All posts by Avivah

Don’t Treat Me Differently- video by Tikva Juni

Parenting, Trisomy 21

Today I went to pick up an item from someone I didn’t know, and when I got there, was invited in and given a drink. While in the kitchen I noticed a picture magnet on the fridge of a young woman with Down syndrome. So naturally, I asked who she was.

Turns out it was the sister of the person whose home I was in, and because I was on a timeline I needed to get back home and couldn’t settle in for the long chat I’d have wanted to have. But I did tell her I would love to have that longer conversation sometime, and she told me she’d be happy to, telling me that her sister Tikva Juni was “amazing”, “a powerhouse” and a motivational speaker who has traveled across the US to speak. (You better believe I plan to speak to her parents, too!)

I was fortunate to find one of Tikva’s talks online. It is a powerful description of what it feels like to be different, and how others can make the world a more welcoming and inclusive place for everyone. It’s definitely worth your time!

Avivah

Weekly menu plan

Intentional Spending, menu plans

Here is this week’s menu plan – I’ve only included breakfast meals if they are different than my standard option of hot cooked cereal or eggs.

Sun – lunch – deli sandwiches; dinner – sweet potato chili (doubled)

Mon – b – eggs; l -bean and rice bowls with avocado sauce (triple rice to serve with tomorrow’s dinner and morning rice on Thurs.); d – red lentil dal with kasha

Tuesday – b – baked oatmeal; l – sweet potato chili ; d – chicken a la king with rice

Wednesday: b – morning rice (with sunflower seeds and raisins); l – eggs and salad ; d – chicken tamale pie

Thursday – b – pancakes; l – chickpea pot pie (doubled); d – CORN (clean out refrigerator night)

Friday – l – chickpea pot pie

I made homemade cold cuts for Shabbos using marinated chicken breasts, but they were removed from the oven before they were completely cooked through to the center. So there was about half of it that I didn’t serve on Shabbos; my kids were very happy to have this left over! Yesterday we cooked up the chicken that was left, then sliced it  up and made sandwiches with leftover challah for Sunday lunch – voila, deli sandwiches!

I started my week by soaking and then cooking a pot of red beans – it takes almost the same amount of time and effort to cook a little as to cook a lot.  I used that for Sunday night dinner (I doubled that recipe so that I would have enough to serve for lunch on Tuesday), and will use the rest for the bean and rice bowls for Monday lunch.

I found a great deal at a supermarket just a couple of weeks ago – vacuum wrapped avocado puree. I love avocados but the price is never low, even when they’re in season, which they aren’t right now. The price per kg of avocados is currently about 16 shekels a kilo; a vacuum pack of 1 lb (approximately half a kilo) of mashed avocado is 5 shekels – that comes out to 10 shekels a kilo, but it doesn’t include the weight of the pit or peels, so the price is closer to half the price of fresh avocados or less.  it’s not only cheaper but more convenient than the fresh avocados, and I’ll defrost a package of this for the avocado sauce that will top the rice bowls.

The kids enjoy making pancakes themselves, and I’ve scheduled it for Thursday because that’s a day that I’m home all day so I’m more relaxed. They make a regular batch for themselves and a coconut flour (gluten free) batch for Yirmi.

The chickpea pot pie made it onto this week’s menu after I inventoried my freezer and saw that I had a container of seasoned cooked chickpeas, and another of vegetable pot pie filling. Once both containers are defrosted, I’ll combine the two mixtures, make a mashed potato topping and bake it.

I didn’t schedule dinner for Thursday night since experience has shown that there’s usually something left from the week and I try to use what I have and leave the fridge space clear for my Shabbos cooking the next day.

I’ve put on my optional list – if I have the energy and time and desire that all coincide at the same time and that’s very much not a given :): zucchini muffins, sweet potato muffins, cornbread muffins (gluten free – I use coconut flour). I’d like to make a large batch so I can put a bunch of them in the freezer. I don’t do much baking and once I’m doing it, I’d like to maximize my efforts.

Avivah

Simple Shabbos preps, celebrating birthdays,reassessing school plans

Homemaking, Homeschooling, Intentional Spending

Last Shabbos we had all of our children and their spouses with us for Shabbos, for the first time since the sheva brachos after the second wedding. It was SO nice to have everyone together; we’re a good sized crew and fill up every space of our dining room table with all the extensions in (seats 16). I’m unsure about where we’ll put anyone else when the time comes!

