Picky Eaters

I have had quite a few parents ask what to do about picky eaters. Mealtimes can turn into seemingly-endless sessions of coaxing and cajoling each bite into a child's mouth, trying this and that, and ending up with pasta and bagels being 80% of your child's diet. Parents of children who are tiny or under their ideal weight are especially susceptible, but even the parents of big, strapping children can fall into these patterns.

The crux of converting a child away from being a picky eater is to change your viewpoint: your goal is not to get calories into your child's body by whatever means necessary; your goal is to help your child develop a healthy relationship to food. With this goal in mind, your responsibilities, and your attitude, can change. Your responsibility, as the parent, is to provide your child with healthy food. Their responsibility, as the child, is to eat the food. You cannot do this for them, nor can you force them to do it. You can simply do your job effectively, and know that they are capable of doing theirs. Being anxious about a child eating (or not eating) does nothing except to make the child feel anxiety around food. So what CAN you do? There are several concrete actions that can set the stage for healthy eating.

Let Children Help
One of the best ways to help children develop a healthy relationship to food is to involve them in the food preparations. Children are far less likely to be critical of food that they have helped create. I have been amazed time and again at what so-called “picky” eaters will eat out of the garden if they can help pick it. And in the kitchen, cooking is always an interactive experience at my house: children can help chop veggies or fruit (even a two-year-old can chop mushrooms or hack at zucchini slices with a table-knife), they can put veggies I've chopped into the bowl before they go onto the stove, or they can pour or stir things that we've measured. Also, children get to taste every ingredient I use, including the strange ones. They taste the oil, the salt, the lemon-juice, every raw vegetable including very tiny slices of onion, even sometimes a grain or two of uncooked rice. I talk about what each thing tastes like (sweet, sour, spicy, bland), I laugh at their funny faces when they taste something unexpected, and I'll even talk about how the taste or texture changes when it cooks. Food is something to be explored and savored.

Don't Change the Menu
The other important thing to do to convert your picky eater is to stand firm and be confident in the healthy food choices you've made for that meal. Don't “give in” and let them have slices of bagel -or whatever it is that they like- if they choose not to eat the food you've prepared for that meal. Bagels are so yummy, why would they possibly branch out to broccoli or peas if they know that they just need to wait a bit for the bagel? But if they know that whatever you prepare is all that's forthcoming, they're much more likely to eat. If they choose not to eat much, you can prepare them another meal or a snack in an hour or two. It's OK for them to learn that if they don't eat what you prepare for them, they will be hungry for a bit.

On this subject, don't stop offering a healthy food to a child just because they don't like it. Research has shown that children's tastes for foods change with repeated exposure. I have certainly experienced this working in daycare and early childhood settings. I try to use seasonal vegetables as much as possible, and the first few times a new veggie will often be rejected by some of the children. However, usually by the fifth time a new veggie is served, everyone is eating it (of course, the fact that they know nothing else will be forthcoming if they hold out probably helps). With this in mind, I changed the mealtime vocabulary so that when a child says, “I don't like this,” I gently correct, “You're still learning to like this.”

Tell Stories About Food
I sometimes tell stories about foods I didn't like when I was a youngster, that I have since developed a taste for. But I do this with a light touch, more as a funny or distracting story than as a heavy morality tale. Kids love to hear stories about mom or dad when they were little. An even more successful type of food story I'll tell is when a child tells me, “I don't like carrots,” I'll say, “Really? Do you know the story of carrots?” Then I'll tell them:

“Carrots come from the tiniest of tiny little seeds. The seeds are so small that you can hardly pick one up by itself. So you have to be very careful when you plant them, not to spill too many in one spot! Before you plant them, you prepare the soil, and put the tiny little seeds in the ground, and each day you water them. The sun shines down, and the rain falls, and finally one day, a tiny little sprout peeks its head out of the soil. It's so delicate, if you step on it, or if the soil dries out, it will surely die. But you're careful, and you water it every day, and it starts to grow bigger and bigger. It becomes leafy and green with the most beautiful, lacy leaves. But where is the carrot, you ask? There's nothing orange here, only green leaves! Let me tell you: it is growing underneath the ground, where we can't see it! Bit by bit it grows down, down, getting thicker and longer each day. Until one day we see the top of it poking out of the soil, and we know it's ripe. We get our trowel to loosen the soil, then thwop! Out it comes! Covered with dirt, we put our carrots into a basket and bring them into the kitchen, where we chop off the tops, then we scrub-scrub-scrub all the dirt off them, then chop them up, and cook them, and now here they are, in our bowls!”

This story can be told for any fruit, vegetable, or grain, quite easily, as well as milk and juice. For things I don't personally grow in the garden, like rice, I'll tell about where they grow it, and how the farmer sends it to the store for moms and dads to buy. The story itself is so fascinating, and many children forget that they “don't like” carrots and happily eat them up as they hear the story. Even if they don't, I don't make a big deal out of it. Some day they will eat them; maybe even tomorrow.

Use Humor
For my hardest, hardcore hold-outs, I'll sometimes dangle a special type of reward in front of them. I'll say, “Some day, you will eat your whole bowl with everything in it, and I'll be so surprised, I'll fall right out of my chair!” Then, the first time it happens, I ham it up, falling out of my chair with shock and pride. I have done this successfully for several different children, but I'll only do it for children who are really tough hold-outs (where I really WILL be surprised if they eat it all), and I'll only do it once per child. I don't need mealtimes to turn into circus acts!

Final Thoughts
And, finally, there is the comment that my mother used on us when we were young, which worked quite well. When one of us kids would say, “I don't like this,” she'd calmly reply, “That's OK. You don't have to like everything you eat.” And you know what? Remembering that helped me innumerable times as I traveled around the world in my teens and twenties, and exposed me to many things I otherwise would never have tried.

