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How to Eat Like a Child by Delia Ephron - Ebook

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Universal and timeless, Delia Ephron's How to Eat Like a Child is a delightful revisiting of the joys -- and tricky ploys -- of childhood. Made into a children's television special and a musical theater revue performed across the country each year, How to Eat Like a Child offers advice beyond the artful etiquette of food consumption. Ephron also teaches us "How to Laugh Hysterically," "How to Have a Birthday Party," "How to Torture Your Sister," and much, much more. As the Washington Post Book World noted, `After the giggles of recognition have subsided, one thing will be very clear: all adults are kids in grown-ups' clothing."

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LanguageEnglish

PublisherHarperCollins

Release dateOct 13, 2009

ISBN9780061745584

Author

Delia Ephron

Delia Ephron is a critically acclaimed novelist and screenwriter. Her most recent book, Frannie in Pieces, received four starred reviews, was a Book Sense Pick, and was named to the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age list. She is also the author of Big City Eyes, Hanging Up, and How to Eat Like a Child. Her screenwriting credits include The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, You've Got Mail, Bewitched, Hanging Up, and Michael. She lives in New York City with her husband and their dog, Honey Pansy Cornflower Bernice Mambo Kass.

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How to Eat Like a Child - Delia Ephron

Introduction

One evening I was eating chocolate pudding my way, and I noticed that my friend was eating it her way. It was old-fashioned pudding, the kind you cook. The recipe on the package says, Mix with milk, bring to boil, pour in cups, put in refrigerator. I mention this because only cooked pudding has a skin on top, and, to eat it, I’d made a little hole in the skin and was scooping out the pudding from underneath. My friend had peeled the skin back entirely.

The next day I sat down and wrote something called How to Eat Like a Child—a deadpan description of how children eat food. I was a novice. I’d had one article published in a national magazine, Glamour, about taking vacations with men. I gave How to Eat Like a Child to my friend Edward Koren. He passed it along to The New York Times Magazine. He illustrated it, and the magazine ran it on the back page.

On the Sunday it was published and for several weeks after, my phone rang nonstop. Friends called with congratulations and lots of strangers, too, from all over the country. Viking Press asked me to write a book expanding on the article. New York magazine offered me a contract as a contributing editor that included—I was really thrilled about this—health insurance. Classes of elementary school children sent me their versions of my article. Letters flooded the New York Times, adults writing pages and pages about how they used to eat, and in some cases still eat, Mallomars* and Oreos.** A New York Times editor told me that the only other subject that got this much mail was Israel.

My life as a writer changed. I was launched as a result of five hundred words about children and food. I was so young, so naïve, and so excited that I was idiotic enough to imagine that everything I wrote would strike a universal nerve.

For years I would meet people who would tell me, Your article is on my refrigerator. What a divine compliment.

When I had decided to become a writer, I calculated that if I used up all my life savings and lived cheaply, I had two years to become self-supporting. It was about three months into the second year when the article How to Eat Like a Child came out. Here I was right on track—this much good fortune was too much. As soon as I received my book contract, I blocked. A fellow writer advised me to sit down at the desk every morning for two hours and every afternoon for two hours. If you never get up during that time, he advised, if you never feed your plants or make tea or do anything, you will eventually write. He was right. It’s a great cure for writer’s block. I highly recommend it.

How to Eat Like a Child and Other Lessons in Not Being a Grown-up was published in the fall of 1978 and became a bestseller. It was adapted for television as an NBC special, and became a musical theater revue for children. The revue—book, music, and lyrics—can be obtained through Samuel French Publishing. It has been produced in more than a thousand schools and community theaters in the United States and Canada.

I had thought I would become a journalist, but, when I wrote How to Eat Like a Child, I found my voice. I learned that I was funny, even wicked. I learned that children and childhood were my emotional landscape. Since then I have written novels, essays, and screenplays on many subjects, but I always feel most at home when I write about kids.

I know I wrote this book, but it feels more like it happened to me. The experience of writing it was so terrifying and having it appreciated was wondrous, even unreal. In the land of publishing, the life span of a book can be very short. To have it republished again more than twenty years later, in its original size and design with Edward Koren’s wonderful drawings, is a great joy.

*Mallomars: Bite off graham cracker bottom, remove chocolate from marshmallow piece by piece, mush marshmallow into ball, pop in mouth.

**Oreos: Split in half/lick off frosting, split in half/lick off frosting, split in half/lick off frosting.

How to Eat Like a Child

Peas: Mash and flatten into thin sheet on plate. Press the back of the fork into the peas. Hold fork vertically, prongs up, and lick off peas.

Mashed potatoes: Pat mashed potatoes flat on top. Dig several little depressions. Think of them as ponds or pools. Fill the pools with gravy. With

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A child plays with food: a psychologist tells what to do

You can think of playing with food as something fun. And even to see the benefits for development: kneading porridge with his hands means he gets sensory experience. Puts a cucumber in a glass of milk - explores the world. But time passes, the child grows and begins to perceive games with food as the norm.

This is unlikely to change on its own, and much more effort will be needed to change in the future. Therefore, it is better to stop unwanted eating behavior at the very beginning. And experiments and activities to enrich the sensory experience should be moved to another time.

