Avoiding Pitfalls when Dining with a Toddler

Who doesn’t love a dinner date? There is something so universally appealing about sharing a meal with your loved one: eating delicious foods whilst engaging in conversation and enjoying each other’s company.

Of course, most of us have a different image in mind when the meal companion is a young child. Below are the three most common pitfalls you can avoid in order to have more enjoyable meals together.

Toddlers eating according to Montessori / Batole a jídlo podle Montessori

Embrace the mess (and the cleanup). Instead of hovering over your children to make sure they won’t spill or drop food, it’s much more pleasant to relax, expect mess to happen, and make sure the child has the tools to clean up (napkin, wet sponge or cloth, sweeper and mop). Here is a promise: if the sight of a two-year-old scrubbing their chair clean won’t make you smile, I will eat this article.
Don’t sweat the calories. It takes a lot of energy to force, plead, or threaten some children into eating the “correct” amount of food. While, in fact, you want your child to listen to their body’s signals and eat only as much as they need. Unless a child has certain medical conditions, it is completely safe and natural for their appetite and nutritional intake to vary widely. If you really find yourself worrying whether your child is eating enough, track the average they eat in a week.
Take the time for meals. Food is interesting and should be enjoyed and explored. However, set the expectation that during meals, we will focus only on food and one another. Just like checking your phone is a faux pas at a dinner date, toys, screens and wandering off should not be acceptable during your child’s meal. This healthy habit is very easy to implement – simply require that a child sits down to eat and help them clean up if they leave the table.

Toddler setting a table according to Montessori / Batole připravuje stůl podle Montessori

Eating with Montessori Toddlers /Jak jí batolata v Montessori jeslích

Teaching children to use cutlery and dishes / Jak učíme děti používat příbor a nádobí

By Michaela Tučková, IMSP Toddler Teacher

Want to learn more? Read our next article:

CREATING A MONTESSORI HOME

Comments

Další články

IMSP PODCAST: MEET ALUMNA Laura van Steeg

“At IMSP, we were always taught how to speak to people, to be mindful, to listen to one another, and that really helped when it came to making new friends. Once you have friends, everything else is simple. Everything else, you can figure out.

Learning Mathematics in our Primary Classrooms

Maria Montessori often stated that not only does every human being have an innate drive to understand the environment around them, we all also naturally have what she called a “Mathematical Mind”. In the Montessori classroom, mathematical learning begins through indirect preparation long before a child is ever introduced to any Math materials.

A Conversation with Ms. Pherooz Karani

Find out more about our Head of School, Ms. Pherooz Karani. Her greatest joy is to pass on the legacy of Montessori education to new generations of children.

There's A Book for That!

I’m back again with more book recs! As an educator, I often turn to books to help answer difficult questions or to start a conversation about a challenging situation.

Cooking With Children can be fun

It is often said that “the family that eats together, stays together”. We would like to suggest taking it a step further – and encourage every family to cook together, too. In Montessori, we know that kitchen work provides a host of benefits to children, all the way from toddlers to adolescents; it is a part of the Practical Life curriculum as soon as children can walk! However, its advantages are in no way tied to the classroom and can be just as easily – if not more so – applied at home.