Guess how much of their food budget the average French family spends on vegetables? One-quarter! French parents assume their kids will learn to like vegetables and that it is their job to teach them. That’s an important principle of the 2nd “French” parenting book I read: French Kids Eat Anything (read about the 1st book here). The book presents 10 rules for helping kids be happy and healthy eaters. The first foundational rule is that YOU as the parent are in charge of your children’s food education.
The French have 4 set meals a day: the traditional breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as a “gouter” or snack for kids at around 4 pm. Otherwise snacking is not allowed so that kids don’t full up on poor-quality food.
French parents learn about neophobia, a phase when 2 year olds don’t like trying new things, and so their goal is to introduce their kids to a large variety of foods in those first two years. Since the author’s daughters, aged 3 and 6 at the time, were already picky eaters who had missed that window she chronicles her “food rebirthing” where she introduces her girls to new vegetables as purees or soups like a French mother would have done at the beginning. Her goal was to introduce a dozen vegetables over a month and although her girls didn’t always try them the first time, she reports that after 2-3 weeks they had tried everything on the list.
The book concludes with the Golden Rule of French eating: Eating is joyful, not stressful. The goal is not to control what your kids eat, but to teach them how to eat, so that they balance self-restraint with pleasure.
Don't miss "French" Parenting Books: Part 1 on Bringing Up Bébé
or "French" Parenting Books: Part 3 on French Twist
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