Little Eaters: Why Children Often Crave Snacks and What Parents Can Do!

Little Eaters: Why Children Often Crave Snacks and What Parents Can Do!

In a world where children often crave snacks when they are not hungry, it is important to understand the reasons behind this behavior. Marion Brinkers, an experienced family counselor with over 30 years in the field of family education, shows that eating for young children is more than just food intake. They also use it as a sedative or to experience closeness. What's particularly interesting is that babies start learning self-soothing techniques, such as sucking their fingers or snacking, as early as three months old. But how should parents deal with these needs?

Brinkers advises that shared meals are crucial to creating calm and connection in the family. Such moments are valuable, even if they are often difficult to achieve in stressful everyday life. “Food shouldn’t just satisfy hunger,” she says, emphasizing the importance of shared mealtimes. Parents should therefore create quiet eating moments and ensure that their children can make healthy choices from a limited selection of snacks.

The role of snacks and eating behavior

A common problem is that unhealthy snacks are provided for self-service, which can lead to unhealthy eating behavior. Marion Brinkers recommends not making sweet temptations easily accessible and using positive reinforcement in education, but not for manipulation. So it's not just about the food itself, but also about how and when children eat. This can place somewhat different demands on the parents, who are responsible for actively organizing rest periods for their children.

Parents often face challenges, especially when shopping with tired children. It is often better to avoid these activities in order to reduce stress. It can help to create a clearer structure in children's eating habits to take into account their needs for reassurance and closeness.

Advisory services for parents

There are special advice centers for this in Frankfurt, such as this Advice center for parents, children and young people at Alexanderstrasse 29. This facility, operated by the Association for Psychotherapy, Counseling and Curative Education e.V., offers support in various matters, such as family counseling, diagnostics for partial performance disorders or telephone and video-based consultations. The consultation hours are designed in such a way that they can be flexibly adapted for the parents.

The advice center also has open consultation hours that specifically address the needs of parents. Here they can receive support for specific challenges in everyday life or receive advice on separation and divorce. Contact can be made by telephone on 0 69 / 7 89 20 19 or by email (EB@erdraungshilfe-roedelheim.de).

In addition, the city of Frankfurt offers: frankfurt.de further valuable information about various parenting advice centers that are available not only in the big city but also in the surrounding area. Such offers are helpful in helping you better cope with the often challenging everyday life of parents.