"It's good for a baby's development to play with food, so let them do it freely ♡"
You've probably heard this at a public health nurse's home visit, in a parenting book, or in an online article.
When our child first started baby food, the visiting public health nurse told us exactly the same thing.
My wife believed it, and decided to warmly watch over our child, even as they mashed food into a mess or played instead of eating for ages. (^^)
But as someone born in the Showa era, I couldn't shake one question.
"Is this really okay? A carrot is just being tossed away right in front of me..." 🤔
Showa Common Sense vs. the "Twisted" Free Education of the Reiwa Era
The dinner tables of our generation (the Showa era) were much stricter.
• Focus your attention on eating
• Eat what you're served without picking, and finish it all
• Playing during a meal is out of the question
Having grown up taught that "a meal is an important time to receive life and to receive what the farmers have grown," I felt a strong sense of discomfort about simply leaving alone the "food activity (disaster)" unfolding in front of me. 😂
In recent years, the trend of "respecting individuality" and "letting children do things freely to grow their talents" has strengthened across Japanese education. I think that in itself is wonderful.
But looking at parenting today, I can't help feeling that this idea has somehow spread in a "twisted" way. Hasn't "freedom" quietly been swapped for a card that says "parents never scold, whatever the child does, and just leave them alone and watch"? Freedom without the foundation of basic rules and manners is just "neglect." 😎
Even so, at the time I thought, "It must be a parenting method backed by modern science (?)," and at first I too chose to watch quietly without saying anything. Maybe my Showa brain just hadn't been updated, I thought.
After a Year of Leaving It Alone: A Dirty Floor and Nothing Changed 😭
I kept following the public health nurse's advice to "let them play as much as they like," and months passed, then a year.
The hope that "they'll start eating on their own eventually" and "they'll settle down as they grow" was completely betrayed.
• They never learned to focus on meals
• Instead of eating, they just dropped food on their clothes and the floor and made a mess
• Mealtime had turned into simply "toy time"
As a result, just watching over them didn't help our child grow in any way.
The only thing that changed was that our dining room floor got polished, thanks to wiping up spills every single day. My wife's burden only grew as she washed dirty clothes late at night and crawled across the floor, and there wasn't a millimeter of sign that our child was learning "table manners."
Why We Decided on "Mealtime Rules"
"We can't go on like this. Our home is not a mud-play venue!"
Convinced of that, I changed our approach by 180 degrees. We stopped the neglect hidden behind the convenient phrase "good for development," and made rules to recover the original purpose of [valuing mealtime].
🚫 Our 3 New Rules for the Dinner Table
• No playing with food at all (teach that it's not a toy)
• Finish everything unless there's a reason such as feeling unwell
• No leaving the table until they've eaten properly (and no chatting while they aren't eating properly)
Of course, at first our child kept playing. But as we parents stayed firm and consistent, telling them "This is a place to eat," little by little our child began to understand the difference between "eating time" and "playing time." 😁
The "Real Meaning" of Parents Managing Meals
Through this experience, I came to feel deeply that making mealtime rules is not just a matter of manners.
"Managing meals" is an important life-sustaining activity that gets the nutrition a child's body needs.
And I believe that taking responsibility for managing that nutrition and the mealtime setting is directly connected to our very reason for being as parents: protecting our child's life. That's why I felt that simply leaving things alone in the name of "freedom" could mean abandoning a parent's most important role.
Summary: The "Right Answer to Parenting" Comes Not From Experts but From the Child in Front of You
The advice from public health nurses and parenting books to "let them play freely" may not be 100% wrong. There may also be an early step where touching food with their hands helps them explore how it feels.
But "letting them grow freely" is not the same as not teaching manners and discipline.
Every child has a different personality and grows at a different pace. If you swallow experts' words whole and the child in front of you is falling apart, then it isn't the "right answer" for that child.
Even if you're called old-fashioned at times, parents should seriously think about "what matters," and teach discipline by saying no to what is wrong. After this year of failure, I strongly feel that this is the parenting that truly supports a child's growth ✨️
By the way, since we introduced the rules, the number of times we clean the floor has dropped dramatically, and my own peace of mind has improved a great deal 😆
How do you handle your child's "playing with food" at home?