What to do with a picky eater?
Good morning, this is Dana from over at The Back Cover, filling in for Lindsey today.
I’m more of a wannabe cook than a real one. I have tons of cookbooks, and I’m always eager to buy more. I went to the Green Valley Book Fair last weekend and had to force myself away from the cookbook section. Otherwise, I would have ended up with a book on how to make beautiful cakes with fondant, a book about how to cook with wine, a book on baking and several other scrumptious looking books, that would be put on a shelf and never used.
The problem isn’t that I don’t want to cook. If I had the time, I’d make a gourmet feast for every meal. And yes, time is a factor, but the biggest reason I don’t cook is that I have a 4-year-old daughter.
Many of you are nodding your heads knowing exactly what that means. I could probably end this post right here. But for those of you who don’t understand let me explain.
My almost perfect daughter is extremely picky when it comes to eating. It’s very frustrating to fix a nice dinner and have to throw away most of it. Some would say, let her eat what she wants, she’ll grow out of this phase, but I just can’t consciously let her eat butter noodles, frozen pizza, and/or Pop Tarts for every meal. Okay, so she does eat Pop Tarts for breakfast every morning, and Monday when she was sick I made her butter noodles, but that’s where I draw the line.
It’s not like I make her liver for dinner. I’d understand if she turned her nose up at that, but I make things that I loved as a kid. Come on, who doesn’t like au gratin potatoes?
I took her to Red Robin for lunch. She ordered spaghetti, which in most families is a staple if you have kids. She said she couldn’t swallow it because of the green stuff. The green stuff as she called it was the basil and oregano. Sigh.
The one rule I have is that if I make dinner and she chooses not to eat it, I won’t make her something different. If I did who knows how many meals I’d have to make a night—she’s been known to ask for something and then once she has it in front of her decide she doesn’t like it anymore.
Every night turns into a battle. She doesn’t care too much for sweets, so I can’t bribe her to eat a healthy dinner with a not so healthy dessert. And I feel guilty if I let her leave the table without eating anything. So we end up bargaining over bites.
I have learned some tricks though. One is patience. If I introduce a vegetable a little at a time, she’ll gradually do better with each meal she sees the vegetable on her plate. I did this with broccoli and she now loves raw broccoli and ranch. A little too much ranch, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Another trick is to give her a night where she gets to decide what we’re having for dinner. I do this as a reward for eating, not all, but most of what’s on her already small portioned plate. It’s a compromise, but it works.
What are your tricks? Do you have any no fail kid friendly healthy recipes? I’d love all the help I can get.
October 14, 2010 - 8:00 AM
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We don’t have kids so I don’t have any life experience advice. But, some friends of ours do, and they get the kids involved in cooking the meal so they see the food from start to finish. Sometimes that also involves getting them to help in the veggie garden to help with picking fresh food to cook. It appears to help reduce the ‘yuck’ factor because they get familiar with the food they are about to eat.
Avoiding spaghetti because of basil and oregano? Well…I can understand that one…my wife is allergic to oregano! But as a kid I’d smother everything in garlic. Garlic on steak and chicken? Yep. Garlic mashed potatoes? Sure! Garlic on a bagel for breakfast…you bet! I just love garlic…and I discovered it by happy accident as a kid when I was too short to reach the spice rack and grabbed it instead of the cinnamon-sugar I was trying for.
I’ve heard that timing a meal works when offering a reward at the end. Set a kitchen timer to 20-30 minutes and if she eats during that time, let her watch a favorite cartoon, play her favorite game, etc. Who knows if it works, but it might be worth a try!
Good for you! When I was a kid my cousin, who was the same age as me, got pop tarts and chicken nuggets for every meal and I was always so jealous!
I was picky, but I was also hungry, so I learned to “eat around” the things that I thought were weird. One thing that helped – my mom gave a TON of praise whenever I ate something that I didn’t want. So, I would always try new things because I wanted to impress her.
I also have a picky 5 year old daughter and I find that when I involve her in the cooking, she knows what goes into the meal, and she is more likely to eat it than something that just magically appears on her plate.
I’m lucky that my kids aren’t picky, but this is how I’ve always handled meals:
-I fix one meal for everyone, no one gets special exceptions.
-They have to try one bite of each thing on their plate but beyond that I don’t particularly care how much of each item they eat or don’t eat.