We celebrated my husband’s birthday while everyone was there. We have a family tradition that everyone shares something they appreciate about the person celebrating the birthday. I especially appreciate that all of our in-law children contributed. My older kids commented that they can really see that the younger boys have gotten the hang of this. When they were younger, they would say silly things or repeat whatever the person before them said. But now they’re able to share meaningful appreciation.  Definitely a family tradition that I’m glad we instituted.

This Shabbos was super quiet – just the younger six boys were home. I made a super simple Shabbos: challah, dips, soup, chicken, sweet potatoes and salad for dinner, with fruit compote for dessert. Day meal: chicken, dips, potato kugel and two salads as well as a plate of carrot rounds (cut by Yirmi) and another plate of tomatoes, with fresh fruit (plums, melon and kiwi) and popsicles for dessert. It’s nice to see that the kids are satisfied with no baked desserts – they keep thanking me for the fresh fruit I’ve been buying!

I made homemade chummus this week. For a long time that has been one of the few things that I buy ready made (other things include mayonnaise and mustard) because my kids like the store bought stuff. It wasn’t very time consuming or difficult to whip up a huge batch – I soaked 1.4 kg of dried chickpeas, cooked them up and made over 4 kg of chummus – the actual prep time was probably about 15 minutes. My version isn’t as creamy as the store bought but it tastes good; it’s definitely better for them since it has no additives, and I use higher quality ingredients, like extra virgin olive oil and fresh lemon…and it still comes out cheaper.

When I make a dip, I prepare a large amount and then fill several smaller containers for the freezer. That way I don’t have to make each dip fresh every Shabbos (I usually serve 4 – 5 dips). This week I pulled out matbucha (a cooked tomato dip), carrot dip, and I had dill dip in the fridge from the double batch I made last week, along with the chummus.

This week I got whole chickens on sale for 12.90 shekel a kilo. Usually I cook them whole, though chicken breast is much better when cooked separately, since it needs less time to cook than dark meat and ends up being on the dry side. I decided to experiment and cut the fresh chickens up myself rather than buy the more expensive cuts separately (chicken breast on sale is twice the price).

So I cut them into different cuts: quarters (in our family this is the preferred cut for Shabbos), wings and necks (for soup), chicken breasts (I made homemade cold cuts for Shabbos lunch with half of them, then put the other half into the freezer – this is my preferred cut for the week for myself). I’ll have to watch a youtube video on how to efficiently cut up a chicken and get a sharper knife before I do this again – it was worth it financially but time-wise was less efficient than I would have liked. Once I’m better prepared, I’m game to try again.

 

I’m happy to share that Rafael (17 months) has been accepted for one of the coveted spots for the special inclusion program at the day care center we applied to. Though I would prefer to keep him home with me next year, that won’be allowed and this program seems like a good option. I’m grateful the process for getting him in was so smooth – believe me, I don’t take that for granted.

Meanwhile, we’ve been researching schools for our twelve year old son. After repeatedly being stonewalled by the school we were interested in, my husband and I finally had a powwow and reassessed if this was really what we felt would be in his best interest. We decided today that we want him to continue homeschooling for another couple of years and will put him into school for high school. He is literally the easiest child to homeschool – he’s fluent in English and Hebrew, is a voracious reader and interested in everything and basically educates himself. It’s really nice to have some clarity and closure on this school decision, because we’ve been in limbo for more than four months and limbo isn’t a fun place to be.

As far as Yirmi’s school plans for next year, I’m also in limbo. I decided to send ds12 and Yirmi to school for the coming year around the time we were making two weddings. I was feeling I wasn’t giving the kids as much time and attention as I would like, and that was a big part of my decision to put them in school. But as time passes and I regroup, I’m able to look at all the gains that they’ve experienced even during the busiest times, rather than focus on what I didn’t do. Also, I’m now back in the groove with regular activities and that feels good to me.

My definition of education is focused on much more than the transmission of information; I place a lot of importance on large amounts of unstructured time for play, time outdoors, physical movement, music, creativity, life skills, money management, time with family, and lots more. Things that aren’t really on the radar in the school setting.

