Got a picky eater?
God bless ’em, right?!
However, let’s face reality. Picky eaters can thwart our best laid plans (ok, dreams) for happy meal times… Imagine a meal where everyone eats with a smile and absolutely no one complains!
That might sound like a fairytale, but your dream is within reach.
And to help you get there, today I’ve got 8 tips to help get your picky eaters on board. Because if they love real food, too, half the battle is won!
And the whole family will be happier for it, too. Especially you, Mom. 🙂
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Tip of the Week: Don’t Change Everything at Once
Just like it takes time for our health to slip or pickiness to develop, it takes time to get back on track. Don’t feel that you have to redo your entire pantry or change your family’s eating habits overnight. In fact, that might be a sure fire way to fail because not only is it too much to tackle at once, your family members (especially picky eaters) are sure to rebel!
No matter which of the following strategies you employ, do them one step at a time, always listening to your family and including them for feedback. They should feel part of the process, and therefore… part of the solution!
8 Tips To Help Picky Eaters Enjoy Real Food
Please note: If your child has sensory issues, some of these tips won’t work and may even make things worse. You should instead check out Know Your Food #32 — My Kid Eats Everything! with my guest therapist Susan L. Roberts, an autism educator and consultant and author of the book My Kid Eats Everything!.
1. Involve picky eaters in every aspect of meal preparation: grocery shopping, planning the menu, food prep, serving, setting the table, and cleaning up. Children are much more likely to be excited to try foods they’ve helped prepare.
2. At meal times, don’t place the focus on the food. Don’t make your meals all about listening to your child whine and complain while you have to bargain and coerce them to “take 3 more bites”. Conversation should be light and fun, not about the food. Try to have some meal time conversation starters ready so that there isn’t room during the meal time for the picky eaters to put up a fight.
3. If children do not eat what they are served, they should go hungry until the next meal. Period. This teaches them to eat when it is meal time and not to rely on snacks or extras served throughout the day to make up for what they didn’t eat during the meal. Additionally, you can consider saving an uneaten meal to be eaten at the next meal time, sending the message that going on an “eating strike” isn’t going to work.
4. If you’re making separate foods for your picky eaters, STOP. Serve everyone the same thing. Make it a rule that everyone must try at least two bites of everything on their plates. They don’t have to like it, but they are required to try it. When you’re making separate foods just for picky eaters, they will never have a reason to be adventurous and happy eaters. They will not starve, I promise!
5. Cut way back on store-bought and processed foods. These foods are full of additives and flavorings that enhance their taste, tricking the brain into thinking they taste good and that mild, bland, or unflavored foods don’t taste as good. By eliminating processed foods, you help to re-train your picky eater’s brain to love foods in their natural state.
6. Don’t try introducing a bunch of new foods at once. Keep some favorites around (make them healthier if store-bought or processed), and slowly add in new foods.
7. Don’t give up on a food just because it wasn’t well-received the first time. It can take several attempts and tastes before a food goes from icky to enjoyable. This is true for both adults and children. If you introduce a new food, and it isn’t well-received, wait a few days and try again.
8. Sometimes it’s all in the way you cook it. Steamed broccoli might be gross to a picky eater, but roasted broccoli with a little lemon squeezed on top might be their new favorite food. If you’re serving canned veggies at all, go with fresh and see if everyone doesn’t enjoy them more. The flavor profile of pretty much everything changes depending on how it’s cooked. Figure out how to cook foods in ways your family loves.
Links and More
- KYF #32 — My Kid Eats Everything! — for children with sensory issues for whom the “usual” things don’t work
iTunes
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Anything to Add?
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What age do you feel it’s appropriate to enforce #3? I totally agree with all of this! We do most of it… Just need to add things like the conversation to help keep it light. Thank you!
Jen — It is hard to pin down an age because children are different. For us, it was when we knew they knew what was going on. I hope this helps, even though it’s not specific.
Thank you Wardee.
Yes, our 3 year old is very clever, and even knows how to finagle, sneak and argue. I feel like this means she’s old enough. 😉
Some children have very real sensory challenges which can cause extreme sensitivities to textures including food. No amount of coaxing or enforcing #3 or #4 can change the situation. And a hungry child is much worse to deal with! #3 and #4 are great ideas for many children, but in some cases they can make things much worse. In my experience another strategy is needed – healing those sensitivities by healing the underlying neurological issues can miraculously change an eater from picky to enthusiastic. Those neurological issues can include primitive reflex retention, brain imbalance, etc. A healed child is a happy child that gladly eats new things.
Leticia ~ That’s a great point. I didn’t mention that in the text, but I did in the podcast. If a child has sensory challenges, podcast #32 is more helpful for those children. The usual things don’t work and can make things worse:
My Kid Eats Everything!
http://KnowYourFoodPodcast.com/32
Thank you for this, Wardeh. I feel very strongly about this. I was raised to be a picky child to the extreme. There were only a handful of things I would eat. My mom never, ever made me eat anything else. She always cooked me special meals and if we were invited to someone’s house to eat, she would cook a meal to take there. That is NOT acceptable!!!! I am 52 years old and I still struggle. I have been crippled in this area all my adult life. She still believes she did the right thing. I have come s long, long way but I wonder if I will ever stop struggling. Now I have an adopted son who is very picky…or wants to be. We do steps 3 and 4. He doesn’t starve and he has learned to eat some things he doesn’t “like.” I understand there are food allergies, sensitivities and other issues but we don’t have those and this is non-negotiable in my house.
Having a child who has had sensory issues (and at 22 still gags on applesauce), I suggest trying other sources of the same flavors -for example apple slices instead of apple sauce, frozen yogurt instead of soft, etc. This can encourage a child to try flavors, if he or she knows that you are aware that texture is the issue and will not discount the sensory reaction. On #4, this might mean letting the child pick a different form of the same food that everyone else eats, like letting a child have raw carrots or broccoli when others are eating cooked, but still having the same food. This is not the same as preparing separate foods for a picky eater and gives the child a little more control and some ownership of the food on the plate.