efforts probably would not turn things around unless the parents united with us.

There were important things that I learned in that year from that child, and I carried them into feeding my own kids and my child care children. I expected that children would have preferences about what to eat – as we all do - and that sometimes I would honor them. I expected that children would approach strange, new food with trepidation and possibly wouldn’t feel brave enough to try it that day – or any day! I was confident no one would die of starvation, given the mandate that meals and snacks be offered with only a few hours between them. Children gagged at meals – my daughter, especially. Once or twice a child threw up during a meal, which took the edge off everyone’s appetite.

For a long time, I was NOT good at letting go of who ate or who didn’t, but I became better at it. I observed that when I made a big deal about a child eating well or was encouraging - to the point of manipulation – to a child who wasn’t eating, I was reinforcing behavior that could lead to overeating or rigid, unhealthy, restrictive eating. Even now, 30 years later, there are some days I am very good at detaching from others’ eating, and some days I am not. I try to focus on my own meal, and my own enjoyment of it – and the example I set at the table. I eat with the children, and I try to use good table manners, but I struggle with not eating too fast. (Other providers can probably relate to the idea that the window of opportunity for me to eat without interruption can slam abruptly.) I have learned to respectfully request that children wait briefly for a second helping: “I’ll be glad to get you more fruit, as soon as I finish my sweet potatoes.” I have become good at modeling my enjoyment of food. As someone who once ate very, very rigidly, this is good progress for me – and to model tasting and considering how I feel about new foods.

I wish the child I’m recalling had had a different – better – experience with food. I hope that he grew to become a more well-rounded, healthier eater. Observing his lunchtime ordeals had a big impact on me then and all these years later, it and helped me learn to be a better guide to children becoming good eaters. But to do that, I had to grow to be a more well-rounded, healthier eater myself.