Anyone with kids knows that children often want to snack on foods more often than they should. This can be a problem since it sometimes leads to them not wanting to finish their lunch or dinner.
Jen Hallstrom, a mother of three in Indiana became frustrated with the situation especially when she realized her kids were often snacking simply because they were bored, and not necessarily hungry.
“It’s frustrating when you know they aren’t hungry and they’re just eating out of boredom,” Hallstrom told Today, in an interview.
But with her frustration, she developed a simple and easy solution…
“Each child has their own colored basket. In the morning I put their snacks in it for the day, when those snacks are gone they don’t get any more,” she wrote in a Facebook post that has gone viral with more than 400,000 shares.
“It makes them stop and think, 'Do I really need a snack?' I also put their cup for the day in there because I’m not washing 50 cups a day!”
Jen isn’t the only person using this trick—Erin Merryn, who lives in Illinois with her three daughters, shared a similar post on Instagram, which we've embedded below.
And there you have it— a simple trick that can control how just many snacks your children will eat daily.