Month: July 2008

Getting kids to eat vegetables

Post author By Jordan
Post date 9:04 am
6 Comments on Getting kids to eat vegetables

The other night I turned to my husband, Ryan, and said, “Do you think Hayden is a picky eater?”

“YES!” he said without hesitation.

I don’t think so, though. He eats a wide variety of foods: the standard toddler fare of peanut butter, bananas, graham crackers, fruit other than bananas, yogurt, bread, milk, juice, desserts, pizza, cheese, TUNA!!! (which has become a family joke), green beans, black beans, corn, etc. He doesn’t care what color his food is, he doesn’t care if it’s touching one another and while he does love his “yunt” (lunch, meaning sandwich, usually peanut butter), he’s not fixated on one single food.

Today, I’ll just focus on the vegetables—what can we do to get our kids to eat more vegetables (or is this one of “those” battles?)

Offer the food repeatedly (without high expectations). Some people say it takes as many as 16 (no, not 16,000) interactions with a food for children to try it. Hopefully these do not all come at one sitting; that seems a little excessive, yes?
Let them see you eat it. You’re the best example for your children. Hayden won’t eat pepperoni, even though his father does, because he’s seen me pick it off my pizza too many times. This isn’t always mandatory of course—for the most part, Hayden has not yet picked up on what foods I don’t eat. I was 22 when I realized my mother didn’t eat peas. I love peas!
Have veggies ready and available for snacks (and often nothing else). Also helpful here: let them use ranch dressing, or another dressing they like. Ketchup, if you must (hey, isn’t that a vegetable? 😉 ).
Fill half a child’s plate with veggies. Another quarter should be meat and the last quarter, starch. Quick and easy guide to balancing your meals.
Serve veggies “family-style,” leave the rest in the kitchen. When sitting down to dinner, only bring the platters/bowls of vegetables to the table. Leave starches and meats in the kitchen—if you really want more of those, you’ll have to go get them, but if you or your children are just hungry after finishing your first plate, the vegetables are the only convenient choice.
Play games. My mother would play that our thin-cut green beans were worms and we were baby birds. I love green beans (though the thin-cut ones are just a bit slimy for my taste 😉 ). Another favorite: your child (this one’s usually better for boys) is a dinosaur and he’s going to eat the trees (broccoli).
Hide them if you have to. Zucchini banana bread, anyone? (Nope, me neither.)
A caveat: Don’t bargain, especially not for ‘better’ foods. Apparently, psychologists say that bargaining with your children (“Eat two more bites of peas or no dessert!”) just reinforces the notion that the food they’re averse to is disgusting, worse than the desired food and something to be endured.

And I can’t talk about eating habits without mentioning an awesome book on the subject, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink. Some of these tips come right from his book.

I found this book really entertaining—and pretty shocking. He looks at our hidden motivations for eating, factors that influence us in eating—and strategies for being more aware of what we eat (or just tricking ourselves into eating less!).

But obviously, I’m no expert in getting your children to eat their veggies. What’s worked for you?

Part of Works-for-me Wednesday.

Tags wfmw, food, toddler, discussion, eating, vegetables, veggies

Fulfillment Faith

What really matters? Motherhood

Post author By Jordan
Post date 10:10 am
4 Comments on What really matters? Motherhood

Every year at my alma mater, they hold a women’s conference with wonderful, inspiring speakers.

One of this year’s most notable speakers was Sheri Dew, a writer, speaker, delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations and President and CEO of Desert Book publishing company. While Sheri Dew has not had the opportunity to marry or have children, she is still a staunch defender of the family and motherhood.

In her talk this year, she spoke about the influence of good women in the world, saying “No one has more influence on husbands than wives, on children than their mothers, or on young men than young women. Show me the women of any family or community, and I will show you the character and soul of that family and community.”

She characterized the lies that the world (and, as this is a religious setting, you can guess to what source she attributed the world’s lies) tells about womanhood and motherhood:

Lucifer has worked with a vengeance to distort the very definition of womanhood and to confuse everyone about us, including us.

Here are just a few of Lucifer’s lies: That men are smarter, have all the power, and are more important, so if we want to have influence we should be more like them; that marriage and family are confining; that motherhood is menial and a waste of any talented woman’s time; that women are perpetually frazzled and failing; and that a woman’s value is based on her size, shape and what she accomplishes outside the home.

Any of that sound familiar? Or disturbingly like some comments I came across recently?

Dew continues (italics hers, bold mine):

Too many women have bought these lies. Our culture is disintegrating at the speed of light, and unfortunately, our gender is doing a lot of the damage. Sleazy, immoral, cunning women who flaunt their indiscretions jam the airwaves and monopolize magazine covers. Yet we watch their shows, donate to their causes, and even see them as models. . . .

Other distortions are equally troubling. Consider this headline: “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” (Forbes, 17 September 2007). I bought this magazine because it made me mad. Every woman listed is a politician, an entertainer, or a CEO. I mean no disrespect to any women listed. What I dispute is the bold distortion that in order to have influence, a woman must have money, fame, or a title. That is a big, fat lie!

How many times a day do we get the message that motherhood doesn’t matter as much as a contribution we might be making in the workplace? How often are working moms told that the time they spend away from their children is far more valuable and has a bigger, more important impact in the world than the precious time they get to spend with their children?

I know I’m not the only one who’s heard these negative messages on motherhood from the world. Dew also knows that the world sends us these messages constantly, but she reminds us of what really matters:

Here is the truth about womanhood. Our Father gave His daughters a divine endowment of gifts that give us unique influence. First and foremost, we have the high privilege of bearing children. If mortality is the time in all eternity to prove ourselves, then there is nothing more important than bearing children and leading them along the path home. President David O. McKay said that, “motherhood is the greatest potential influence . . . in human life” (Improvement Era, 1953, 452).

