In kindergarten, lunch is an indispensable part of children's daily life, lasting from half an hour to 45 minutes. During this period, teachers should not only look at children's dining activities from the perspective of physical health, but also re-examine education issues from the perspective of mental health. However, the situation of kindergarten dining activities today is not satisfactory.
First, the problems in children's catering education
1. The desire to eat. The nurse divided the meals, and the children sat quietly at the fixed table after washing their hands. At the same time, the voice that urged them to eat began: "I see which child eats fastest today"; "Whoever eats first will be rewarded with a five-pointed star after school in the afternoon"; After supper, children can play with toys. In the process of children eating, the teacher reminds the children from time to time: "XXX, eat quickly!" " Big mouth. "When most children have finished eating and a few children are still eating, the teacher said," Only you eat the slowest, and you have to eat until the end every time. " ……
Children's dining is a process of gradually increasing their interest, and their understanding ability is still limited. Therefore, teachers urging children to eat will directly lead many children to take "eating fast" as their first goal, which makes the dining activities that should have been very relaxed and happy infected by purpose. For so long, for some children, eating has gradually become a painful thing.
2. Be forced to eat more. Many children have finished eating, but several children are still in a daze facing the food on the table. Some children send them to their mouths slowly, and then chew and swallow them slowly. In order to let them eat more, the teacher coaxed them into saying, "Eat more, and it is a good boy to finish eating"; "All the meals have to be finished, and no one needs to go home in the afternoon" ... As a result, they cleaned up after dinner and found a lot of leftovers on the floor, under the children's table and under the dishes.
Judging from children's age characteristics, children's attention is easily diverted, they like to eat and play, and some children have the habit of being picky about food. In any case, teachers force children to eat things that are unpalatable to them, which will make them feel the pressure of eating and increase their anxiety. In this way, not only can children not be encouraged to eat more, but they will reduce their appetite.
3. Reward effect. Jiayu needs someone to watch her eat every day and encourage her every time. She won't eat if no one is watching her. The children are all having dinner. A child raised his hand after eating. The teacher took the opportunity to educate Jia Yu and said, "Look, XX has finished eating, and I like him best. Jia Yu, eat quickly, too. When you are finished, I will reward you with another five-pointed star. "
It is proper for children to finish their meals. If children are sick and uncomfortable or have any other reasons, appropriate encouragement is appropriate and can also enhance their confidence in doing this well. However, if they don't pay attention to principles, too many rewards will only have a negative effect. Like Jia Yu, teachers often control children's behavior by rewarding them, making them mistakenly think that eating is just for recognition and praise, and over time, it will make them develop bad habits.
4. Eat quietly. Teachers believe that children tend to choke when eating, which will also affect the speed of eating. At the same time, influenced by China's traditional food culture, keeping quiet while eating is often regarded as a routine in kindergartens, so teachers can often hear children say, "Now our small mouths are used for eating, not for talking." "Where did that sound come from?" "Shut your mouth quickly!" Wait a minute.
In this case, children are like rats in the middle of the night, eating quietly, and occasionally whispering when the teacher is not paying attention, which is often "warned" by the teacher. The deprivation of the right to speak makes the communication opportunities between children and between children and teachers stifled in the rules formulated by teachers.
5. eat clean. In kindergarten, we can often see another phenomenon of dining, that is, children will carefully pick up the food spilled on the table or even on the ground and put it in their mouths. Why is this happening? It is observed that teachers or nurses often emphasize such words when children eat: "eat clean." "You can't spill the food." "Keep the table top and floor clean." "Be a diligent boy." And so on, even often intentionally or unintentionally criticize the children who throw away the vegetables and spread the rice. In order not to be criticized by teachers, many children often pick up their own meals.
The teacher's wish is to cultivate children's good habits and awareness of thrift from an early age, but from a psychological point of view, the development of children's fine movements is still at a low level, and it is common for them to use spoons and chopsticks freely.
Second, the impact on children's mental health.
Eriksson's theory of personality development summarizes a person's life into eight stages, and childhood is in the second and third stages, namely, autonomy versus shyness and doubt, and initiative versus guilt. In other words, this age is an important period of children's self-awareness and they begin to actively communicate with teachers and peers. At this stage, children's language develops very rapidly, and they have a strong interest in speaking. They are full of curiosity and have a desire to touch, move and talk about their surroundings. The nervous system is more excited than inhibited, so natural children can't sit and eat quietly. In the long run, poor dietary education will not be conducive to the development of young children.
1. Children's behavior has an obvious duality, that is, under the management of teachers, they can do as required. Once other teachers come to talk to the teacher, children often have endless words and show abnormal excitement. If the teacher is absent or the management is lax, it will often be accompanied by aggressive or venting behavior. At dinner, the children sit side by side closely. Under the supervision of the teacher, the "small friction" between children is only manifested as staring or ignoring. If the teacher is lax, especially when he is busy feeding some children, the children will have the opportunity to laugh, blame and kick, while some older children will "occupy" a bigger desktop or bully them by themselves.
