Healthy Beverage Discussions with Parents
Although parents want the best for their children, sometimes they may choose less nutritious beverage options for a variety of reasons including deceiving marketing, child persistence, convenience, time constraints or inadequate nutrition knowledge.
As a role model to your students, it is important to have open communication with parents to promote and encourage healthy nutrition habits in the home to reflect the nutrition environment and teachings within the classroom.
Tips to Discuss Healthy Beverages with Parents
- Encourage parents to send water bottles with children to school rather than juice boxes or other sugary drinks
- Suggest for parents to find water bottles with their child’s favorite colors or characters to increase willingness to use the water bottle
- Recommend for parents to purchase spill-proof water bottles for younger children
- For parents that indicate their child does not like the taste of plain water, suggest flavoring the water with infused fruits for a sweeter taste
- Encourage parents to make water drinking a habit in the home so children will be more willing to drink water at school
- Express the importance of parents as role models – children learn through observation and mimic the behaviors from their caregivers
- Be understanding with parents – acknowledge the fact that children are persistent when they want certain drink items
- Provide parents with tips to not give in for convenience when their child is being persistent
- Encourage parents to be consistent with their decisions on beverage choices in the home
- Suggest for parents to provide their children with explanations to the parents’ decisions about sugary drinks [nutrition education from parents to children]
- Encourage parents to not suddenly prohibit sugary drinks if it has been a part of their family’s usual intake – rather practice consuming in moderation or on occasion
- Bring awareness to the number of unhealthy food/beverage commercials children are exposed to – marketing companies target programming networks for children to increase children’s desire for unhealthy food/drink items
- Encourage parents to provide their children with whole fruit rather than fruit juice which contains more fiber and nutrients than juice alone
- Express the reality of the amount of sugar in juices marketed to children
- For parents that intend to provide juice for their child, suggest that they provide 100% fruit juice with no added sugar
- Remind parents of the recommended daily serving size of juice for young children (4-6 oz) to make informed choices regarding the amount of juice they provide to their children
- Encourage parents to read nutrition facts labels when purchasing drinks for their families
- Bring awareness to the many beverage options that may have deceiving labeling as a marketing strategy to increase product sales
- Companies used choice words on labels to persuade the consumer into thinking the product is healthy
- These labels can include words such as organic, gluten free, low sodium, low-fat, etc.
- Just because a product is organic, gluten-free, etc. doesn’t mean it is always a healthy option – that is why it is important to read the nutrition facts label and ingredient list before purchasing
- Remember that you as the teacher are a role model
- In order to encourage parents to make healthy beverage choices, it is important to also have healthy beverage practices both in your personal life in the classroom environment
- Drink water around your students
- Educate your students on the benefits of drinking water and minimizing the consumption of sugary beverages
- If consuming a beverage around your students’ parents, make it a healthy choice such as water, unsweetened tea, or 100% fruit/vegetable juice
- Avoid making a parent feel bad about providing sugary drinks for their child
- Instead, highlight the importance of water intake for children – discuss the need for children to stay hydrated & potential consequences
- Be respectful and aware of your tone – even if you do not agree with the parents’ choices and reasoning
- Try not to sound like an authority figure dictating how they feed their children
- Make it a learning opportunity for both you and the parents!
- You can learn more about the reasoning behind the parents’ family beverage choices
- The parents can become informed on healthier beverage choices
Teacher-Parent Communication Scenario
What would you do in this scenario?