All that is to say that we’re in the process of reassessing our intended plans for Yirmi for the coming year. I’ll write more about whatever decision we make and why, once we make the decision. 🙂

Avivah

My son’s recent appearance in a new music video

Parenting

A bit over a year ago, my son was a lead in a video ad for the Borsalino hat company that got an astonishing amount of airtime (I shared the video here). We didn’t expect that at all; we later found out it plays around the clock in the Borsalino hat stores and so tons of yeshiva students who would never see the video anywhere else have seen it.  My son assumed it would be posted on social media and hardly anyone would see it, definitely not anyone from the yeshiva he planned to enter the following fall – but it turned out he was recognized right away by many students.

He was asked to appear in another big ad following that video but refused; he didn’t want his face plastered on billboards lining the streets. But when he was asked to participate in the following music video by a friend, he agreed.

When he mentioned it to me, he said he would appear more prominently if he would be in the final scene, which they were shooting at the Kotel/Western Wall at 3 am, but was unsure if he wanted to give up so much time. He decided against it in the end, so you can only see him in brief flashes – he’s one of the two guys fixing the car.

Let me know if you spot him!

Avivah

Making Shavuos flower arrangements

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, Self-Growth

I love greenery and flowers, and so yesterday I popped into the florist to buy a couple of bouquets in honor of Shavuos.

For my daughter’s wedding, I put together the flower arrangements (something I had never done before and I give my daughter a lot of credit for having faith in me). I ordered specific flowers that I wanted to use, then made two large arrangements for next to the kallah’s chair, a bridal bouquet and centerpieces for thirty tables. It was beautiful, it was very affordable, and I really enjoyed doing it!

Here’s the main arrangements below – you can see all the flowers to the side waiting to be turned into something! (I wrapped the top of each large white vase with a large bow of gauzy white material; this was still in process when the picture was taken.)Tehila's wedding flowers

I thought it would be fun to do a little flower arranging for Shavuos!

Although we love the look of large bouquets, they end up being so large when placed on the table that they block people from seeing one another. So I decided to make several table arrangements using the flowers that I bought.

This is what I started with – a bunch of white lysianthus and a mixed bouquet of lysianthus (each was 20 shekels):

shavuos flowers

I bought a couple of blocks of floral foam, called an oasis, and turned to my garden for additional clippingst.

So far I’ve only used one of the bouquets; I bought two because I didn’t want to be short of flowers but I really could have sufficed with just one. I haven’t decided what to do with the bouquet of white lysianthus; at this point I’m leaning toward mixing it with dusty miller (I have a lovely huge plant of it in my yard) in one big arrangement, using the large white flower urn that I used for the wedding arrangements.

Here’s what I made using the bouquet of mixed lysianthus:

shavuos flowers 2

I decided to mix the fresh flowers with some succulents as well as a few leaves and flowers from our passionfruit vine.  Total cost: 30 shekels for all three (the foam block was ten shekels, then I cut it into thirds).

I chose to put the cooking and baking to the side to spend some time doing this first, because it was something relaxing and enjoyable for me. I tend to push off the ‘fun’ things for last – honestly, flower arrangements are a total extra and who except me would care if I just stuck the original two bouquets in vases?

But when I push off the ‘want tos’ in favor of the ‘have tos’ I end up not doing the things that make me feel happy and cared for.

Whose job is it to make me happy? Mine!

So it’s important that I make time to do things that I enjoy, not just the things that everyone expects me to do. I consider taking the time to make these floral arrangements a form of self-care for me.

Avivah

When my son gave up his seat and was ignored instead of thanked

Self-Growth

Yesterday I took some of my boys to the local homeschooling park meet. I don’t usually go because it is so exhausting for me to get a very tired five year old home on the bus afterward. And the tiredness isn’t just in my head – I went to bed before 9 and didn’t wake up until 6 am!

Anyway, when we got on the bus on the way home, my twelve year sat with the five year old in the back, and my nine year old sat next to me in the seat close to where there’s a space for strollers. I appreciated this one on one time with him, as he leaned against me and shared with me the storyline in the book he had just started reading. It was a really nice time of connection with him.

After a while, a woman with a stroller got on, and though we both would have enjoyed continuing to sit together, I told my son it would be a nice thing to get up and offer his seat to her. Though this wasn’t expected, it’s important to me that my children learn to be considerate and aware of others.

