Healthy Food: Teaching Children That Patience Is Rewarded

Young children can be picky eaters, and the general types of food sold at most supermarkets are loaded with preservatives. These chemicals are designed to make sure the product lasts long enough from creation in the factory, the shipping dock and then in the store for at least a week. Consequently, many normal food items we buy are stuffed full of salts and sugars. This stimulates children and fills them with energy. Junk food is commonplace in most households because it’s cheap, easily accessible and ready-to-eat. The cycle repeats itself over and over. The challenge so many parents face is to wean their children off of granulated and manufactured processed sugars, and onto the natural sugars in fruits. Mothers constantly fight this battle to make sure their child is properly nourished, but also happy. While they’re young, they’re impressionable, thus now is the time to create an appetite for a healthy lifestyle. Respecting the great effort it takes to cultivate fruit, and the burst of flavours you can create, can and should be instilled within them.  

Image by – alphalight1

Make a project

In this day and age, it’s not difficult to turn a successful crop. Your very own back garden is capable of being the source of a sustained healthy lifestyle. Set your mind to planting fruit trees in your back garden. Prepare the garden and soil to accommodate them, to begin with. Get your children involved. A website like https://www.chrisbowers.co.uk/ has all of the above and more, with plants that are ready to be planted upon arrival at your home. Get them excited by asking them what their favourite, flavour of yogurt, ice cream or sweet is. Their answers can be any fruit such as strawberry, blueberry, orange, apple, cherry or peach. Make decisions upon their answers so they feel enticed to get more involved because they’ll have a say.

Photo by – USFWS/Southeast

Get their hands messy

Once the plants arrive, they will be young, so from then on, it’s your responsibility. Get your children involved to get them to understand how young bushes and trees can grow up to be strong. They are also growing, so try to weave in this comparison so that they can empathise with the plant and they’re in the garden. Plant the fruit trees with your children, allowing them to feel the soil and become messy. Kids like to feel and touch the world around them as they’re still very curious of their surroundings. Cover the roots back up where you’ve made a little hole in the ground. With the directions, form a pattern looking after the tree. Make a game of it, starting measuring your progress daily; this could be done before or after school. It may even become quite a ritual, to feed, water and keep the fruit healthy.

Eating the reward

Once the fruit is ripe and ready to eat, you could wash the produce, and then eat it naturally. But, it’s much better to make it fun. With safe, children’s kitchen tools, get your little ones to cut up and mash some fruits that would go well with a pancake, scone, or on a desert. Puree the fruit and add it to your recipes for the foods aforementioned. You could also make jam out of the fruit you’ve harvested. Get them involved, create a connection and then cook something delicious to solidify reward in their minds.