Using Imagery

Children, even more than adults, think in images. When we speak to children using imagery, it speaks directly to their imaginations. Whether or not we are conscious of this, anyone who has spent time with young children uses imaginative imagery: when we want a child to come to the table, and they're underneath it pretending to be a cat, we will enter into the fantasy easily. “Come to your your chair, little kitty,” we'll call, and pet them when they climb up. As we get practice, we start introducing imaginative imagery of our own to help children move in the direction we want. “The train's leaving. Climb aboard! Chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga. Toot-toooot!” They are happy to go out the door and into the car if it has suddenly transformed into a train. But in addition to imaginative imagery, knowing that children think in images can change the way we talk to them, even in mundane matters. There are three ways that I do this all the time.

Building A New Experience
The first way that I use imagery is in helping children prepare for new or unusual experiences. When I worked at Boulder Waldorf Kindergarten, I used to take a small group of children each week to visit my grandmother at the Waldorf-inspired assisted-living home a few blocks away. I would usually take three 2-year-olds and and a 1-year-old, by myself. As you can imagine, things had to go smoothly! And they did. I prepared the way by talking about what was going to happen. Each day for four or five days before we went for the first time, I talked about it, telling it as if it were a story. “Not today, but someday soon, we'll go on a trip to visit my Grandma Kathy,” I would start, in my storytelling voice. “On that day, we'll be eating lunch just like today. After we finish our lunch, we'll scrape our bowls, and put our napkins away. Then we'll get our jackets on,” (I mime putting mine on) “and we'll put our shoes on, and when we're all ready, we'll go outside and climb into the blue wagon. Then away we'll go, to Grandma Kathy's house!” I'll pause, to let them absorb the image. “On the way there, I'll pull you in the wagon and I'll sing a song, and you will each sit straight and tall, listening to me sing the whole way there. When we get to Grandma Kathy's house, we'll say, 'Hello Grandma Kathy!' And I 'll give her a kiss on the cheek. Then we'll color pictures, and read a book, and when we're done playing, we'll get back in the wagon and come back here, to our very own classroom.”

When the day finally came, we spent the morning baking banana bread to bring to Grandma Kathy's house, and when it was finally lunchtime, the children could hardly contain their excitement. Today was the day! After lunch, each of the children knew exactly what to do. They were living the story! The visit went as smooth as could be, and visiting Grandma Kathy became one of the highlights of each week.

Right Before
The second way I use imagery is to create an image right before something is about to happen. If we're coming inside on a snowy day, I'll pause right outside the door. “When I open the door, we'll both go inside and you'll sit right down on the Changing Chair to take off your boots.” Or, at Grandma Kathy's, “When the wagon stops I'll lift you out one by one, and you'll all stay right next to the wagon so we can walk to the door together.” Using this type of very-specific, realistic imagery can be very reassuring to children, as they know exactly how things are going to be. Sometimes they will still get distracted and forget the image, but many more times than not, they will live into it. It works with children as young as almost-two, and works with my big five-year-olds.

Picturing Change
The third time I will use realistic imagery is when I'm frustrated with a child's behavior, and I will use it to create the possibility of a future where they act differently. I use a light touch light touch with this. After picking up a dropped spoon at the table for the umpteenth time, I'll muse out loud, as if to myself, “Some day I bet you'll keep your spoon in your bowl for the entire meal. Maybe even tomorrow!” And I'll sit back down. You never know. It probably won't be tomorrow, but it MIGHT be. I've set the scene.

New Experiences

Anyone who has spent any time around a toddler knows that young children love repetition. Children love hearing the same stories over and over, love playing the same games with you over and over, love hearing the same songs. The word “again!” is one of the first words a young child learns. With experiences, when things are done the same way each time, the child can relax into the rhythm of it. If each evening you you do things the same way, your child will anticipate each step as it comes. After tooth-brushing is done, she will be heading right to the bookcase to choose a book. After the lights went out, my mother used to light a candle near our bed, sing a lullaby, blow out the candle and sit quietly next to the bed as I drifted off. I can clearly remember this routine being relaxing and reassuring to me.

Why do children love and need routine so much? Here's an analogy that I think is apt: once I was invited by a Muslim friend to go to the mosque with her for the celebration of Eid, the end of Ramadan. I eagerly said yes, curious to see what it would be like. Once we got there, however, I was quite nervous. I wasn't used to wearing the head-scarf she had lent me. I didn't know what was going to happen, and what would be expected of me. Should I stand with them while they prayed, or should I watch? If I watched, where should I sit? There were no chairs. I had heard that in some cultures, showing the soles of your feet was rude. Was this one of them? I didn't know. I followed my friend around closely. She introduced me to the women in her community, some of whom kissed me on the cheeks, and some of whom touched their hearts and murmured phrases that I assumed meant “nice to meet you.” She showed me where I could sit during the prayers, which were all in Arabic and involved lots of movements and everyone did at the same time. I was glad to be watching. After, we socialized and ate strange and delicious foods, then went home. The whole thing lasted perhaps two hours, and I was exhausted.

I loved that glimpse into another culture, but I was glad to get home in the end, where I knew exactly where everything was, how things went, what was likely to happen, and how. Most of my daily interactions are just a small step out from being at home, because I've done them all hundreds of times. Toddlers, however, haven't done anything outside the home hundreds of times. I believe that the whole world outside the home is like that visit to the mosque, for these little people in our lives. They don't know how things go or what's appropriate. They don't have the skills to converse easily with others or do what others are doing. Even though they have someone who knows what's going on to show them around, it's still exhausting, like that visit was for me. If we can remember that, and limit the amount of exposure our children have to new experiences, then new experiences can be exciting, something to be anticipated beforehand, relished at the time, and talked about afterward.