A treat for mom: no fussing at the dinner table

Lisa Jensen-Fellows has been known to arrange food in a smiley face for her 5-year-old son, Alec. "At the end of the day, I don't care," says the 37-year-old mother of two from Carlisle. "I'm just trying to get some nutrition in."

For mothers of young children, dinnertime is often not the best moment in the day. When you factor in the number of kids who won't eat anything but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (no crusts, please) for weeks on end, parents' late work schedules, and everyone's fatigue, the dinner hour seems doomed. Who wants to negotiate every bite a child takes? Most moms would trade the spa gift certificates and the bouquets of flowers on Mother's Day for meals that aren't chaotic but, rather, peaceful times to connect and enjoy one another.

But before it's time to bring out the food, families have to decide what's for dinner. Or, rather, how they are going to deal with the strong likes and dislikes the little ones make known.

Children seem to fall into two categories, say seasoned moms: good eaters and picky eaters. Often, these camps exist within the same family, making it difficult to decide on a common meal. Most parents would agree with Melissa Frost, a mother of two from Somerville, who limits her daughters' choices at dinner. "I present them with a few choices, and they eat what they can," says Frost, 34. "I'm not going to be making five different meals, though." Children are fans of routine, resistant to trying new things, while parents are aware of the need for variety in their kids' diets. Most parents encourage their children to try new foods, introducing a new vegetable one night, a different protein source the next. But it's a challenge for parents to find an array of "kid-friendly food," as Frost calls it. An aversion to vegetables is common among kids. So is loyalty to pizza, pasta, and chicken.

Even for the most adventurous eaters, there is usually a return to the familiar. "We cycle through the same six or seven things," says Kendall Luce, 38, of Belmont. Luce says she finds herself telling her three children that "they can't live on chicken nuggets alone." Many families have rules about trying

different things but agree that avoiding battles over food is key. "I made it a plan not to fight with my kids about food," says Luce. "You don't want to spend the small amount of time you have together fighting." By not forcing the issues at mealtime, though, Luce wonders if she's being too lenient. For parents, deciding what should or should not be allowed is a delicate area. Most would rather give a child the occasional lollipop than turn candy into forbidden fruit. "You have to be careful how rigidly you enforce the rules," says Rafael Castro, clinical neuropsychologist at the Children's Evaluation Center in Newton. "Too many restrictions tend to make things go in the opposite direction."

Besides, children need to develop their own sense of what, when, and how much to eat, says Castro. "There is such a thing as an excessive amount of control," he says. To that end, parents can make an impression with their own examples. Many moms and dads modify bad former habits -- like drinking too many sodas and skipping meals -- in order to model healthy routines. "I eat more than I did before [having children]," says Frost, the Somerville mom. "You're making sure that they get those meals in."

As for the family supper routine, which isn't as strong today as it was a generation ago, the people who do it find that their time around the table is an important routine of family life. "So much of what we do is divide and conquer," says Jensen-Fellows, the Carlisle mother. "There aren't that many times when we're all together, but dinner is one."

Some families whose schedules can't accommodate a sit-down dinner at a reasonable time use other outlets -- ballgames, an afternoon at the playground, or a walk along the beach. None of these involves creating cucumber eyes, a carrot nose, and a sausage smile. And there is never any negotiating about what a spear of broccoli will get you if you just take a few bites.