I love every one of your ideas...except for this one:
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Our children must eat everything on their plates.
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This is a tricky issue -- if you handle the "no waste" issue by serving the children smaller portions or just serving a sponful to taste if it is an unfamiliar food, that would be good. But I think there are a couple of generations of Americans who grew up with the "clean plate club" mentality and are now overweight and unable to acurately gauge their hunger. A child may overeat just so they are allowed to have dessert.
Not wasting a small bit of food is much less important, IMHO, than helping the child develop a healthy relationship with food.