It’s 5:30 p.m. and you’re staring at the open fridge, wondering what to make for dinner.
One child is eating regular pasta. The other person doesn’t eat green things. Your spouse wants something high in protein. I just want to have family dinner without whining and complaining and barely touching my plate.
If you’re feeding a family with different food preferences, you probably know the unique fatigue of trying to please everyone around the dinner table, the irritation when your kids make that look on your face, the urge to clap together a PBJ with nuggets at the core and call it a night.
Not to mention the sinking feeling that the very idea of feeding my family was wrong.
I want to assure you here that you are not doing anything wrong. You’re just dealing with one of the most universal challenges of providing for your family.
The good news is that there’s a middle path between being a quick cook and a tough-love approach that says, “You’ll eat what I make and you’ll like it.” I know this not only as a registered dietitian, but also as someone who has been on both sides of this table.
When I was a kid, I was a very picky eater and ate mostly butter noodles and canned tuna. My husband was also a finicky person and would stay away from vegetables. Thankfully, by the time we became parents, we had outgrown a lot of that stuff and wanted our kids to be more confident eaters than we were.
I’ve tried various strategies over the years and here are the ones that have worked for me.