He willingly got up and before he had even moved away, the woman was already sliding into his spot, oblivious to his presence.

Have you ever regretted doing something nice for someone because of their unpleasant response? That was my feeling at that moment, and my first thought was to be critical of how self-centered and entitled she seemed.

I have no idea why she was so abrupt and dismissive in her body language. Maybe she was distracted, maybe she was thinking about something else, maybe she expected to have the seat and didn’t feel thanks were in order. I don’t know about what she was or wasn’t thinking.

But I know when I feel any negativity toward someone else, I benefit when I first check in with myself. Have I been responsible for my part of this interaction? And the answer in this case was, no. I recognized that my choice was to stew in silence or I could respectfully communicate, and if I were to say nothing, I would be making the choice to be resentful.

So I smiled at her and said, “You know, my son was happy to give you his seat, and though it’s not necessary, I’m sure he’d appreciate if you acknowledged him.”

She looked startled, as if just that second she realized that she was sitting in a seat vacated for her, said, ‘Oh, of course!’ and then got out her cell phone and made a call.

About five minutes later she finished her phone conversation, looked around and asked, “Where is that cute kid?” I pointed out my son, and she thanked him for giving her his seat. That was a nice bonus. He wasn’t expecting it and I wasn’t expecting it.

—————–

For most of my life, when people would do things that would bother me I would feel my only role was to feel insulted, offended, wounded, or to ignore them. It wasn’t my problem, right? After all, I wasn’t the person being rude or obnoxious or irritable.

But now I’ve realized that I need to be honest with myself and with others, and if I haven’t done that, then I have no right to be annoyed by them. It’s unfair of me to be resentful with someone else for what goes on in my own head.

It’s nice that this woman ended up thanking my son, but it didn’t look like that was what was going to happen.  How would I have felt if she hadn’t thanked him? Once I had respectfully stated my truth, I was okay with whatever she did or didn’t do.

It’s a small choice in the moment but it’s amazing how taking that small action and speaking up made a huge difference in my feeling about her and myself!

Avivah

Weekly menu plan

Intentional Spending, menu plans

I like to plan my menu for the week on Saturday nights; otherwise, a few days into the week I’d be figuring out the meals as I went along and wondering why I didn’t do some advance planning to keep mealtimes running smoothly!  Posting it here helps me feel more accountable to myself to get it done at the beginning of the week.

I start my planning by taking a look at what I have in the fridge, freezer and pantry (this includes leftovers).

Breakfast at this point is just about always eggs, oatmeal or polenta so it doesn’t require any planning.  Snacks are usually vegetables, sometimes fruit. I usually include some kind of vegetable with dinner if the dish that I plan doesn’t include any but I don’t plan that in advance – it’s pretty easy to chop up a plate of cucumber rounds.

I avoid gluten (no pasta and bread) and dairy.

Sunday: lunch – Shabbos leftovers; dinner – lima beans with chicken

Monday: l – chicken minestrone soup ; dinner – hot dogs, potatoes and green beans

Tuesday: l – lentil loaf, chummus, tomatoes ; d – chicken breast, rice, roasted summer vegetables

Weds: l – Spanish chickpeas and rice; d – baked sweet potatoes, chicken wings, salad

Thurs – l – chickpea and peanut stew; d –  kasha, ground meat sauce

Last week I made lentil loaf and made four pans; I stuck two of them in the freezer. I usually don’t like to serve the same dish two weeks in a row but this week my freezer is jam packed since my husband generously stocked us up on chicken. Combining that with the large amount of donor milk that I suddenly received in a two day period for Rafael (I never say no to donor milk, it is so vital to his health and it always gets priority for freezer space!), I want to get whatever I can out to make room for holiday cooking.

Here are some examples of how I integrate what I have in the house along with planned leftovers into this week’s menu:

I don’t have lima beans but chose the lima beans with chicken recipe since my planned experiment to roast broad beans for a snack didn’t work out. I overcooked the beans and then they were too soft. They don’t taste the same as limas but I think they’re similar enough that it will work.

For Monday’s lunch, I’ll be using whatever is left of Sunday’s dinner of broad beans and chicken, and add vegetables to make a soup similar to minestrone. That way I won’t have an odd container of dinner leftovers sitting around in the fridge growing mold while I forget that I put it there and don’t recognize it when I finally open it up.  (No, that has never happened to me. :))

When I cook rice for Tuesday night’s dinner, I’ll double the recipe and use half of what I make for the next day’s lunch of Spanish chickpeas and rice.

