If you're really hungry, you'll eat your broccoli.

- Famous Folk Saying we hope dies out

Before they eat they have to wash their hands. "Talk it"-

"First we put the stopper in, then we turn on the cold water, (or mix it with hot if they are smart enough not to get burned), and then we reach for the soap, and then we make our hands all slippery soapy and-"

-while you wash them, and they will learn how to do it themselves.

Then they sit down at the table.

Sometimes parents like to eat alone, so they can talk, or have gourmet dishes, or more ceremony. Or maybe they have to, because Father gets home late. If you do eat alone, it is nice to have a family meal, once or twice a week, so the children can learn that eating is a social occasion.

If it is more convenient for the mother to feed everyone at once, but the wiggling and shifting around disturbs your digestion, you can put them at a low table near you. Low tables are more comfortable for them, anyway.

If you all eat at the same table, it helps to divide small children up between adults, so the adults can help with meat cutting, chin wiping, etc. This also prevents quarrels.

Or, as soon as the youngest child can balance a plastic plate, you can serve buffet style, sitting down at the table to eat. Buffet style is an easy way for the mother to serve. Or the father can serve while the mother finishes in the kitchen. The children can indicate how much of each dish they want. And they can learn to help themselves to second helpings.

In good weather, the patio or yard off the kitchen or a back porch is a nice and practical place to give them their meals.

You can vary things for them, especially at lunch time. They can eat outdoors, or you can pack a picnic lunch for them and put it in their wagon and let them find their own picnic spot in the backyard. Show them how to put the scraps back into their wagon when they are finished.

Little children like lunch boxes or bag lunches, just like the school children have.

Invite guests for your children from time to time. What is nice about this is that they may get invited to the guest's home in return.

If tempers are frayed at lunch time, or the children become too excited just before naps, you can invite guests for an early supper instead.

Plastic table mats inspire neatness. Salad forks are good in-between forks.

A flower, or centerpiece made out of small toys, such as ducks on a mirror, is fun.

Let them practice cutting soft food, such as waffles, with a knife and fork.

If children grow restless, they can help clear the dishes between courses.

Always give them small helpings at first, and let them ask for more.

A sponge is handy to have near at hand for messy eaters. You can also put oilcloth or newspapers under their chairs.

If you are eating with them, and do not serve buffet, or they are not old enough to help themselves, tell them you will pass out the second helpings all at once, when you are finished with your first helping.

Children can learn to pour from a small pitcher by putting one hand on the handle and one hand on the front of the pitcher.

Children like to help plan the menu occasionally, or make a special dish, such as Jello, for dessert. They can also help set the table. Even a two-year-old can put the napkins around.

Children like to know where food comes from-the details of the journey from farm to table.

If mealtimes are quarrelsome, it sometimes helps to play records while children eat.

If your children arise in the morning in a grumpy mood, it is often wise to postpone breakfast rather than give them a marvelous opportunity to throw or spill food, or simply refuse to eat

Mothers sometimes greet little children returning home from nursery school at noontime by saying, "Lunch is ready." But often they have to have a while to roam about and become used to the transition. If you are having trouble with lunch, after nursery school, it is often a good idea to wait awhile, even though their being in nursery school gave you a chance to have lunch all ready.

If a certain meal, such as breakfast, is particularly horrible, you might talk this over with a child who is old enough to understand. He might suggest that breakfast would be more pleasant if he had cereal, instead of eggs, or if you laid out the breakfast food on the counter, and let him help himself.

When you eat with them, have simple pleasant conversation, and save the passionate discussions of a new house or job for later.

An occasional trip to a restaurant is fun, and good training, too. Choose a restaurant that welcomes children. Don't go in the rush hours, when service may be slow. (See "How to Order for Children" under Traveling with Little Children.)

True Anecdotes

We know a family with five children whose mealtimes were chaotic. The father, who had a scientific bent of mind, decided to take a wire recording of dinner one evening, and see where the trouble lay.

