Bet you’re all wondering where I’ve been. I really have no excuse, other than the new place I moved into has almost no natural light, which means that taking pictures of food here has been a real problem.

But I’m working on it, and soon we’ll all be happy again. In the meantime, while I figure out what to do with lighting, I wanted to open a discussion on how to end pickiness at the dinner table.

You all know I want my kids to eventually have some degree of sophistication when it comes to eating, and nothing shouts bad manners louder than someone who turns his or her nose up at something served for dinner (Tripe and sweet breads, of course, being the obvious exceptions to this. I believe those and other similar cuisine entitles the one served to get up and run as far away from the dinner table as possible).

My daughter is about as picky as they come. She won’t eat pasta. Ever. This includes noodles of all kinds and in all cuisines.

So here is a list of techniques, suggestions, philosophies, etc. that I try to use. I’m not uber consistent, so maybe by writing it down, I’ll start to be better about the whole thing, and one day my three little lovelies will be as unpicky as I am.

1. Be as consistent as you can. This is sometimes very hard, as life is insane for everyone.   But if at all possible, try to serve meals at the same time every day. My grandmother used to actually serve the same meals every week: spaghetti on Wednesday, franks and beans on Saturday (unless it was summer, then she served crab), some sort of roast on Sunday, etc.

2. Don’t force anything on them. I think this may actually be the reason my 6-year-old still won’t eat pasta. I may or may not have possibly made her eat some once. Maybe. Either way, I learned it isn’t such a good idea. The best thing to do is just put out the meal and say, “This is what I have made. You may choose to eat it, or you may choose not to eat it, but I am not making anything else. Out next meal will be tomorrow morning at 7:00.”

3. Parents decide when and what to serve, children decide if and how much they will eat. That line, or something close to it, came from a book I read in college with a title like How to Keep Your Kid from Getting Fat (I tried finding it on amazon, and couldn’t, but it was something like that). If you consistently follow this rule, the power struggle should eventually go away.

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I have never read, nor seen the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, but My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn is based on it.  I thought this line from the play really captures my view of what good etiquette is all about.

I grew up in a small section of an historic town in New England.  Most of the houses dated from the eighteen hundreds and earlier (Okay, everyone in Europe, stop laughing.  I know you don’t think that’s very old.).  In the center of our neighborhood, we had a general store which all the kids fondly called the “little store.”  It carried all kinds of penny candy, soda, and ice cream.  My mom is still amazed with what I was able to buy there with a quarter—attributing it to some sort of genius in thrifty shopping.  Next door to the Little Store was our post office.  No one in our area had mail delivered—everyone had a p.o. box.  Part of everyone’s daily ritual was to stop by the post office, pick up their mail, and say hi to Mrs. Ryan and Joe.  It made our neighborhood special.  I miss it.

On the down side of my upbringing in the midst of idyllic Americana,  we had to go to the post office to send mail, too.  We had to buy our stamps there, and if the window was closed, we had to come back another time.  For us kids, that meant another twenty minute walk.  Usually the need for sugar hit us at times other than scheduled window hours, and stamp-less, unsent mail would travel home in sticky hands.

I tell you this very long story to explain my deeply rooted non-talent of writing and sending mail, particularly thank you notes.  I believe in thank you notes.  I buy them.  I have filled out hundreds of them.  But many, I am VERY sorry to say, never get sent.  Since I am trying to raise my kids to be polite, I am working hard to change.  I posted these thank you notes from Papyrus as penance.  Aren’t they pretty?  They have decorated envelopes, which are hard to find.  And I bought them in good faith that I will be better in the future.

A few years ago, I was watching the BYU channel, and saw a small lecture given by Chieko Okazaki.  She talked about raising families with love and respect.  Among her many ideas, the one that stood out was her simple set of rules she had in her home:  Be polite; be safe.  Just about every behavior falls into these two categories.  It was so brilliant, we have adopted these rules in our own home.

When a child misbehaves, the conversation often goes a bit like this, “What are the rules of our house?”

They mumble, “Being polite and safe.”

Then we ask, “Was it safe to hit your brother?”

“No.”

“Was it polite?”

“No.”

“What do you say?”

“Sorry.”

It’s very simple, and most of the time it helps us avoid further struggles and contention.

Humilimom—as in humiliated mom.  That was me at Target two weeks ago.  My five-year-old—five-year-old!— threw a fit there, right after I had said good-bye to my well-put-together friend Danielle.  I was hoping she would not be privy to my child’s outburst of emotion, but she walked by during phase one of the tantrum.  When we arrived at the checkout line, we were in phase 2—the loudest phase, and there was Danielle, four check out lines down, with her three lovely daughters.
By this time, everyone could hear my daughter screaming. She sounded like Veruca Salt’s evil twin. I was far too embarrassed to make eye contact with anyone in the store who might have the I-would-never-let-my-kid-act-like-that face,  so I did something I’m not a fan of: I covered her mouth. She could breathe just fine, but the second she did, she got a bloody nose. Yes, people probably thought I hit her.
It would be painful for me to continue to tell the story of such a low point in my time as a mother. So, I’ll just tell you the car ride home turned into a lecture to all three of my children on the evils of becoming spoiled brats.
I finally saw Danielle on Sunday. She was out of town for a few weeks—enough time for our display to become a cloudy memory, and enough time for the red in my cheeks to fade. I apologized, and we had a laugh. I suppose all families have their moments—even if they aren’t as humiliating as mine was.

I have long maintained the feeling that I should raise my kids to be polite.  But since I started the blog, I have found a lot of media out there that says teaching your kids to say please and thank you is an unnecessary hoop to make them jump through just so that adults feel better.  What a load of rubbish!  We raise our children to be polite so that they can learn to look outward instead of constantly toward themselves — so they can put off their natural tendencies to be selfish for part of the day.  This is a blog, so I won’t bore you with any rantings and ravings — that would be impolite.  But, if you do believe in teaching your kids manners, Emily Post has a list of downloadable printouts for teaching them.  Right before a nice dinner, I like to sit down with the kids and review the one entitled “Top Table Manners for Kids.”  That way, during the meal, I don’t have to keep nagging –elbows off the table! stop chewing with your mouth open! Instead, I can simply raise my eyebrows at them, and they get the picture.

Stuart started learning to eat the European way — holding the knife in his right hand, and eating with the fork in his left — this week.  I guess he never really learned the American way, what with switching hands, and so forth, as this was really the first time he’s used a knife at the table.  The food fell off his fork until he learned he didn’t have to twist it, and I showed him the best way to hold his hands.   I thought he manged pretty well, and noticed him practicing on leftovers tonight.