I have always felt strong about my kids nutrition and making sure it was balanced. We introduced fruits and veggies early and have always encouraged them to eat the right way. As they started to get older, and ya know talk back lol, I found that instead of telling them what to eat I needed to find ways to encourage them to make the right choices and have them understand why.
To do this I decided to take the plunge and reorganize my snack cabinet. I am going to share with you my method and hope it can be helpful to you!
My snack cabinet has pull out drawers which inevitably get stuffed with bags and boxes and its hard to figure out what we have and what we need. In my planning I wanted to create a system that was easy to maintain and set up in a way that could help my boys learn which was a good choice to make. I ended up at Target because well of course, and found drawer inserts. Based on our measurements I was able to fit 3 across which was perfect. I separated our snacks into 3 categories:
* Best Choice
* Ok Choice
* Not The Best Choice
Since my youngest is 4 I wanted to make sure I started with vocabulary he already understood. When they asked me for a snack it would now be followed by "Which bin can I choose from.?" From there we would talk (quickly) about the situation we were in. Was it close to a meal time? Had they eaten well during their meals for the day? Have they made good choices so far?
These were all important questions for them to understand because my goal was to teach them about balance and how to make a good choice when it comes to food. I want them to have a healthy relationship with food and to do that it is important to understand all the variables. I know I push healthy nutrition but my kids are still well kids and eating Oreos in moderation is something I am ok with, for myself included! Eating Oreos before breakfast well that's another story!
When you teach your kids about making good choices you have to teach them a process to understand how to make good choices. I couldn't just hold up a Kind Bar and declare it a good choice without explaining it was a good choice because it has healthy fats and contains all real ingredients.
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