Your child’s plate can be a conversation starter. With a plate of food in front of a hungry toddler, he might actually sit long enough for you to begin a conversation with the bigger people in your family.
Or a plate might begin a conversation to decide what should be on it, usually more vegetables. The purpose of the food on the plate is to help a kid grow stronger.
The older kids get, daily weeknight meals become impossible, yet you can still find a kid with a plate in front of her. Pounce on that moment like Tigger, all ears, ready to hear anything the beloved teenager is willingly to say! Listening over a plate of food helps a kid grow stronger.
When kids become too busy, we might say, “Your plate is full.” This is a different conversation starter that has nothing to do with food and everything to do with getting stronger.
As the person who often dished up their food over the years, you are mostly responsible for what is on your child’s plate. You scoop up responsibility in the measure appropriate to that particular individual. Like estimating calories, there is no universal way of knowing how many spoonfuls of responsibility a kid needs to get stronger. This is the worst news for every parent. What worked for that kid will certainly not work for this kid. You will reinvent a million wheels in your vocation of parenting, and only you will notice.
Instead of negotiating vegetables, like in the early years, you will find yourself negotiating responsibility. Can you handle both your schoolwork and joining that team? How many nights of this sport is just right? Are you keeping up with chores at home or do you need to take something off your plate?
You watch to discourage them from overcrowding their plates, although in the end, you are no more than a coach on the sidelines. You are the director of the play who can only sit back and watch it unfold on opening night. You are the school cook who dishes up but does not monitor the eating.
Once in a while, you help your child carry her plate. It has become overcrowded, heavy, too full. And you assure her there are times when we all need help carrying our plate because it has become too full. This is life with Jesus. We dish up what matters in hopes of growing stronger, but some matters are heavier than others. And then the strongest act becomes the act of saying, “Hey you, parent on the other side of this plate, a little help over here.” Which is all practice for the daily act of prayer: “Hey you, Jesus, a little help over here.”
Lisa Lewton 