Some kids look forward to meal times while others not so much. If your child does not want to eat- a problem that is particularly common with toddlers- then you need to find ways to make meal times as fun and interesting for your child and the rest of the family as possible.
Here are some ideas that you can try. Some may work better for your little ones than others. Try a few and see what works for your family. You may be surprised how easy it is to make meal times an enjoyable experience for everyone at your table!
Put Your Creative Juices to Work
If you are a creative mother in general then getting creative in the kitchen should be no problem for you. Find ways to make food look fun and make it appeal to what your kids like. Arrange foods in an enticing manner on your children’s plates. Chop up vegetables and fruits and then arrange them in a way that they spell out your child’s name or make them look like animals. This can also easily be done with nuts or sunflower seeds. Use condiments such as ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard to make smiley faces on your child’s food. Get creative with celery, broccoli, cheese and meat. The more creative you can be the better. This makes it all the more likely that youth daughter or son will want to eat his food.
Think Fun Characters for Cutlery
Buy utensils for your children that are appropriate for their age group. If you purchase forks, spoons, bowls and plates with their favorite characters on them such as Disney characters, Barbie or Dora the Explorer then they are more likely to dig into their food because they are surrounded by the characters that make them smile and giggle. This is an instant pick-me-up for a meal!
Try on Themes for Size
Having themed meals whenever possible is a way to pique the interest of your children and have them scurrying to the dinner table to partake of the fun feast. Choose different locations from across the globe and make a meal that features dishes from that area. Try French, Mexican, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Greek and Thai, among others. Play music unique to that area and hang some decorations. This will also provide a means for your children to learn more about other parts of the world. Another theme could be favorite family recipes passed down through generations. You may wish to do your family one night and your husband’s on the next theme night. The point is to make it as fun as possible and to find as many ways as possible for your children to join in.
Let Them Help
If they are old enough then let your children help you to prepare meals. Whether they are sprinkling croutons on a salad, spreading butter on rolls or setting the table find ways that they can be a part of things in the kitchen. They may be more interested in eating the food if they know that their hard work went into helping you to prepare it.
Be Patient and Do Not Stress Out
Do not be too hard on yourself if your child simply refuses to eat. In most cases the child is not hungry and will ask for food when he or she does feel hungry. You might want to look closer at what your child is eating and drinking throughout the day to determine why, for instance, he does not seem to have an appetite when it is time for supper. Make sure your child is not consuming too many beverages throughout the day that cause him to not want to eat his supper. You may even decide to change the times that you have meals at to see if it will be more accommodating for your child’s appetite. Only do this though if it does not cause problems with other family members and does not conflict with other aspects of family life.
Your son Timothy has a new friend who is always around when he needs him and whenever he wants to play. He shares his toys with him, engages in lively conversations with him and talks about him to family members all of time. There is only one problem with Timothy’s friend. He is not real.
Imaginary Friends- Not Uncommon
Having imaginary friends is not that uncommon. Approximately 65 percent of children between the ages of three to five years of age create friends that are imaginary. It generally takes place at a time when a young child’s identity is starting to form and they are beginning to test the boundaries that exist between what is real and what is fantasy. While imaginary friends are usually outgrown by the time a child starts school, research has shown that approximately one-third of children continue to have an imaginary friend through the age of seven. For very young children imaginary friends are often based on physical objects such as a doll or a stuffed animal. Girls tend to have imaginary friends more than boys do, according to studies that have looked at this and parents are more likely to be aware of the imaginary friend of their daughter’s than their son’s.
Relax and Don’t Sweat It
If your child has an imaginary friend that is important to him or her then you may be alarmed by this. You may wonder if this is a sign that your child has a problem, such as being socially maladjusted. You may also wonder how you should handle the situation. Should you treat the situation as if it is completely normal or should you discourage the presence of the imaginary friend in your child’s life?
Relax. That is what you should do about the imaginary friend situation- just relax. In most cases a friend that your child has created is nothing more than the result of a mind that is creative, curious and trying to understand and make sense of the expanding world that he or she lives in. Your child wants to learn and explore and for some children, imaginary friends help them to do just that. You will be happy to know as a mother that children who have the most active of imaginations tend to grow into creative and curious adults who are always hungering to learn- and they show no signs of being socially maladjusted.
Purposes for an Imaginary Friend
For a child an imaginary friend may serve a variety of purposes. An imaginary friend:
- makes it possible for your child to try out different types of relationships at a time when their social development is at a critical point
- allows a child to explore such things as control, discipline and power without having to cope with authority figures in the real world
- helps a child to cope with anxiety in his life that is associated with a transition (such as a move, a new baby in the family or a death in the family)
When to be Worried
As a parent you need to pay close attention to the duration and the intensity of your child’s friendship with the figment of their imagination. You need to be concerned if your child does not show any interest in interacting with other children but instead wants to spend much of his or her time playing with the imaginary chum. This can point to some sort of psychological distress that is going on with the child and it needs to be addressed.
In time your child’s interest in being involved with an invented friend will disappear as he becomes sure of himself and as your child develops meaningful friendships with his peers. However if your child seems deeply engrossed in this imaginary friendship and it shows no signs of dissipating but instead seems to be picking up speed then it is time to speak with a professional to find out if your child may be dealing with some anxieties, fears or worries that he has not shared with you.
Some children create imaginary friends to help them cope with the complex, uncertain and often frustrating issues that crop up in their lives. As a parent you should not discourage your child’s manner of interacting with the world by his existence of a made up confidante. You should also not poke fun at the relationship. Remember that this friend seems all too real to your child and plays a role in his growth. You should not become too involved with the drama either though. You can go along with the situation up to a point. It does have limits. You can also use a gentle but firm way of reminding your Timothy that his friend is make believe.
When you are a mother who works from home a balancing act between your family life and your working life must be established. It would be wonderful if it was a gentle balancing act that is very smooth but sometimes it is not so easy and instead ends up being very messy!
You may have thought being self-employed would be easier on your family, especially if you have young children to raise, but sometimes it is just as complicated because the boundary lines are blurred. You are working out of your home office and since you are home more often your children do not necessarily understand that you still have work to do.
Achieving a work life balance that is harmonious and works for both your personal life and your career is not a simple task. Just when you think you have it figured out the two worlds can collide- WHAM! – and then you have to stop and re-evaluate and reassess your priorities and make the necessary changes to make it all work well. Complete harmony? Maybe not but at least you can strive for a workable and manageable relationship between the life you live and the work you do.
It may be some consolation to know that your choice to become self-employed is a choice that more and more people are making all of the time. These same people are also looking for ways to balance out their lives in order that no one gets left out. According to the Kauffman Foundation, an entrepreneurship research organization, more individuals started their own businesses in 2009 than at any time in the preceding 14 years. This includes not only starting a new business, but buying an existing business, partnering up with someone else or investing in a franchise.
There are a few important things you can do when it comes to balancing out your life when you are a self-employed mother. Let us look at those now.
Always keep your priorities in sight
Know what is most important and what is least important and work from there. Set your goals for the month and then break them down into manageable goals by the week or even by the day. Being aware of your priorities and being as organized as possible go together and can make a tremendous difference when it comes to balancing your mommy duties with your workload. Keep your calendar or your planner with you at all times. In this way you will be aware of how you are spending your time and you will also be able to determine what you should commit more time to and what takes up too much of your time and can be allocated a shorter time period.
Learn what works and then do that
If you are more productive at your job when your kids are in school during the mornings then use that time to make business calls, type up reports, meet with clients, do research and so on. Be proactive in how you approach things. If you always pick up your kids and their friends from school and it has started to cause some problems for you when it comes to your work schedule then find out if other mothers could share this responsibility with you. Maybe you could trade off on days. Taking turns can make it easier for you to find and keep your work/life balance.
Set a work schedule for yourself
The great thing about being self-employed is that you can set your own hours and you do not necessarily have to work a 9 to 5 or an 8 to 4 work day. But having work hours that flip flop all over the place can be as confusing for you as it can be for everyone else in your personal life and your working life! You can still have flexibility when you are self-employed but working crazy hours is not advisable. Developing a routine and sticking with it can help you to set boundaries that separate your work from your family life and can make keeping everything in perspective that much simpler.
It seems sometimes that a mom’s day does not end! One day leads into the other without interruption and there is always something else to do. When it comes to keeping your home clean there may be times when your motivation to clean is there while other times it is not. When you are going in 100 different directions and you have a to-do list that is longer than your arm cleaning can seem unimportant.
To have a healthy and safe home however you want it to be clean. A clean home makes everyone who lives there feel better and that includes you- the hard working mom who never stops! To prompt yourself to want to clean you need some inspiration and motivation to do so.
Visualize the Clean
One technique that works is visualization. Look at a room before you have cleaned it and picture it in your head as clean, neat and organized. Imagine that everything is in order and the room is spotless. Once you clearly see that picture in your head then getting yourself into the spirit to clean should be much easier. You want to bring that picture in you head of a neat and clean room to life. You want your living space to be inviting and so you pick up your cleaning cloth, broom or vacuum cleaner and you get to work!
Small Cleaning Tasks
There are some tasks around the house that do not turn into big jobs that take hours to complete if you tackle the small cleaning jobs regularly and do not procrastinate about them. Wash the dishes at least once or twice a day and wipe up messes when you first discover them. Tidy up the table and countertops and put things away after you are done with them. Do no leave clean laundry in the basket but fold it and put it away in the right places immediately. Make sure that dirty clothes are placed in the hamper and do not spend days lying on the bedroom or bathroom floor. If you do the mini clean-up jobs frequently then you will not have to set aside hours at a time to do a ton of household chores.
Chart a Cleaning Course
Chart a cleaning course for yourself by making a plan that works for you and your busy schedule. You can plan you cleaning needs in much the same way that you plan dentist or doctor’s appointments and your children’s extracurricular activities. You can design whatever kind of plan is most suitable for you. It can be a weekly plan or a bi-weekly plan. It is probably best not to create a daily cleaning plan because as a busy mother it is highly unlikely that you have time to clean everyday (with the exception of those unexpected spills!). You need to be realistic about your family and work responsibilities and make your cleaning plan work for you. Strive for some balance between all of your activities.
Realize however that the cleaning plan you draw up is not written in stone. Modify it in accordance with your changing needs. For instance on a week when you have extra hours at work or a sick child to take care of you may not be able to clean on the dates and at the times when you would ordinarily.
Make a List of Cleaning Jobs
To put your cleaning plan into action you have to know what needs to get done. Make a list of the most time consuming tasks down to the least time consuming tasks. Or make a list of the biggest tasks to the smallest ones. Another option is to write up a list and order it from the tasks you least enjoy doing to the ones you don’t mind doing as much. Doing this can make cleaning less of a chore and may even give you a few much deserved extra minutes in a day to put your feet up and have a cup of tea or coffee!
You glance in your child’s room and it looks like a tornado swept through it. You call down the stairs to ask your son or daughter why they have not cleaned their room yet and their response is that they are busy right now and will do it later. But later does not come that day… or the next day or the next.
Chores Equals Boring
children and chores
Household chores are something that we all must do but they are not fun or exciting. Just as you do not particularly look forward to vacuuming, doing dishes or taking out the garbage neither does your child or your teenager. Playing on the computer, playing with the X-Box, watching television or hanging out with friends is so much more gratifying to them.
Your kids do not want to be taken away from something interesting that they are doing to do something that holds no level of stimulation for them at all. On some level they know that helping with chores is something that they must do as a member of the family but still knowing that does not always translate to action on their part.
Spurring Your Child to Action
The last thing you want is to feel that you are constantly nagging your kids to spur them to action only to be tuned out by them because they feel that they have something better to do with their time. Here are two things you can do to be more effective in getting your children to clean their rooms and to help out with chores around the house without driving yourself (or them) crazy:
1. Put an end to whatever your child is doing at the moment and have a talk with him or her. Find out where the problem lies and what is getting in the way of him doing his chores. Find out what else he would like to do with his day and then motivate him to get his work done so he can then get back to doing the things he loves the most. If you consider his self-interests and talk to him from that place then it will be more effective than if you talk about abstract concepts that mean more to adults such as a sense of duty and responsibility. If you do the latter then he may disconnect from the conversation right away and your points will be lost.
2. Keep time on your child when it comes to chores. You can tell your child that the dishes have to get done in in the next 30 minutes. If not then bedtime will be earlier than usual. In this way you are stating how things are going to be and you will not be in a state of constant nagging. Remind your child the next time this happens that he or she does not like having to go to bed earlier so repeating the same thing over again is not recommended. This should get your child up on his feet and give him the incentive to do his tasks because he knows that there is a cost involved if he doesn’t!
You might even want to do the reverse and tell your child that if he completes a task within the next 15 minutes then he can stay up 15 minutes longer. It is important though that the task gets done well and that he does not rush through it to get the reward of staying up 15 minutes longer. This can backfire with some kids however. Try it in your household once or twice and see how it works.
There are plenty of things that you can do to motivate your kids to do the required chores in the home. Giving your children an allowance is a good practice but it should be tied to doing jobs at home. Think of it as preparing them for the day when they will have to work for their paychecks!
