Monday, February 22, 2010

To be Picky, or not to be Picky

Since my daughter turned two, she has been experimenting with pickiness. That doesn’t make me too happy considering how much I like to experiment with “weird” food. I’ve discovered several tactics that seem to work.

1. This comes from my experience working with autistic children. You get a preferred food item and for every bite of the non preferred food, they get a small bite of the food they really like. When they start eating the non preferred food pretty well, you increase the number of bites they must take to get the treat. I usually say something like, “If you want this, take a bite of that,” and hold up both food items. I don’t force her to eat the food she thinks she doesn’t likes, but I don’t let her have the treat unless she does.

2. Rename food items. This will probably only work with toddlers, but I’ve discovered that green beans are much more appetizing when they are called “peanuts,” mashed potatoes are “ice cream,” broccoli are “trees,” etc. A rose by any other name apparently tastes sweeter!

3. I’ve also found that if I let my daughter down from the table when she is reluctant to eat something that she will often want to eat it about an hour later. She is much less likely to be picky on an empty stomach.

If you have any other methods to ease kids through the pickiness stage, please let me know!

1 comment:

  1. Hayden is picky in such a strange way! She doesn't like any sauces. So, she doesn't like spaghetti, and she doesn't want dressing on her salad, or sauce on her burger. I finally realized that it was the sauce, not the food she was picky about! So I make her spaghetti noodles with veggies mixed in and no sauce, plain lettuce....etc. I do the same thing with calling broccoli trees, oh and the other night I made tater tots which neither of them will touch potatoes and I called them circlie yummy o's! and they were eaten up! I was beyond frustrated especially since Elliott isn't picky AT ALL he will eat anything I eat no matter how strange or new it may seem, but I just try to be a little more creative with her, and I insist that she must try one bite of whatever is on her plate.

    ReplyDelete