Someone great once said that proper nutrition helps raise proper children. These aren’t just words because what we feed our children largely determines their well-being, their ability to grasp educational material, and even their behavior. For instance, excess sugar and food additives in their diet can provoke emotional breakdowns, excessive activity, and irritability.
Breakfast in a schoolchild’s diet is the fundamental basis for their proper development and performance in school. Therefore, forget about sandwiches and tea in the mornings and learn how to feed your child properly. AdmiGram.com will share everything about breakfasts to ensure your child develops properly.
A proper morning diet for a schoolchild
A few words about setting the table
© Juliet Lavoie
Children will always be children, so they need the right approach. And this approach involves imagination. Children’s plates should always be served in a beautiful and understandable way. The ‘main’ food is recommended to be placed on the right edge — that’s where a child’s hand with a fork immediately reaches. All components should be separated, without mixing.
Children love to fantasize, see, and understand what they’re eating. So, get creative and add color to breakfast. You can easily turn a boring omelet into a smiling face by adding eyes and a mouth from a slice of tomato, a cucumber nose, and cheese ears. You can even transform unappealing porridge into cheerful birds or animals for your picky eater.
A proper breakfast for a child should include:
Cottage Cheese
© American Heritage Chocolate / Unsplash
A child won’t just eat plain cottage cheese, so let your imagination run wild and transform it. You can easily turn cottage cheese into a mass that’s far tastier than their favorite ice cream. Grab a blender and mix cottage cheese with nuts, honey, dried apricots, raisins, banana, strawberries, raspberries, and so on. The child doesn’t need to know what dish it is; the main thing is that it tastes good.
From this mixture, you can create a snowman, for example, or serve the cottage cheese like ice cream. Additionally, this creamy cottage cheese mass can be spread on pancakes, toasted bread, or whole-grain bread. By the way, you can prepare a delicious cottage cheese casserole with berries. Some kids even enjoy it savory rather than sweet, so you can serve it as a first course with vegetables.
Potatoes
© Wouter Supardi Salari / Unsplash
We’re not talking about French fries here because that’s the worst thing to feed your child in the morning. The right kind of potato for a child is boiled, baked in the oven, or mashed from boiled potatoes. Only in this case will potatoes be a source of potassium, beneficially affecting the immune system and helping the body flush out toxins.
From mashed potatoes, you can create appliqués: use vegetables and garnishes to give the mashed potatoes the shape of an animal, bird, or your child’s favorite cartoon characters. Many children enjoy eating mashed potatoes while washing it down with vegetable juice, such as tomato juice. You can make juice from cabbage, pumpkin, carrot, cucumber, or zucchini as well.
Meat or fish
© Food Photographer / Unsplash
Meat or fish is the primary source of animal protein, which is essential for a young organism. For breakfast, it’s an ideal option to prepare fish or meat steamed as patties. This way, animal protein retains all its beneficial properties to the fullest. It’s better when these patties are small-sized because children understand they’re made especially for them.
You can also bake meat or fish in the oven. Avoid using spices in cooking but use vegetables and fruits instead. Apples, plums, pineapples, and citrus fruits add wonderful flavor notes and are much healthier for children’s digestion. Most children enjoy eating fruits or vegetables that were baked along with meat. By the way, opt for lean meat for breakfast.
Porridge
© Jennifer Pallian / Unsplash
The beauty of porridge is that you can alternate them, enriching a child’s body with valuable micronutrients. Oats, buckwheat, pearl barley, rice, and corn should be a part of a child’s breakfast. Again, it shouldn’t be just plain porridge. Garnish it with fresh or oven-baked vegetables, add some herbs, cheese, or sour cream. Experiment and explore various options.
By the way, you can grind any of these cereals in a coffee grinder, then make pancakes or create a vegetable pie. For instance, oat or rice porridge can be a dessert. Add dried fruits, honey, nuts, and the dessert is ready. Look for something that your child will enjoy.
Eggs
© Tengyart / Unsplash
It’s better when the eggs are quail eggs; they are the most beneficial for a growing organism. As we mentioned, children love everything small and will gladly pay attention to such small eggs. As you know, you can make an omelet from eggs. For instance, a steamed one.
An omelet is great because you can add any filler: pieces of colorful sweet pepper, boiled chicken or meat, carrots, pumpkin, tomatoes, etc. You can turn the finished omelet into a beautiful applique or simply roll it up into an attractive roll.
A final note for parents: the key rule for a mom is not to be afraid to offer a child food they might refuse. Yes, every child has their own taboos on certain specific foods that they will never eat in any form. But together with them, you can search and understand what they like from the food that is beneficial for them. Don’t give up, experiment together, and you’ll succeed!
image on top: Alex Hu / Unsplash