2. It is not conducive to the improvement of children's peer communication ability. In the eight-hour life in kindergarten, most of the time is controlled by the teacher, and children rarely have their own time and space. In the common dining activities, they are required to "take care of themselves and eat by themselves", and there is little communication between children. Among them, "obedient" and filial children often get praise from teachers and become role models for the whole class. This not only strengthens the behavior of "good" children, but also makes other children imitate in order to please the teacher and speed up eating without talking. The self-enclosed eating environment makes children, especially those who lack partners, lose the opportunity to form a good peer relationship again.
3. It is easy to cause the opposition between educators and educatees, which is not conducive to the formation of a harmonious relationship between teachers and students. 4 to 6 years old is a critical period for children to form their self-awareness. Children have a strong sense of subjectivity, have their own will and desire, and want to speak and express their wishes in words, which is an important performance. The teacher has repeatedly forbidden, "Eat quickly and talk", "Do you still eat?" , causing a considerable mental burden on children's psychology, producing disgust and even rebellion, and venting it in other activities, children become unwilling to accept teachers' opinions or openly disobey them. As affected children, their behavior characteristics will inevitably affect teachers' behavior, teachers' expectations, evaluation attitudes and handling methods. In the long run, it will eventually affect the overall effect of education.
4. It is easy to make children depressed, passive, dependent on adults everywhere, lacking interest in activities, having a high evaluation of the same sex, and having a herd mentality. Kindergarten teachers protect children from being hurt. If you eat fish, the nurse will pick the fishbone first; When eating, the teacher should take the initiative to add rice and soup; If you eat slowly, the teacher will feed you personally. Children don't need to solve all the difficulties in activities, even before the difficulties appear, the teacher has solved them. There is no need for children to learn from each other and exchange experiences in eating. Especially at home. Parents may be afraid that their children can't eat, or they may be afraid that their children will eat slowly and worry. In short, the end result is that most children finish their meals with the help of their parents. Children have no chance to serve themselves. In the long run, children's subjectivity is suppressed and they rely on adults everywhere. Under the strict diet system, children are like puppets manipulated by people, having no interest in eating and enjoying the pleasure of progress. In order to avoid punishment and blame, strictly abide by various rules. Children are artificially deprived of the opportunity to show their personality and become timid, shrinking and lacking in creativity.
Third, the solution strategies and methods
1. Go beyond convention, create a relaxed and pleasant dining environment, and create an atmosphere of communication among peers, teachers and children.
In the dining activities, teachers can change the classroom routine and "play" some tricks at the right time to promote children to eat happily. For example, children can choose their seats freely and have lunch with their good friends. The teacher only takes necessary measures when the child asks for help. In such a warm "working meal" atmosphere, children feel the fun of talking in mutual communication. They will naturally talk about what they eat when eating with their companions, such as the name, taste, color of food, or the etiquette of eating. They also like to discuss topics outside the table, such as the content of cartoons, or where they played with their parents, and so on. Although some topics have nothing to do with eating, they may contain rich educational significance.
2. Release rights and give children more space for independence and self-service.
With the development of self-awareness, children are eager to do something by themselves. This requires teachers to gradually liberalize their rights and give children more independent rights. For example, teachers can help and guide some children with better abilities to learn and practice how to clear the dishes and help themselves with food. On the basis of observation and study, the teacher will gradually expand the scope to the whole class, so that each child can develop his own things and do it by himself. On the one hand, it saves unnecessary time waste during the meal and gives children more abundant meal time; On the other hand, through the release of rights, children's independence and self-confidence are gradually cultivated, and their self-care ability is improved to some extent.
3. Arouse children's interest in diet and related activities through activities.
Before eating, the teacher can tell the children some common sense about food hygiene and food nutrition, and gradually penetrate into their lives. For example, according to different dishes and colors, introduce their nutritional value to children, and even use "I give the dishes a name" to arouse children's desire to eat vegetables. If children don't want to eat some vegetables (spinach, cauliflower), we can call this dish "Popeye's lunch"; Another example is that children don't like carrots, so they can take advantage of their psychology of liking rabbits to be good and call lunch "rabbits' favorite" and so on. We can also involve children in the production process through activities such as "Bao jiaozi", or discuss the contents of the menu together to help health care doctors arrange recipes for next week. In this way, children will have pride in eating and will like to eat more.
4. Specific circumstances, specific treatment.
Children's appetite is individual and cannot be forced to eat. For example, you can adjust your food intake by eating several times: the first time, you can divide it a little less, and the amount of each child is the same, usually half or one-third of the bowl, thus reducing the pressure and burden in their eyes. Avoid letting children turn off their appetite immediately after seeing a big bowl of food. After watching everyone eat delicious food, they will have a second meal and say in a gentle tone, "Who wants more?" At this time, children often have a sense of accomplishment: look, I added food! After eating the second meal, the child can have the third meal. At this time, there is no need to force some children who eat less to eat more. This method can also prevent food from getting cold before it is finished in winter.
In short, eating is an important part of children's daily life. Creating a warm, comfortable, safe and democratic dining environment can better promote the healthy development of children's psychology and improve children's language ability, knowledge and experience, interpersonal communication, etc., which is an indispensable step in children's lifelong sustainable development.