After dinner they sat down and played the record back. Amidst the confusion, with everyone talking, a polite, tiny voice said, "Please pass the butter." Everyone went on talking and paid no attention. The polite tiny voice said again, a bit louder, "Please pass the butter!" Everyone went on talking. Then the voice said, still louder, and not so politely, "Pass the butter!" Everyone went on talking. Then the voice shrieked at the top of its lungs, "I want the butter!" Immediately, both parents cried, "If you're going to talk like that, you can leave the table at once!"

MORAL: You have to listen, at least some of the time.

In another family, whose two children sat at a small table, there was a squabble every mealtime over who got the red chair and who got the yellow chair. The red chair was the most desirable. Whoever sat in the red chair was able to eat happily. Whoever sat in the yellow chair threw his food and refused to eat

Getting another red chair seemed expensive, but perhaps sensible. But then they might fight over the new red chair. Suggesting that they take turns had no effect, as their memory spans were too short

One day the father was officiating at the meal when the squabble broke out. He took a shirt cardboard and made a chart with both of their names, and pinned the chart on the wall over their table. Though they could not read, the chart seemed impressive. The father drew a tiny red chair with a red crayon, and a tiny yellow chair with a yellow crayon, under their names. At the next meal, this was reversed. The chart seemed to have an intrinsic power of its own. The chart was Law and Order and Authority.

They would not eat sweet potatoes. And they would not eat anything else if the sweet potatoes were on their plates. Just to look at a sweet potato was loathsome. Then the mother stuck a date on a toothpick and stuck the toothpick in a sweet potato for a flag, and this made the sweet potato a boat And they were very happy to have boats on their plates. But they would not eat their boats. In fact they would not eat anything else, either, because they were too busy pushing their boats all over their plates, and dumping the other food in the boats for cargo. And so there isn't any moral to this, except maybe it's better not to eat a boat than not to eat a sweet potato.

At dinner, the children squirmed, squealed, quarreled and interrupted. They reached for things across the table instead of asking for them, please, and they got up and wandered off in the middle of the meal, and they kicked their chair legs and leaned back in their chairs, and if, by chance, they were served something they didn't like, they screamed it was Icky.

Father and Mother found themselves joining in the fray, also screaming, and often threatening.

And then they had an idea. Once a week was Formal Dinner. The two little boys wore Daddy's ties, over their T-shirts, and the little girl wore Mother's old high heels. And there was candlelight and soft music on the radio, and place cards at each place.

Father changed into his old clothes after dinner, instead of before. The first time, Mother was so busy, she just came in her shorts as usual, until the children complained she was not dressed up, too. So she went into her bedroom and put on a dress, and all the shiny, rhinestone jewelry she could find. And when she came back, Father stood up, and the boys stood up, and Father held her chair for her, and everyone had the best of manners. During dinner, Father and Mother searched their memories for stories of Grand Banquets they had attended, or pretended they had attended.

And a little of the Good Behavior at the Formal Dinner rubbed off at the informal dinners during the rest of the week. And when the Good Behavior was practically gone, they had another Formal Dinner.

Bath Time

Clean, oh, clean, yes, clean, oh, clean. Clean, oh, clean, yes, clean, oh, clean. Scrubbity, scrabbity, rubby dub dubbity And make me nice and clean-o.

-Woody Guthrie

There is a lot more to a bath besides just getting clean. It can also be a physical and spiritual revival.

Put a rubber mat down in the tub, so children won't slip. Then sit down in the bathroom, with a book, or newspaper, or sewing, while they play. Water play is so engrossing for them, it can be your chance to relax.

Here are some things that are especially fun to play with in the bathtub:

Funnels, strainers, egg beaters, pots and pans, straws to blow through, tiny boats, and whatever else they may drag in.

Paint brushes to paint the side of the bathtub with soap

Bubble bath and colored vegetable water to liven things up.

A spray hose, the kind you use for washing your hair, attached to the spigot, makes a tiny shower.

Bubble pipes.

They can wear their bathing suits, sometimes. And you can even help them to practice swimming.

It is a good time to cut fingernails.

And they can even learn to wash and dry themselves, too.

If you make the bath so enjoyable that they don't want to get out, say: "We will let the water out first When it goes glug-glug, it's time to climb out"