Observations and Interviews
Cooking Claire
Cooking Claire is a mother three and a child psychologist. Aside from raising her own kids she has a lot of experience with elementary and middle school kids. We discussed what was hard about picking a meal for a picky child and also what could be better. Picking meals was largely trial and error, it’s hard to find something that is popular especially when there is more than one child. Nutrition is important, but its hard to get kids try things that are new or nutritious. To fix this the meals were usually separated into pieces so the child could pick the parts they liked. She ended up tailoring the meals to the children’s needs, but didn’t have a single place to hold what all of the kids liked. The most important thing for Cooking Claire was having the whole family together at the dinner table. She would do whatever she could to find a meal that everyone would like.
Claire would usually try to find something that is popular among all the kids. If the kids only liked parts of the meals, she would make new ones based on the parts they liked. Claire told us that the kids also liked being given the power (or allusion of power) of being able to pick the meals themselves.
What we learned from Claire
- It's difficult to find meals based on what ingredients kids like, especially when there are multiple kids to think about
- Kids like to have power over what they eat (to feel in control)
- Having picky children creates a lot of extra work for the parent!
Babysitter Britney
Babysitter Britney babysits kids from age 2-9 for many different families. First we interviewed her on what she did to make meals and what it was that made it difficult. The most important thing is giving the kids a choice, she said, even if it is very restricted it for them. Two choices are best since they can decide quickly.
Britney also thought it would be useful if she could know what the kids want to eat again, especially since it’s easy to forget what a kid likes if you babysit a lot of different children. To get ideas for meals, she said she would usually talk to her friends about what the kids or their friends liked in the past. According to Britney, the ideal situation would be if the kids picked a meal, she could easily find the ingredients or buy them, the kids rated the meal and then she could know what they liked or disliked for next time.
What we learned from Britney
- Kids like to be able to choose what they are going to eat
- It's easy to forget what kids like (especially when dealing with multiple kids)
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