-I try to make sure there’s at least one side dish that everyone likes (bread, noodles, broccoli, ect)
-If they choose not to eat, that’s fine. If one of my kids’ plates is still almost full, I leave it on the table and an hour or two later when they say they’re hungry they can go back to it. Otherwise they wait for the next meal. I try not to use food as a reward so I don’t try to use dessert as a bribe, but I do explain that we only eat dessert for fun after we’ve eaten food to help our bodies get strong (so if they turn down dinner we don’t have dessert). We don’t have dessert every night, anyway, and its usually not right after dinner, often an hour or two later.
-I’ve tried not to perpetuate the idea that there are “kid foods” and “grown up foods” – my kids eat what we eat and always have. From the time they were just starting solids they ate the same as what we ate, just cut into appropriate sizes – we never did jarred babyfood so my kids grew up eating my cooking. We have Asian, Italian, Indian, Mexican, and other ethnic foods often and my kids eat them all.
Good luck! I know a lot of kids grow out of being picky eaters, hopefully that will happen soon for you.
I’ve found that letting them help with both planning and preparation help quite a bit.
My son was a very, VERY picky eater. The doctor told me as long as he was eating something, that was good. Needless to say he grew up and now eats stuff that surprises me!
Coincidentally, my oldest daughter sent me a link this morning to a blog about picky eaters. Pretty funny! My kids are grown now but the child who sent me this is ‘the little gourmand’! A good read for all you parents of picky eaters!http://www.dinneralovestory.com/2010/10/13/a-picky-eater-taxonomy/
My 7 year old daughter is extremely picky. I believe she has texture issues and it started when she was a baby and wouldn’t eat finger foods of the same things she ate pureed. I have tried every suggestion (yes, really) and they just don’t work on her. I used to have a one-bite rule, but when she would truly gag, I decided that I was really forcing her to do something she just couldn’t handle. So, I give her a multivitamin and she survives on buttered spaghetti and a handful of other things (mostly processed carbs and dairy – and yes, she loves sweets). I hate it and worry about her nutrition and future eating habits, but I don’t know what else to do. We eat pretty healthy here so she at least sees those foods – she did try kale chips the other day so maybe there is hope!
Be careful with using one food as a bribe. In the case of dessert, you may be setting up the notion that the healthy foods are just something yucky to get through so you can get to the good stuff. We have embraced a small amount of dessert once a day and we put it on the kids’ plates at the beginning of the meal (unless it’s something frozen like ice cream). They may eat it whenever they wish, but they don’t get seconds of dessert.
My sister was such a picky eater that my mother used to make her food look like animals and clowns to get her to eat it.
My 2 sons were the normal eww yuk at vegetables and other things, starting with the gag reflex when we gave them baby food peas from the jar (Long before make your own baby food times). The gag reflex as babies is funny, but having one continue on into childhood being picky and hating most food is worrisome.
We made rules pretty early on that they had to choose 2 veggies/fruit we had on the table – and they had to have a spoonful of each. If they liked it, they of course could have more. I always had several choices of veggies and fruits on the table. Now both are grown men – one loves all veggies the other loves all fruits – and are good eaters both of them.
We also got them involved with food preparation, shopping and we made meals fun. I used food color in their milk (occasionally) and they never knew when I used to stick something under their plate as a reward – BUT they had to obey the eat 2 veggie/fruit rules and clean their plates of what they took if they wanted to look under their plate. It was like a “lottery” because it wasn’t always something under there – but that made it fun!
Plus they loved eating off their favorite divided plate that was a family vintage piece. Kids love their food “not touching”…
Happy eating and keep it fun & healthy!!
I find the kids meals at restaurants help turn kids noses up at real food. Yes, real food, chickens don’t have nuggets y’all.
PS Don’t let the words “Special Meals” come into your household, make it for one and for all. Every kid will be picky, as every adult will, given a choice.
Thank you everyone for all your great suggestions!
I’ll chime in late here, Dana. You are facing one of the worst problems in raising a child – overcoming their food perspectives for their betterment. There probably aren’t many things that cause more parental stress when dealing with the <10 yr old child group. I could write a book on frustrations with it.
Suffice it to say that our approach came pretty close to that of Jen's above. That didn't mean that our son wouldn't fake gagging – ala Calvin & Hobbes – to try to avoid eating something. Or that we had 'discussions' over how many peas constituted a bite, LOL. For him it was one, for me it was four.
I could go on ad infinitum, but I'll spare you all. I will say that there were a lot of good ideas listed above, and I wish I'd thought of them when the time was right. Especially the ones involving the child in the decision making process.
I would throw in this caveat – if you're giving your child the ability to choose the meal or veggies for the night, make it multiple choice. Otherwise you might be eating Blueberry Pop Tarts & butter spaghetti every Thursday until she turns 18. Give her a choice of 4-5, something like that.