I’ll use any leftover roasted summer vegetables from Tuesday night’s dinner in the chickpea peanut stew for Thursday lunch, since those are the vegetables the recipe calls for.

By the way, I don’t buy canned beans so I soak and then cook all beans that are in any of the recipes I use. Very frugal and super easy.

On Tuesday night I’ll soak a large package of dried chickpeas, then will cook them first thing Weds. morning.  They’ll be ready to use in time for lunch, and I’ll have enough for lunch the next day of chickpea peanut stew, too.  Often I’ll freeze a large amount of cooked beans, and later I can quickly pull them out to add to a dish.

Most weeks I make a double recipe of a dish and then put half of it in the freezer for another week. This cuts down on how many meals I’m making from scratch and simplifies my day. We all prefer this to what I used to do, which was to make something for dinner, then serve it again for lunch the next day.  I’ll empty my freezer a bit at the end of the week when I cook for Shavuos and then in the coming week I’ll get back to freezing meals for dinner.

I haven’t been careful to record all the food expenses separately so I can’t tell you exactly what our monthly food bill is at this time. We budget 1100 shekels a week for food, transportation and miscellaneous expenses.

Have a great week!

Avivah

The Magic of Ordinary Days

Homemaking, Homeschooling, Marriage

The Magic Of Ordinary Days – that could have been a good title for my blog in years past. For years I shared about our daily lives, the hows and whys of what I did, how I managed, my feelings about it all.

Often people asked me how I found the time to write so frequently, and my answer was that I loved it.It was something I did for myself just as much as for all of you.  I loved connecting with others and sharing ideas, and the blogosphere was a place of personal connection for me and many others during those years.

And then something changed. Something in the culture changed, something that I couldn’t put my finger on for a long time. I could feel the shift happen but wasn’t able to verbalize what was happening or why it was happening.

But understanding it or not, my blogging changed over the last few years. As the invisible energy of social media and blogging has shifted, the nature of what I write about and how I share changed to reflect that. I still mentally compose blog posts in my head almost daily, just as I did for so long…but instead of being written up at the end of the day, most of those thoughts and experiences stay with me.

As both a blogger and blog reader I miss what the blogosphere used to be and while I’m not wishing to turn back the clock, today I gave myself permission to feel that missing-ness of what once was.

In the ‘old days’, today I might have shared about my son’s reaction when one of his silkworms escaped the box he was in and got stuck on a piece of tape, and how I responded to his sadness. He was so agitated that it was suffering but didn’t want to be the one to put it out of his suffering. And then the discussion continued to the possibility of sharing some of his silkworms with others, as he told me that he realizes it’s getting to be a big job to take care of so many and he’s not enjoying it anymore. We have to help our kids recognize and verbalize their needs.

Or I might have shared about roasting a large bunch of red peppers that I got an amazing price on  and different ways to preserve red peppers in the case of a windfall like mine (I made roasted red pepper dip with ground walnuts, some for Shabbos and some for the freezer); I would have shared the recipe, too.

I might have shared about chatting with my ten year old son as I worked in the kitchen, enjoying time with him as he peeled the large fava beans that I soaked. I really love the energy of the conversations that happen when there’s just one child and me working together.  We’re planning an experiment with the fava beans this week – to roast them with savory spices for a Shabbos snack.

I might have told you what I said to my five year old when he picked up his little brother in an awkward way and brought him to me, framing what he did positively and verbalizing what a loving and helpful older brother he is. Our children rise to our expectations; we can scold them and make them feel bad or we can look for the good intent in their actions and respond to that.

Maybe I would have told you about my vegetable order that included a larger than number of fruits. The two boys who came out to help me bring the order in exclaimed when they saw what I got and asked what the occasion was. Since we’re moving away from desserts that have a lot of sugar in them, recently I’ve been serving canned/baked/fresh fruit, nuts, seeds and munchy things like that. The kids are enjoying it and all said they don’t miss the sweet baked desserts. This week I’ll make baked apples, and got kiwis, grapes and apricots to serve fresh.

Or I might have shared my thoughts about some of the marriage related questions that have been coming my way in parenting discussions, and why I think the best thing you can do for your child is to love your spouse (or in the case of divorce to be positive and respectful of your ex-spouse). And how to positively interact with your spouse when they annoy you and you just can’t see much to appreciate about them.

Or maybe I would have told you that after many weeks of no videos, why I allowed the boys to watch two educational cartoons on the occasion of my son’s ninth birthday tomorrow. (Remember when he was born? He’s the one who was three weeks late!)

Or maybe I would have shared about consciously making time and space in my life to do things just for pleasure, not outcome related at all. I loaded my Kindle for the first time in a long time with books and it’s so renewing for me to open it up and have really good selections in it. I’ve been doing a little bit of reading in bed before I go to sleep. I haven’t done that for years.

Or maybe I would share with you about our current family read aloud, about why I love it and how much my boys love it. How reading together is a special bonding time for us. And about how to use books with great values and storylines to stimulate their minds and build character, without any heavy moralistic messages.

Or maybe I would have told you about a phone conversation with someone visiting Israel right now – a friend I told you about meeting eleven years ago on this blog, when we met in line at a grocery store in Amish country. They were in front of us and one of my kids whispered to me, “They have seven kids just like us!” We weren’t used to seeing mothers with lots of kids shopping together in the morning hours.  Turned out we were both homeschooling and expecting baby #8 (who were later born within a few weeks of each other).  Our brief conversation continued outside in the parking lot, and when I learned this lovely Christian woman was Jewish, I invited her family to our home – just a two hour drive away! And they accepted, coming for Chanuka and for Shabbos; we visited them at their home in PA as well. We became friends and after all these years we’re still in touch! They’ll be coming with their youngest two children for dinner next week.

These were things I thought about sharing with you today.

In years past, I would have shared about all of these things and more.

And for today I’m enjoying sharing all of this with you.

Not because I’m planning to change how I blog or explain why I don’t do this anymore or why I should or shouldn’t or anything else.

Just because I felt like sharing with you –  just like the old days. 🙂

Avivah

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars

recipes,

I like trying new recipes out, and this week I made these chocolate peanut butter oatmeal bars for the first time and they were a hit! Honestly, you don’t have to work too hard to make something taste amazing when you put chocolate and peanut butter together. 🙂

(I didn’t remember when I first saw this recipe and am glad that it didn’t take too much time searching online to find the website so that I can give the creator of this yumminess credit! She has lots of other great recipes, too.) I hardly adapted it at all.

It’s also a fun recipe to put together with kids – since it’s a no-bake recipe, it’s ready for tasting very soon after you make it!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars

  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup peanut butter
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 3/4 cup quick oats
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 4 to 5 oz chocolate chips or baking chocolate
  • 1/2 cup peanut butter

Mix the honey, 1/4 c. peanut butter, coconut oil and vanilla. Stir in the oats and salt. Transfer 2/3 of the mixture to a greased 8×8 pan (put aside 1/3 for the topping) and press down very well.

In a separate bowl, carefully melt the chocolate and 1/2 cup peanut butter and stir until smooth. Pour this on top of the crust in the pan. Crumble the remaining oat mixture on top of the chocolate layer, then press down. Refrigerate or freeze until firm enough to cut squares.

So easy, so good!

Avivah

Q & A – Don’t Turn Mealtimes into a Battleground

nutrition, Parenting

I received a number of questions and comments to my last post about not making meal time a battleground, so I’ll respond to those here.

“In regards to what you just wrote about healthy mealtime – But what do you say  if they want to put croutons in every soup you make – you let or you don’t (  that’s just one example)?Or snacks in the morning, for a long time I was sending them off with my own health cookies and popcorn…but they want what all their friends have – pretzels  and who knows what…I dont  want to fight but I do care…so how would your no fighting approach fit in..”

If you let them put croutons in the soup depends on if this is something you’re comfortable or not. If you’re comfortable with it, go ahead and let them have it. If you’re not, then that is your boundary that you’ll share with your child of what to expect at meal time in your home. Your expectations don’t have to be a big discussion – put it on the table and when asked about it, let your child know that croutons are for special days and tonight there won’t be croutons. Same approach with whatever else may come up.

