Encouraging Kids To Eat

Now, I’m absolutely no expert on food but we do love to eat in our family and I’m all about encouraging kids to eat. Partly due to luck and partly hard work, we have three kids that will eat almost anything. They’ll try new stuff, eat pulses, veggies, spicy food, raw food, adult food and any other kind of food.  Apart from the youngest and myself with our ridiculous food intolerances, anyone can feed them almost anything and no-one gets stressed.

I know that there are lots of children that eat brilliantly but I also know that there are lots that just don’t and loads of us are trying to find new ways of encouraging our kids to eat.  They’re either not interested in food, dislike various textures intensely, use it as a power game with their parents, or just simply get stressed around mealtimes for whatever reason and refuse to eat.

Having overcome various ‘food humps’, I thought it might be worth sharing my thoughts incase it can help anyone else with their ‘food humps’. Our approach is just one approach and if you have anything to add then I’d love to hear it. The more ideas the better as far as I’m concerned.

We essentially have a zero tolerance of fussiness, the meal is the meal, the snack is the snack. Now our youngest has Down Syndrome and food intolerances, so we have had to adapt things for him BUT we have now found our mojo with him and he eats like a champ.

I think biologically kids are suspicious of food when they hit about 2 – it’s something critical in the developmental phase that’s meant to coincide with them being super mobile and exploratory. You don’t want a wandering toddler in the park eating berries and dog poo, so something in them makes them think twice about what they put in their mouths. Or so the theory goes.

Things we have done that have really worked with both our kids and visiting kids:

• Have a plate of cut up carrots, cucumber, peppers and cooked broccoli on the go all the time from just after breakfast and snack from it yourself so the kids can see you.
• Remove all snacks if they are getting picky at meal times.
• Remove all sweet things like raisin and other dried fruit / puddings / yoghurt if they’re getting picky at meal times.
• Eat as a family as often as you can and CHAT to them about them, about what they’re interested in and tell them funny stories you know they would enjoy.  Kids love to feel heard and feel the centre of attention.  Take the attention off food and on to them.
• Insist they taste something they think/ know they don’t like. This may start with have one lick or the ‘just eat it’ approach.  Tell them that they may not like it today but they will one day and one never knows what day that’s going to happen and it would be such a shame to miss out!
• If they won’t eat pulses (lentils, kidney beans, chick peas, butter beans, black beans etc) then add a few to a bolognaise or some other meal they love. Lentils are the easiest to ‘hide’ in a good bol.  Then just up the ratio of meat:lentils over time.  Good nutrition wise too.  You’ll soon be on pulse only meals if you’re not already.
• This approach works well with all sorts – tiny shreds of spinach in pesto pasta and then up the ratio… essentially mini amounts of anything in what they do like and increase it slowly over time.
• If you need to blitz a sauce to hide the veggies enough that they’ll eat it, just slowly over time blitz it less…
• Make your own pizzas and add toppings and hidden veg sauce – 300g flour + 300g greek yoghurt (or soya yoghurt) + 1 tsp baking powder – mix to a dough, roll, top and bake at 180 degrees.  Fantastic!
• Find something they love and barter with them.  Our youngest is NOT keen on eating raw veg and loves ham.  So – we give him a mouthful or two of ham on his plate and if he wants more, then he absolutely can as long as he eats some carrots / pepper / whatever too.  He’s doing really well with this approach.
• Lots of praise for being good company at the table.
• Eat out at a restaurant as a family treat and make it absolutely clear that you are so proud of them for eating so nicely and that they can behave so well and that so many children are terrors in restaurants etc etc.  Flattery all the way!
• Get the kids to help you prepare food and touch, smell, weigh and cut all the ingredients – get them stuck in.
• Enable the kids to make the family evening meal (however much help is needed) and make sure that everyone knows that THEY did it and comment on it all the way through the meal!
• Give the kids veggies to cut up with a normal knife, so red onion peppers, cucumber, tomatoes etc and get them to make a salad for everyone with lime juice, fresh coriander and olive oil – you’ll be amazed at how much they eat themselves.
• Ask them if they’ll be your chief taster while you’re cooking and see if they think anything else needs to be added.

The kids seem to respond brilliantly to praise and a sense of responsibility and over achieving.  Any opportunities that you can think of to give them that, I think, goes a very long way.

Please do comment with any other tips you may have!

You may also like to see other parenting including:
For Kids That Hate Maths
Potty Training A Child With No Interest
Sensory Processing Disorder: Sensation Seeking & Anti-Social Behaviour

Do have a browse through our blog (crafts, parenting, recipes etc) and come and join us on Facebook for lots more! We also have a lovely new Facebook Group called Christmas Traditions & Magic For Children so please come and join us there too!

To receive our blog posts, please sign up at the right hand side of this page or for Product or Christmas News and promotions from the International Elf Service, please sign up at the bottom of the page. This year’s series of Elfie’s Christmas Letters, a shorter set of letters from different elves from the North Pole and other fun products will be in the shop a little later. Don’t forget Elfie’s Birthday Letters are now available in the shop too!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin