Top tips for encouraging happy and healthy family mealtimes

This exchange not only strengthens family bonds but also offers opportunities for parents to impart values, traditions and life lessons for their children.

Children who regularly engage in family meals are shown to have better social skills and self-esteem, highlighting the role of these gatherings in personal development.

Moreover, eating together as a family encourages healthier eating habits.

Meals prepared at home tend to be more nutritious and balanced compared to fast-food or ready-made meals.

When families eat together, parents can model healthy eating behaviours, monitor their children's dietary intake and instil a preference for wholesome food choices.

Furthermore, the act of preparing meals can be a collaborative effort, involving children in the cooking process, which educates them about nutrition and culinary skills early on.

In essence, family meal times are not just about eating - they are an integral part of fostering a healthy, communicative and cohesive family unit. 

Understanding the family meal experience and decision-making surrounding family meals is particularly important, as families can develop routines that support long term positive health behaviours in their impressionable children during a critical period of health behaviour development.

They are an important part of each day. They offer opportunities for positive experiences and learning, including nurturing relationships, promotion of health and wellness, and a chance for children to practice social, language and self-help skills.

So, to help mealtimes become less stressful and more enjoyable, we’re collated some key strategies to implement at home.

Not every dinnertime can be perfect, but working toward seven some of these ideas can go a long way to helping the whole family enjoy mealtimes.  

Mealtime basics

Establish a routine

Children thrive on routine, so try to have set mealtimes each day. This can help create a sense of structure and predictability for your child. 

Offer a variety of foods

Encourage your child to try new foods by offering a variety of options at each meal.

Include different colours, textures and flavours to make mealtimes more exciting.

You can put the food on the table ‘share style’ and encourage children to help themselves (if age appropriate).

Make mealtime fun

Get creative with how you present food to your child. Use cookie cutters to make fun shapes, arrange food in a creative way on the plate, or involve your child in meal preparation to make it a more engaging experience.

You can also create a ritual around everyone naming their favourite thing from the day or recounting a positive experience.

Be patient and positive

Children can be picky eaters, so it's important to be patient and avoid pressuring them to eat.

Instead, lead by example. Children often mimic the behaviour of adults, so make sure to model healthy eating habits yourself.

Sit down with your child during mealtimes and show them how enjoyable and important it is to eat nutritious foods.

Tips when trying new foods

Consistency is key when trying new foods and it can take up to 30 tries of a new food for children to get an idea of the taste and texture before deciding if they like it or not. 

Introducing new foods to children can sometimes be a challenging task, but with the right approach it can become a fun experience.

One effective strategy is to involve children in the food selection process.

Take them grocery shopping and let them choose a new fruit or vegetable to try. This can pique their curiosity and make them more willing to taste it.

As mentioned above, make trying new foods fun.

Create a colourful and appealing presentation of the food on their plate, shape it into fun designs or characters, or try bright coloured dinnerware.

It's essential to be patient and persistent when introducing new foods. Children may need multiple exposures to a new food before they develop a taste for it, so don't be discouraged if they don't like it the first time.

Keep offering a variety of new foods, and eventually, they may surprise you by discovering a new favourite.

Remember, the goal is to create a positive and open attitude towards trying new foods, so make it a fun and adventurous journey together!

Encouraging your child to eat at dinnertime

Once way to model positive food behaviours as a parent is to prioritise mealtimes as a family.

This means sitting down together as a family to enjoy the evening meal.

If this doesn’t work for your family due to a partner working late, etc. the parent at home can still sit with the children and eat a snack while their children eat dinner to show the importance of this meal together.

Some tips to encourage your child to eat dinner

Get your kids to help you cook dinner

Whether this is chopping mushrooms with a KiddiKutter knife or washing the beans, involving your children in the cooking process gives them ownership over the meal (and gets them out from under your feet when trying to cook!).

They might even snack on a few vegetables as they go.

Involve your children when doing the meal planning

Ask them what meals they’d like to eat and if it’s all unhealthy suggestions, Google healthier, wholefoods alternatives or tweaks for their requests.

Let the children serve themselves at the table

As mentioned above, if age appropriate, let your child serve themselves at the table.

This means putting the food out share-style in the middle of the table and letting them help themselves.

This fosters independence and allows them to control their portion sizes.

Bring mealtimes forward

This may not work for every family but moving mealtimes forward to somewhere between 5pm – 6pm can really take the pressure off ‘witching hour’ and encourage the kids to eat well.