Don’t be afraid to have boundaries! So often parents cringe when I explain my position on this; they tell me it sounds harsh. I don’t see it as mean or unkind to serve your child appetizing food and let them to eat the amount they’re comfortable with, thereby allowing dinner to be a time of connection rather than conflict. Why do parents feel it’s ‘nicer’ to be ambivalent about their position is, which results in ongoing conflicts about what to eat, how much to eat, how fast to eat, why to eat it….??

Today my child had a friend over who asked if I had honey. When I told him we did, he asked me for a spoonful. I asked him if he wanted it with tea or something like that. He said no, he just likes to eat it off the spoon. I told him that would make it a treat, and in our house we save treats for Shabbos. He asked again for it, and I smiled and repeated that on Shabbos we have treats. He asked why and I told him – again, with a smile – that’s how we do it. It’s not productive to be drawn into a discussion in which I feel the need to explain or rationalize to his satisfaction why I do what I do (kids love these situations, because as long as they can keep arguing, they have hope we’ll give in).

About snacks in a peer setting – again, you get to decide what your boundaries will be! There’s no right and wrong, just what is right for you. There’s always a range of choices when it comes to a child fitting in – does he get the basic backpack or the designer backpack/ shoes/ snacks, or something in between? Someone is going to be holding the bar down and someone is going to be raising the bar of expectations. Where do you want to be?

Personally, I like to be on the lower side but not on the bottom. So I’d send my kids with snacks that were similar to their peers but within my comfort zone regarding cost, nutrition or whatever else was concerning me. It’s reasonable to support your child so he is within normal range for his peer group.

If this was something that really mattered to my kids, I’d have a discussion with them and listen to their concerns, and share my concerns with them. With all of that in mind, I’d try together with them to come up with some options we could all feed good about.

“Would you mind sharing if you serve dessert on a regular basis? Most nights? Not often? I watch my daughter and her constant battles with food with her children and it almost always revolves around eating to be rewarded with dessert. I served regular meals, 3 times a day to my 7 and they ate what I served and most nights received a cookie of some kind after dinner. I didn’t pay close attention to what they ate and just assumed it all would work out, as all of the food I served was healthy and homemade. I cringe at the mealtime battleground and we eat together often!”

I don’t give my kids dessert after dinner other than on Shabbos (and then I have a nice selection), but there’s no reason not to give dessert if it’s something you want to do! My grandparents and aunt used to serve dessert after dinner and it never affected how much I ate of the main meal. It was understood that it was a nice extra.

I don’t think dessert is the pivotal issue. The more relevant factor is if it’s an inherent part of the meal or a reward the kids have finagled for eating the food that they were served as part of the main meal. My children aren’t doing me a favor by eating their dinner, and incentives create that attitude. Incentives basically show kids that there’s something we care much more about than they do, giving them something to resist and negotiate on.

Since I assume they’ll eat if they’re hungry, there’s not something for the kids to resist!  They have responsibility for if they eat, and they bear the consequences of not eating – this is an issue between the child and himself, not me and him.

Giving incentives to children concerns me because it decreases their own internal motivation to do what it is they’re being incentivized to do; it’s not effective in the long term and even in the short term is just managing the symptoms of the issue rather than getting to the root of it.

“I agree with this overall, however I think peer pressure, peer culture, and school make a huge impression. Many kids are surrounded by sugar from 8 AM until late afternoon. The schools are using candy and junk food for prizes and behavior modification and the peers compete who can bring in the junkiest junk food. My youngest finished elementary school last year, but this was a huge problem the entire 25+ years I had kids in elementary schools. Once in high school the girls switched to competing diets, which can bring a whole other variety of issues.I think the most important thing is sitting together and having real meals together as a family. I would guess many (most?) families don’t even do that most days. (Myself included-it’s a real struggle!)”

Yes, I agree with you that the school culture and the pressures it creates are real. When my kids go to camp and when they’ve been in school, I’ve encountered this same issue.

I look at this as a question of looking at what is in your circle of influence and what is in your circle of concern. It concerns you what happens in school, but you can’t control it. You can influence and impact what happens in your own home, so that’s where you put your effort.  The more you invest energy into where you can make an impact, the greater your ability to affect things that were previously outside of your influence will be.

So practically, that means serving meals that align with what you believe to be appropriate in your home. Make each meal pack a nutritional punch and are as appealing as possible, knowing that your kids are tanked up on sugar and may not be so interested in the food you serve.  There are meals that my kids will eat and not complain about, and then there are the meals that they really, really appreciate.

