FEEDING DIFFICULTIES WITH CHILDREN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 231, 26 November 1943, Page 14

FEEDING DIFFICULTIES WITH CHILDREN

(Written for "The Listener’ by DR. H. B. TURBOTT, Director of the Division of School Hygiene, Health Department) HERE are a lot of mismanaged children in our land. You’ll know of homes where there is constant scolding of children, constant dis-. obedience, and where the children have poor appetites, too few hours of sléep, are fretful, and throw temper-tantrums. A proportion of these children later become delinquents and get into bad ways. These mismanaged homes develop because of lack of knowledge on the parents’ side, lack of knowledge of parentcraft, It takes skill and sacrifice by the parents to steer that happy course in raising children that leaves them self-reliant instead of too dependent, growing up as healthy, contented little animals, with good instead of bad habits. That parent skill is based on knowledge. That knowledge should really be given to all children in our schools, before they become parents, so that they make informed and good ones, Most of us didn’t get that instruction. Instinct, rule of thumb, and memory of our own upbringing guided us. Even the best-intentioned mothers and fathers have ended up with "badhabit children," pickers at food, bedwetters, and so on, all because they lacked knowledge of how to deal with’ such things when they first raised their ugly heads. The wrong actions at the first signs of bad habits, instead of correcting, end in confirming and fixing the very things the parents wish to avoid. And some of these things begin so early in life that the mother misses the right action unless she is forewarned by patentcraft knowledge. Let us take feeding difficulties in children. For example, likes and dislikes begin early. Mother’s task is to dodge dislikes and develop likings. This is how it is done: Introducing New Foods From six months onward, baby has offered to him a range of foods other than milk-at first as juices and purées; later at weaning time, in solid form. This is a critical period. It’s then that baby learns to like or dislike various foodstuffs. He has been used to milk with its bland taste. Some of the foods (continued on next page). .

(continued from previous page) offered after weaning time startle his palate till he "gets used to them. So the rule is to introduce each new food gradually by small quantities — say quarter-teaspoons-until baby gets used to the fresh taste. As he gets used to it, he will get to like it. During his second year, baby should get accustomed to the taste of most foodstuffs. Take vegetables! If you limit the range to a few only, those are the only ones baby will like. So grow all you possibly can in your garden, and starting gradually with each new one, let him get used to all vegetables. Thus you'll introduce a wide range of protective foodstuffs beside his milk-all vegetables and fruits as they come forward by seasons. He will develop the liking unless others interfere. If older brothers and sisters have been similarly brought up. there will be no trouble from them, for they will like everything. By imitation, baby will accelerate his liking for different foods. If they pick at food, baby will do likewise. If mother and father say they don’t like a food, and the child hears, or senses it from their attitude, he will also dislike that food, So-new foods, and many different ones, by small doses-no dislikes demonstrated by grown-ups-and baby will like all put before him. (To be continued)