French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Billon (classic english novels txt) 📕

But I had forgotten another obvious food rule (one that applies anywhere). It’s no use forcing children to eat. If kids really don’t want to eat, they will—at some point—simply clench their teeth. And they egged each other on. I now realized my mistake: they had probably had enough mashed potatoes that they didn’t feel hungry any more. And Sophie’s three blueberry muffins earlier on hadn’t helped either.

Desperate, I thought of my secret weapon: dessert.

“If you don’t eat this, you won’t get dessert,” I said firmly. And I pulled the chocolate mousse out of the fridge, placing the bowl on the table in front of them.

Bad idea. Claire cried louder. And Sophie was furious.

“I want mousse!”

“If you don’t eat your fish, you won’t get any mousse!”

“I hate squash!” yelled Sophie, echoed by her little sister. “Me too!” wailed Claire.

“No complaining about food,” I snapped. “If you complain, you get a second serving!” And I plopped another spoonful of squash on Sophie’s plate.

“Fine,” responded Sophie, after a few back-and-forth rounds. “I won’t eat anything.” And, pushing back her chair, she left the table. Claire glanced at both of us with that wary, appraising look that second children often have (Can I get away with that too?), and quickly followed suit.

Fuming, I put the mousse away. I had forgotten Rule #2: Food is not a punishment, or a reward.

Somehow, I knew the evening was going to continue to go downhill. Gritting my teeth, I got them upstairs, and we started our bedtime routine: bath, pajamas, brushing teeth, tucking in, and story time. Telling stories was a precious ritual with the girls. In the first few weeks and months in France, when they’d been most unsettled by our move, I’d created an imaginary fairy friend for each of them. “A Fairy Story” had become so much a part of our routine that Sophie and Claire refused to go to sleep without one. Even babysitters had to be briefed on the story line that had to be strictly followed to avoid a bedtime mutiny.

Just as I was leaning over Sophie’s bed to start the story, she abruptly spoke up.

“I’m hungry! I want a bedtime snack!”

Smiling smugly to myself, I replied with one of my Smart Things to Say.

“If you’re hungry, it’s because you should have eaten more at dinner. But don’t worry, you’ll have a great breakfast,” I said in a cheerful voice.

Sophie mustered up the worst insult that she was capable of: “You’re not my friend anymore! You’re mean.”

“Sophie,” I said gently, “I’m your mother, not your friend. Now, do you want your fairy story?”

“No!” replied Sophie, rolling over to face away from me.

“Don’t you want a hug?”

“Go away!”

As I left the room, I heard quiet sobs. And I was barely holding back the tears. This was the first time in her life that Sophie had refused a bedtime story. Meanwhile, Claire was crying in her bedroom. Giving up, I heated up another bottle of milk, hoping it would induce her, at least, to fall asleep happily.

I felt sick to my stomach. Neither of them had eaten well. Sophie had gone to bed hungry and angry. Claire had reverted to the feeding habits of an infant. We’d had the worst fight we’d ever had. I realized that I’d made things worse, rather than better. The Plan wasn’t going to work. This wasn’t the way to get children to love food.

Not for the last time, I bitterly regretted having moved to France. We had few friends, the girls were miserable, and we were living in a house that was little better than a moldy wind tunnel. We’d left friends, great jobs, and a fun city to move to a village where people thought Parmesan was exotic. And they wanted me to change my eating habits?

Luckily, Philippe’s train was delayed, so the girls were asleep before he arrived home. When I debriefed him later that night, his response was thoughtful. (One of the things I love about my husband is that he never [well, almost never] says I told you so.)

“The French way of eating is better for the kids, and for us,” he gently insisted. “But you can’t do this through punishing them,” he said. “The rules are a good idea, but you’re not going to convince the kids to love food by being too strict with them. It has to be enjoyable. Not necessarily loads of fun, but simply pleasurable.”

Philippe had put his finger on where I had gone wrong, I realized. I thought that I had been trying to create a new routine. But I had made my routine into a power struggle. I had been too literal about the rules. If badly applied, food rules can be a form of emotional violence that shows a lack of respect for the individual.

I remembered one of my favorite parenting books: Jane Nelsen’s Positive Discipline. My mistake, I decided, was that I’d been too permissive in the past, but had now overcompensated by being too authoritarian (strict, controlling, punitive). What I needed instead was to be authoritative (firm, but kind, and gently supportive).

Looking back, I also realized that I had forgotten about the two other “pillars” of French food culture: making eating a source of social pleasure and making things taste good. I probably shouldn’t have served squash on our first night. And I probably could have been a little more flexible.

There was a reason that the French food rules weren’t written down, I reflected. After all, they are habits and customs rather than regulations. I remembered what Madame had said at school. Rules are not (or don’t need to be) about suppressing individual preferences but rather about fostering individual taste. Just as kids need a well-rounded education, they also need a well-rounded palate. I wouldn’t achieve that by forcing my children to eat large servings of every vegetable they hated. The Plan had failed.

After the dismal start to our food experiment, I gave up. Christmas