Healthy lifestyle attitudes begin in the early years. Family-style dining offers the opportunity for children to learn how to choose healthy foods in age-appropriate portions, as well as the social skills used during dining.
Family-style dining is considered a best practice when eating with children of all ages in child care settings. It involves sitting at the same table with young children, in small groups, with the children serving themselves when possible, and eating together with adults while sharing pleasant conversations.
BENEFITS OF FAMILY-STYLE DINING
Developmental Benefits: The Importance of Family-Style Dining
♦️ Small and Large Muscle Development (motor development)
– Encourages children to serve themselves, which develops their eye-hand
coordination.
– Encourages coordination of body movement to move chair, sit, and stand from
chair.
– Helps children learn manipulation of utensils.
♦️ Language/Communication Development
– Promotes the rules of language (how to participate in interactions with
language) through listening and participating in conversations.
– Exposes infants and toddlers to a variety of vocabulary.
– Allows participation in adult-child exchanges and the following of directions.
– Promotes peer-to-peer exchanges.
♦️ Emotional Development
– Promotes a sense of competence. This is an indicator of infant and toddler emotional development. The child recognizes his or her ability to do things.
– Promotes self-awareness. This is an indicator of infant and toddler emotional
development. The child recognizes himself or herself as a person with an
identity, wants, needs, interests, likes, and dislikes.
– Encourages impulse control. This is part of a child’s emotional development.
Infants early on show signs of controlling some impulses when supported by a
care teacher. By 36 months, a toddler has internalized some rules so he or she
doesn’t always need as much support when trying to control his or her
behavior.
♦️ Social Development
– Allows time for conversations about food, the events of the day, the events to
come, and things that occurred at home—conversations that can happen by
the time children are toddlers.
– Encourages interactions with adults and peers.
– Promotes social identity, an indicator of infant and toddler social development.
The child has increasing awareness of his or her relationship to others in the
group.
♦️ Cognitive Development
– Promotes use of tools and problem solving through manipulation of utensils.
– Promotes imitation, the ability to repeat and practice actions modeled by another.
Another benefit of the family style dining model is the opportunity for children to learn responsibilities. For instance, children can develop independence and responsibility by helping with after-meal cleanup. Giving children the opportunity to clean up spills allows them to learn that mistakes are OK and can be corrected. Keep child-size cleaning supplies, such as a child-size broom and dustpan, paper towels, and trash cans nearby so that children can access them in case they need to assist with cleanup.
SETTING UP THE DINING ROOM
For meals that are served in a classroom eating area or central dining area, such as for some school-age programs, you can arrange the area in a manner that makes it more conducive to serving meals family-style.
The following is a list of tips from the Family Style Dining Guide for arranging the dining room to accommodate family-style dining.
Before Meals
♦️Set out items such as napkins, plates, forks, spoons, and drinking cups for children to help set the table.
♦️Provide multiple sets of child-size serving utensils in case of contamination.
♦️Fill several small dishes of the same food, making sure to limit the number of portions in each dish.
♦️Place a sufficient number of portions of all foods being served on each table.
♦️Reserve extra servings of each food in the kitchen, in case of contamination or for second helpings.
♦️Fill pitchers partially to reduce spills.
After Meals
♦️Provide child-size items to help clean up spills, such as short-handle brooms and dustpans.
♦️Provide a container where children can put their used dishes, drinking cups, and utensils.
♦️Provide trash cans for children to dispose of napkins or uneaten food.
