It's 5 p.m., the kids are ravenous and a little cranky after a day at school, and you still don't know what's for dinner.

You're tired, they're tired and coaxing them to eat a nutritious meal is just not the kind of battle you want to fight tonight. Grabbing some chicken nuggets and fries from the freezer or going through a drive-through line then settling in front of the TV with a full plate solves the problem.

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Or does it?

Dinner is one of the most challenging times of day for parents, one that's often shoe-horned around after-school activities or thrown together at the last minute.

It's also one of the most important. Dinner sets the stage for families to slow down to talk to each other. It's where children learn the eating habits they'll have for a lifetime. Yet too often the dinner table turns into a battleground between picky eaters demanding more macaroni or dessert, and parents insisting on another serving of vegetables or a clean plate.

We talked with dietitians, pediatricians and parents about common traps that families fall into at dinner, and how to lay the groundwork for healthy, stress-free meals. Here are their suggestions for steering clear of the pitfalls.

Catering to a picky eater

It seems hard to believe, but picky eaters often turn into overweight kids. How do they go from refusing food to being too heavy?

People who work with overweight kids sketch out this scenario: Picky eaters might graze all day, meaning they're never really hungry at mealtime and thus more reluctant to try new foods. Or they might drink too much juice, which suppresses hunger and fills them up with sugary calories. Or parents, desperate to get a child to eat something, turn to something they know the child will eat, something salty or sweet. Chances are it won't be a piece of fruit or spinach sautéed with kosher salt and olive oil.

"Once you fall into that habit of cooking chicken nuggets and Tater Tots for Johnny and a different meal for the rest of the family, that's when you start running into problems," says Mary Gavin, a pediatrician and author of "Fit Kids" (Dorling Kindersley, $20).

"Early on is the time to offer variety. If you start narrowing because they only like macaroni and cheese and peanut butter sandwiches, they learn to like that, and when they get older, that's all they want to eat."

The solution: Provide regular meals and snacks, but don't let children graze all day. Make sure they're a little hungry when they come to the table, so they'll be more willing to try unfamiliar foods.

Get children involved in planning menus and cooking. Start with familiar foods, like a quesadilla, and try to add fruits and vegetables — cut-up red bell peppers or beans, for example. Let children still have choices, but make them healthy ones; an apple with peanut butter or a granola bar for a snack rather than a candy bar or chips.

Make sure there's something you know they'll eat, like bread or yogurt, on the dinner table. But make it clear that you won't be serving separate meals anymore.

"There's no way to back out of that slowly," says Janice Newell Bissex, co-author of "The Moms' Guide to Meal Makeovers" (Broadway Books, $15.95) and a registered dietitian. "You just say, 'This is it, we're going to start eating healthier and we're going to start eating together at the same meal.' "

Forcing kids to join the clean-plate club

Most parents want children to eat their vegetables, and chances are that's what's getting left on the plate at the end of a meal. But insisting that kids eat everything — especially before having dessert — sends the wrong message.

"Parents worry that if a child doesn't eat a well-rounded, full meal, they'll starve, that they'll be malnourished," Bissex says. "Kids, especially young kids, do a really good job of regulating their food intake."

Younger kids tend to be hungrier earlier in the day. By dinner, they're tired and may not want a big meal. Insisting that they clean their plate before eating dessert tells them to overeat, then eat some more, says Beth Passehl, who runs FitKids, a Children's Healthcare of Atlanta program for families of overweight children.

The solution: Let children serve their plates. Adults often overestimate how much a child wants. And kids, like adults, will eat more than they normally would if confronted with bigger portions. If a child is too young to spoon out dinner — and even 2-year-olds can do this with some help — give them small portions, about the size of their fist. If they're still hungry, you can always give them more.

What if they only want to eat dessert? Bissex lets her 4-year-old have a chocolate-dipped strawberry or some yogurt, figuring that if she doesn't eat anything but that, she'll probably be hungry and perhaps eat more the next day.

Making all the eating decisions for the child

Power struggles don't belong at the table. Being too controlling of what children eat is a potential minefield, from turning children into closet eaters to provoking eating disorders. Some research shows that even praising a child for eating the foods you want them to makes the child less likely to want to eat that food again.

Many dietitians and programs like FitKids recommend making dinner an enjoyable, less stressful time by setting a few simple rules. Parents choose the food that comes into the house and is prepared for meals. Children get to control whether they're going to eat, and how much.

What about the child who wants to eat second and third helpings of macaroni and cheese? Guard against overeating by serving only enough for one meal — leftovers go straight into the refrigerator — and make it clear that everyone must share what's in the serving bowls.

Giving up too early when kids reject foods

If you've opened a parenting book, you've probably read that it takes as many as 10 to 12 tries before a child will accept a new food. That's a tough rule of thumb to follow when you're cooking food that you're sure will end up in the trash can, but there is some truth to it.

Ask children to take one bite of an unfamiliar food. One expert even recommends letting them spit that bite out into a napkin if they don't like it. Sometimes a favorite condiment, like ketchup, low-fat cheese sauce or an Asian dipping sauce will coax a reluctant child to try something new. Make sure the food tastes good — if you don't like it, chances are they won't either.

If a child consistently refuses a food, move on. Sometimes he really doesn't like it, even after repeated exposure. After all, it's a rare adult who eats everything.

Assuming you're too busy to cook

You could pile everyone into the car and go to a Mexican restaurant for fajitas and a bottomless basket of chips, make a run through the drive-through of a fast-food restaurant for those fajitas — or spend about 20 minutes cooking a more nutritious version at home. You'll save time — really — and money by preparing your own.

Planning is key. On weekends, sketch out what you'll serve during the coming week to avoid the late-afternoon scramble that too often results in meals that are quick, but not healthful. It's just as easy to plan and prepare a healthy meal as one that's less nutritious.

Stock the pantry, refrigerator and freezer with healthy foods that can be put together quickly, like frozen vegetables; salsa; instant brown rice; fat-free refried beans (great for quick bean burritos); shredded, reduced-fat cheese; diced fruit in natural juices; marinara sauce; pasta; prewashed lettuce; and salad fixings. Have all the ingredients for a fallback meal on hand.

If convenience foods make the difference between dining out or dining in, pick up chicken strips instead of whole boneless breasts; frozen, sliced bell peppers instead of whole fresh ones; healthier packaged foods rather than ones high in sodium, trans-fats and sugar.

Jennifer McDevitt, a Walnut Grove mother of three, schedules family meals around after-school activities. She usually cooks at 3 p.m., then reheats when it's time for dinner. Sometimes she makes dinner a day in advance, or pulls leftovers out of the freezer. The slow cooker is a standby, letting her start dinner before she leaves for work as a preschool teacher. She likes the convenience of frozen vegetables, which don't go bad if she changes dinner plans.

"I'm always looking for stuff that's really quick to make. Minute Rice is really great with chicken strips. I try to cook vegetables ahead of time," McDevitt says. "It just takes more planning."

If there is no time at all to cook, take another look at the family's schedule and consider dropping an activity, advises Gavin.

"I deal with this every day," Gavin says. "I work my job and I have to commute and I go home and think, 'Oh, why do I have to make dinner?' There's a lot of reasons we're all in that bind. Ultimately, you've got to say, 'I've got to find something easy to cook so we're not going to McDonald's four times a week.' "