Well it's a balancing thing isn't it. In our day the range of food treats was considerably smaller and our other suppliers of food, smelly dinner ladies, didn't do chips and burgers. However in this day and age they are surrounded by all sorts of nonsense and temptation, which can make it hard on parents at dinnertime.
It's a funny thing this parenting game and the one thing you learn straight off is that pragmatism is vital. My lads get a good portion of plain old veg with each meal, but we do put something they like with it. Sometimes it's not just what's on the plate that they disagree with, it's the portions. My wife is absolutely incapable of judging how much pasta or how many peas are sufficient for my boy's meals and there's often too much on their plate to start with.
The way I see it is if I go some way to giving them something they like then I have every chance of getting them to eat brocolli, peas, carrot and plain old boiled potato. I'm not interested in beating them with a big stick over food they honestly don't like the taste of. And as I get them to eat healthy food with every meal then I think I'm doing ok. Having said that if they don't finish their food they don't get anything nice to eat for the rest of the evening.
My father was a traditional petty tyrant and, to be honest, I would hate to be like that with my kids. However I often hear myself saying his words and being, frankly, very hard on my lads over little things like good manners at the dinner table. I'm not sure why I even bother as most people you meet these days do things like starting to eat before everyone at the table has had their food served, a thing that my mother treated as very rude and I agree with her.
Mind you, I have eaten with other families where the kids (early teens!) couldn't even hold a knife and fork properly, obviously through lack of practice, so perhaps I'm not doing such a bad job after all.
GC
