Why checking in with your meal time goal when you eat with friends is a good idea

I think I will be trying to catch up all week. It’s already Thursday and I haven’t even gotten around to journaling about dinner on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…. eek.

Well better late than never.

Sunday Dinner with Friends

While I don’t have any photographic proof of our Sunday dinner, I wanted to go back to it. On Sunday, we had friends over for dinner and so it’s a great time to talk about meal-time goals.

These friends have an 18 month old baby and now that my boys are so much older, at 7 and 8, it was a good reminder of all the fun that comes with getting babies on to solids and moved over to active participants in the family meal environment.

But I also remember the stress of eating out with kids at this age – because you never knew if they were going to eat or not? And how your hosts would react if the bowl of spaghetti ended up on the floor and/or ceiling instead of in your kids tummy.

Our Environment

When we have friends over for dinner, I try try to create an environment that lets parents know that I really don’t care if their kid eats or not. I don’t want someone to come into my house and feel that they needed to pressure their child to eat to prevent their host (me!) from being offended.

And you know – the occupational hazard of being a dietitian, means that people think I am going to judge them and their families if they don’t eat healthy enough. Well, until they get to know me!

To create this type of environment my goals are:

1. To serve meals family style at the table
2. To show no pressure for my own kids to eat
3. To let the parents know that I remember those baby/toddler days and that I am acutely aware that variable appetites or daily dispositions can change how much a child wants to eat at a meal.

Our Menu

I tried to choose a menu that was kid friendly, so I choose:

1. Stuffed peppers with additional filling on the side
2. Homemade buns – recipe courtesy of my sister-in-law (they are super delicious)
3. Cut-up watermelon
4. Angel food cake with berries and whip cream for dessert

They also brought a delicious bacon, potato salad to share.

What did the kids eat

My older boy had some filling (quinoa and beef), potato salad and buns. My younger boy had buns, watermelon, and tried a bit of the potato salad. When dessert was served my boys both had two slices of cake, with a lot of berries and whipped cream.

What is your goal for this meal?

One thing I often talk about with my clients is that we have different goals when we eat a meal. Sometimes the goals are:

1. To have fun and share an experience with someone
2. To eat something super nutritious
3. To eat something because I am hungry and I want to stop being hungry
4. To eat something just because it taste good
5. Something else all together…

All goals are good goals

Because so much of our socialization and joy in life comes from eating with friends or eating something because it tastes good I want to validate that any of these goals can be the right goal. And sometimes you might have more than one goal or sometimes your pursuit of one goal will help you get another goal. For example, you are totally craving a dairy queen blizzard and so you meet your cousin there and catch up and eat ice cream. Social goal – CHECK. Eating because it taste good – CHECK.

What are your goals for dinners out with friends?

Depending on how often you eat dinner out with friends, or how often you might see those particular friends or the cultural/social expectations that are inherent in that relationship with friends – your goals might look a little bit different.

But my goal for eating with friends is to:

1. Eat something together to share an experience
2. Eat something because it tastes good

What is not my goal is to ensure that I eat something super nutritious and it also isn’t the goal for my kids.

Maximize nutrition when you can but sometimes other goals are more important

When I spend time with my friends I want to have fun. I want my kids to have fun. I don’t want to be the vegetable police. And I don’t my friends to feel like they need to be the vegetable police either.

So eating something super nutritious is not my goal when our family eats together. And you know – It’s totally ok!

So what?

Ok, what I am trying to say is that eating out with kids can be stressful. But let’s try to curb the stress and up the fun.

To do this, reset your goal. Set your goal for fun and socialization. Let your kids know that that’s the goal too. If they don’t want to eat much of the main course – no big deal. If they want to eat dessert – sounds good. If there is enough dessert to go around and they want to eat two desserts – go for it.

This meal is supposed to be fun.