So I would make more of the meals they really appreciate in the situation you described, knowing that they wouldn’t be hungry enough to eat food that they were kind of blah about.  These foods would still be those that I decided were appropriate nutritionally.

And yes, it’s hard to make family mealtime a regular sit down event. Especially as kids get older and everyone is going in a different direction at different times, it can feel like herding cats! I decided to make this a priority as it came up for me in my personal mission statement work as a strong value. If someone isn’t home, they obviously can’t be there, but whoever is home participates and it’s a nice grounding way to connect everyone at the end of the day.

 “this would work for parents who have kids who are not picky. my boys won’t eat anything other than string cheese and canned peaches or pineapple. and that is a struggle. I’ve had to insert incentives to get them to eat. if I had them only choose from my meal that i made for the rest of the family they would not eat. you may say that they would eventually eat if they were hungry enough, but they are stubborn enough to perhaps forego dinner and wait for their cereal in the morning!”

Actually, this is the approach that works best to help kids move beyond their picky tendencies! This is WHY my kids aren’t picky eaters.

To clarify a couple of things: firstly, I only offer my children choices of foods that I would be happy for them to eat. So if they chose to wait for breakfast, that would be fine for me because the breakfast choice would be one I would know would meet their nutritional needs. I’m saying that I really don’t have an attachment to them having to eat dinner if they don’t want to.

Until a child feels the space inside himself of his own wanting something, they’re not going to be internally motivated (this is true in all areas). If we keep them from feeling that space because we’re so busy filling it for them, we deny them the opportunity to expand themselves. A parent has to be really careful about using incentives because it can create a dynamic that will backfire on the parent.

Interestingly, parents always tell me their kids will only eat dairy and carbs (fruits are also carbs); I don’t think anyone has ever complained to me that their kids prefer protein and don’t want to eat noodles! Many people have a higher sensitivity to these foods since they quickly convert to sugar in the body, thereby inducing very strong cravings.

Some kids have an actual allergy to certain foods and it’s the allergy that creates the craving for those foods.  If your child are extremely set in their eating habits, I would consider if there is a deeper physiological issue that needs to be addressed (eg candida overgrowth and other gut related issues can create very strong cravings).

“You’ve obviously never dealt with a chronically picky eater. I call DD “The Starch Beast.” She will live on carbs if I let her.”

Yes, I believe you. Note my comment above regarding cravings for starches.

“I’ve learned to serve the protein and veggies first, and only after those are gone will I serve her a starch. Otherwise, she’ll fill up on rice or potatoes, and not want to have anything else. She’s 14 now, and will still live on potato chips and popcorn if she could have her own way. Even with pizza, she only wants to eat the crust!”

What I hear you saying is that you’ve clarified the boundaries that work in your home and in your situation! Wonderful! As I said above, the parent has to set boundaries that she is comfortable with based on her specific concerns, and serve foods that honor those boundaries.

“what about a child who will forgo dinner and then wake up in the night crying from hunger and demand milk and a snack?”

I don’t suggest starving any child!

I would let the child know that now is dinner time, and until the morning, there will only be xyz foods/drinks (whatever is okay with you). You as the parent draw the boundaries around this. I would encourage him to have something now, explaining that if he wake up in the middle of the night he may be hungry and at that point since dinner is over, I’m only going to be able to offer him xyz (again, whatever you decide in advance but it should be minimal and not compelling).

If he wakes up, empathize and let him know you know how hard it is to be hungry, and he’s welcome to have whatever it is you previously agreed to with him. (And that wouldn’t be milk and a snack, which would keep the cycle going! :))

Recognize that you’re not forcing your child to go without food. It’s your child who is making the choice not to eat.  (By the way, notice once again that the child is asking for dairy and a carb – the more cravings for simple carbs are given in to, the more the child will crave them.)

By the way, the use of the word ‘demand’ implies that it’s the child who has the power to determine what he is served, and that the parent have no choice but to passively respond. I very, very strongly believe in a parent proactively taking action according to the guidelines that she has determined will best meet the needs of her child.

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Food brings up so many strong feelings for parents! Whenever this topic comes up in my parenting workshops, there are always a flood of specific questions. I hope that I’ve addressed some of the underlying issues here!

Avivah