Good luck, and thanks for the great topic! You make a great substitute teacher!
It seems that Jen and I have pretty much the same thoughts about mealtime. The rule here is that the kids have to try it. They don’t have to eat it if they don’t like it, but that one bite is going to go into their mouths instead of deciding they don’t like a food by how it looks. My grandson will admit it if something tastes good, but my granddaughter will pretend she doesn’t like that particular taste just because she’s…umm, shall we say stubborn? Regardless, she still has to taste it!
It’s so nice to see a lot of comments. I fell less alone with this struggle. I, too, have a picky eater. She is now 15 and yes, unfortunately, she is still picky. My rules are: You have to at least try it and Good food first. And I don’t like the special meal just for here idea. I explain that your body needs the nutrients in the food to grow, live, and breathe life, and that I understand she doesn’t like the food but her body does. Are these good ideas? I’m still learning, but lately my beautiful picky eating daughter asked for, yes, ‘asked’ for steak, the first time, and ate almost the whole piece! That’s more protein in one meal than I think she’s ever had! So I have hope that one day she will try somthing new, and maybe, just maybe, she’ll like it. Will it be because of my little rules? I’ll probably never know, but she’s attempting to enjoy a meal, so I am seeing a better future than I have before. Hang in there moms and dads!
My husband was picky, so needless to say my two sons were too. As long as they ate A vegetable, A protein, A whole grain, etc I let it go – and they ate raw carrots, apples, hot dogs, and peanut butter sandwiches for years. Now they are adults and they try new things – Parents, it will end, I promise!
I think there must be a genetic componenent to pickiness or some kind of physical issue with the taste buds. I’m still somewhat picky as an adult and foods I’ve never liked literally make me gag. I can’t force them down no matter how hard I try. Sure, there are foods that aren’t my favorites but thast I’ll eat. But there are ones that make me physically sick when I taste them. The big one for me is raw veggies. I’ve tried and tried to learn to eat salads and end up literally gagging trying to eat lettuce or raw tomatoes. Steam veggies or give me any cooked tomato product and I’m good so it’s not the food itself.
I feel bad for kids who are forced to eat stuff they don’t like since I know how miserable that is. More than once as a child I sat at the dinner table for HOURS after being told I couldn’t leave until I finished something. Usually I ended up being sent to bed early because I literally could not get whatever it was down. Sure, make kids taste stuff, but from someone who’s been there it’s really scary as a child to be gagging on something and be told you have to force it down somehow.
J, I am the same way with sweet potatoes and roasted carrots. I’ve tried to eat them, but they make me gag. I can’t tolerate the sweet flavor of them.
I don’t think kids should be forced to eat something they truly don’t like either. They should try different things though, because they might find they do like something that they thought they wouldn’t.
The whole confrontation over ‘gagging’ comes down to a simple question… Is it real or is it acting to keep from trying something different?
That is the point. Until you’ve raised a child who forced themselves to gag just because they didn’t want to eat their favorite food prepared in a new way, you don’t understand the situation.
Another example – our son absolutely loved potato salad until he saw his mom put mustard in it. Then he would sit at the table with a spoonful of potato salad in his mouth, refusing to swallow, until he eventually was able to make himself gag. Those are the dilemmas many parents face – irrational thought and behavior by kids. How is that solved? There’s no easy answer. I’ve never been a proponent of the – ‘Let them just eat what they like’ strategy, since I always believed that parents tended to know just a little more than their children about many things, nutrition included.
Fortunately, those battles are over in our household.
Both of mine are grown but I remember being a picky eater (and skinny) so I never made it any issue with my kids and I never uttered “clean your plate”.
My way around a kids natural aversion was to “talk them out of it”. Not always with success though.
“I don’t like green beans”. Well did you know that green beans help your body grow and get strong? What do you think would make them taste better? Sure, try some maple syrup on top.
I also let them decide what “sides” we might have on any given meal. OK, we are having chicken tonight, what would you like with that? If I did not have the request, WE went through the cupboard and looked for an idea.
Kids are all about self, and their tastes are simple. They will not choose hunger. Ultimatums and threats or bribes only set up the chance for a future of bad food choices IMO.
Keep it light, let them experiment and let them eat what they like, it will not kill either of you. In that concession, always have the “you have to try it before you say you do not like it” rule and they will get the message that it is OK not to like some foods and that the only way you know what you like is to try it.
Don’t like spaghetti with oregano? Try it with cheese on top. Try it on a piece of bread. Put ketchup on it. There is no wrong, if they eat it and it has nutritive value.