And for those of us who believe that God appointed this vital and holy role to women, she adds that “We are the Lord’s secret weapon. Pre-mortally [in the spirit world where we lived before we came here], when our Father described our role, we must have shouted for joy because of the ennobling stature He gave women in His kingdom. The world won’t tell us this stunning truth, but the Spirit will.”

I encourage you to read the full text of Sheri Dew’s inspiring talk—and to be reminded of what really matters in this life.

What do you do to try to keep this perspective when no one else seems to agree?

Tags sheri dew, lies, lies about motherhood, truth, truth about motherhood, motherhood

Kids/Parenting Random Work

Building a heritage

Once upon a time, I was part of something great. Though I knew it was important at the time, looking back as I recently had the chance to do, I realize even more what a unique and important opportunity I had now that it’s gone.

For two years while I was in college, I was a teaching assistant for a 100-level required GE course. Now, for most courses, TAs mostly grade papers and do other grunt work. While we did that in this course, we also had the opportunity to actually teach as well: under the direction of the professor, we taught the third hour of the course each week. (The course was structured with two hours of 1000-student lectures on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the students’ third hour was in a 30-student “lab,” of which I taught 3 to 4 each week.)

But teaching was not the thing that made this job so important. It was the course that we taught. The course, as far as we know, is unlike any other college course. It was called American Heritage and the material was, basically, a touch of political science, the history of the creation of and the evolution of Constitution, and the basic economics and the economic founding principles in the US.

But the course material doesn’t begin to express what was so important about this course. It wasn’t about “America first” or “America best”; it was about the efforts that real people made to create a unique beginning for a country.

From the beginning of time, civilization has struggled between two extremes—tyranny and the control and stability that it brings, and anarchy and the overriding freedom (and insecurity) that it brings. The cycle between these forms of governing ourselves is called the Human Predicament.

Many societies have made an effort to escape the human predicament, but most solutions have devolved into the same vicious cycle. During the formative years of this country, there was no guarantee that this country would be any different.

With great concerted effort, the founders of this country established what they hoped would be a good start, the framework and guidelines that could provide both stability and freedom for the people. It was a great experiment, really, since this form of government hadn’t been tried in quite this way before.

And, so far, it’s held up pretty well. Almost 220 years later, we’ve only required 27 official additions, changes or clarifications to that framework. A lot of the changes to the system have become matters of tradition rather than codification.

It’s so easy to look back at history and think that the way it happened was inevitable. But there really isn’t anything that guaranteed that this country would succeed other than the determined study and efforts and compromises.

And there’s no guarantee that it will continue to succeed in escaping tyranny and anarchy without the determined study and efforts of our citizens today.

I helped with that. I taught hundreds of college freshmen (mostly) about this—about our heritage and our responsibility to this country. Not all of them, and probably very few of them, fully caught this spirit at the time, but if and when they do, they will have the understanding of the country’s founding principles that should best be able to guide them in how to lead the country today.

I had the opportunity to remember this experience and these principles recently as dozens of professors, teaching assistants and administrative staff for this course gathered to honor the two founding professors of the course at their retirement. It was a very emotional experience, having worked with one of the professors, and having to realize just how important what we did was—and that I’ll probably never be involved in that again.

But I can hope that I’ll be able to feel this way about raising my own children. It’s probably not something you can appreciate fully at the time. It is a lot of work. It is a lot of effort. And after months and months of the same lessons, the same principles, still they just don’t get it.

But one day they will get it. One day what I’ve done here, like what I did there, will make a difference.

Happy Fourth of July!

Tags heritage, patriotism, founding, looking back

Kids/Parenting

Hayden’s first identity crisis

Post author By Jordan
Post date 12:03 pm
2 Comments on Hayden’s first identity crisis

Ryan offered to let Hayden call Nana Jane the other day, but Hayden wasn’t interested at first. A few minutes later, he grabbed Ryan’s phone and started asking for “Nana! Nana!”

So Ryan dialed his mom and gave the phone to Hayden. His mom answered: “Hello?”

“‘Yo?” said Hayden.

“Is this my little grandson Hayden?”

Long pause. “Uhhhh . . . I sink so!”

Tags talking, toddler, identity crisis, telephone

MetaBlogging

How readers feel about blog ads

Post author By Jordan
Post date 10:13 pm
1 Comment on How readers feel about blog ads

Thank you, gentle readers—you have spoken. And since I know you’re waiting with bated breath, here’s the results from our five question survey on blog ads (winner below!). Figures here have been rounded and may not total 100%.

Do you notice ads on blogs?
Yes—35%
Sometimes—62%
No—4%

Do you mind ads on blogs?
Only if they’re annoying—65%
Always—15%
Nah—12%
If they’re irrelevant—8%

Do you feel ads on blogs detract from the blog, its content and/or its professionalism?
If they’re irrelevant—81%
Never—12%
Always—8%

Where do you notice ads on blogs you read?
Right sidebar—21%
Within posts—16%
Left sidebar—16%
Above post text—14%
In the footer of a post viewed in an RSS reader—12%
Above the header—11%
Below posts—10%
I don’t notice ads—1%

Where do you find blog ads annoying or disruptive to your experience?
Within posts—34%
Above the header—20%
Above post text—20%
Below posts—7%
I don’t find blog ads annoying or disruptive—7%
Right sidebar—5%
Left sidebar—5%
In the footer of a post viewed in an RSS reader—3%

Now we know. Thank you to everyone who participated!

And the winner of the $20 Amazon gift certificate: Romie of Romie’s Rants. Congrats; a gift certificate will be winging its way to your inbox soon!

Happy birthday, Jai!

Tags poll, blog ads, blog advertising, blog monetization