Change starts with parents

If a child is indulging and we overreact emotionally, the situation only gets worse. The kid either gets hooked on these emotions, or stops paying attention. In any case, the relationship deteriorates, and the cry of the parent and children's tantrums become an indispensable part of the process.

Before the next meal, try to bring yourself into a resource state: drink fragrant tea, take a deep breath or read a couple of pages of your favorite book. This will help you stay calm while setting boundaries.

For children under three years old, the order in the behavior of adults is very important - when in the same situations they behave in the same way.

If yesterday it was impossible to play with food, then it is impossible today, tomorrow and never at all. When the opposite happens, the baby is in a shaky state - it is difficult for him to understand why everything is constantly changing.

Talk to dad, grandmothers or nannies. Explain that it is now that the right behaviors and norms are being laid, and it will be difficult to change habits. Ask not to let the child play with the food.

Keep a consistent line of conduct while you're pampering. Only in this way the baby will accept the rule and feel relieved: the rule is valid - there is no such thing that mom says one thing, and grandmother says another.

Pay attention to the utensils and the place — everything should encourage you to eat, not to play:

the baby is comfortable to sit;
he has the opportunity to leave the table;
handy spoon and fork;
there is little food on the plate (when he eats a portion, you can report).

Learn more about the organization of space for eating and the full algorithm for the development of a spoon for babies in our mini-course "Eat by myself"

Clear rules are needed

First of all, make sure that the child is really hungry. Watch him, discarding your own stereotypes. Children may be different - some eat less, but often. For others, breakfast, lunch and dinner are enough.

A hungry baby will be more willing to eat, while a full baby will most likely want to play with food.

The child follows his needs, but at the same time acts within the limits that we set for him. When he begins to mess with food, it is important to immediately stop and offer a choice: either he continues to eat, or he is not hungry and can leave the table.

— If you want to eat, then eat. If you're full, you can go play or help me clear the dishes.

— Okay, I see that you are full. You can leave the table and go to play.

And here you have to show patience and perseverance, because the child can be indignant and throw a tantrum. This is his attempt to test boundaries and make sure the rules are firm: “Does mom really not allow you to mess with food? And if I scream, demand, cry?

The next time she comes and says she's hungry, offer healthy food (not cookies, snacks, or sugary drinks). If he refuses, remind me:

— So you are not hungry.

When you make sure that a hungry child eats wholesome food with an appetite and you are consistent, then everything will work out. Children who do not have medical cases will never act to their own detriment. The habit of playing with food is the consequence of the belief that sooner or later they will give the food they insist on.

How to stop playing with food

Parent's calmness and confidence.
Firm but benevolent rule-making.
Consistency of all family members in following the rules.
Hungry child.
Convenient place, crockery and cutlery.
A small amount of food on a plate.
Sensory activities outside meals.

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What if your child plays with food?

From the age of two (and a little older) the games with food continue, so annoying for many parents. The child begins to play with food when he is first introduced to solid food and continues to do so throughout the second year of life.

The child is in dire need to explore food. In almost every family album there is a photograph of a child sitting in a highchair with food all over his face. This is a touching sight, and this is a story about the fact that a child needs to explore food with his whole body, he needs to feel its texture, temperature, smell, we talked about this last time. And at this age, children arrange hunger strikes when they refuse any food for weeks, except breast, or formula, or kefir. Common reasons for these hunger strikes at this stage of life are the parents broadcasting discontent or prohibition against playing with food.

The fact is that for a child, and for an adult too, one of the functions of food is pleasure. All diet systems that tell you that food is just a way to make up for an energy deficit are wrong. Food is also one of the most powerful pleasures in life, and will always remain so.

However, we regularly see that people who are followers of certain dietary programs, that is, are included in a system where the pleasure component is removed from food, become very depressed and irritable, and it is very difficult to communicate with them for a person who eats Fine.

We often say – are you so angry because you are hungry? In fact, this is not entirely true, a person may not be hungry, but he does not get pleasure from food, and this causes negative emotions.

And now put a child in this place - at this age the main pleasure from food lies in the possibility of playing with it. He will definitely draw mashed potatoes on the table, as if with paints, knock the table with a spoon, take a variety of actions with solid pieces of food. He will crumble bread, thus knowing the essence of things.

And this is really extremely inconvenient for you and me, adults, because up to a year old, feeding a child could be a fairly quick procedure if the mother was lucky. The child swallowed a few spoons of porridge, washed down with breast milk or formula, and, full and satisfied, goes to sleep or play. And you can clean the table and live a quiet life on.

In a year and a half this story ends, another begins, the child sits at the table for 40 minutes, crumbles bread, carries broccoli in a typewriter, does something else, and you think: when will this end, when will he finally eat? And the natural impulse of parents in this situation is to try to block the game with food and say: enough, my dear, food is for eating, not for playing. The child reacts to this with a hunger strike - “Oh, you take away the pleasure of eating from me, but why should I eat then, I don’t need this, I can exist perfectly on breast milk.”

To prevent this from happening, you need to be allowed to play with food. Yes, sometimes it is unbearable, especially if there are several children, especially if you have twins, for example. It requires a lot of cleaning, takes a lot of mom's time and energy.