Feeling frustrated because you can’t seem to get your kids to eat healthy (whether that means vegetables, fruit, protein) OR simply to just eat the meal you serve them?
Fortunately, there are effective ways to encourage your child to eat healthy. Yes, they do exist! However, they won’t work overnight. As parents, we’re often in the market for a quick fix — we don’t have much time as it is, and, when it comes to our children, everything feels so pressing. But as with most things in parenting, and in life in general, this is going to take a bit of patience from you.
I speak from experience. My almost-4-year-old is a creature of habit and only likes very specific foods. I catered to him for-ev-er until I decided that, for his long-term benefit and my sanity (being a daily short order cook is no fun), we were going to work on expanding his palette. I love how sophisticated that sounds.
Here are the steps I used to start getting my child to eat a wider variety of healthy, nourishing foods. And to even eat foods that are “mixed together,” like lasagna, a one-time sacrilege in my son’s eyes.
How to Get Your Kids to Eat Healthy
1. You decide what’s for dinner
First rule of mealtime: You decide what’s for dinner.
As parents, our job is to decide what’s for dinner and to make it. It’s not our children’s job. There are exceptions, of course! Like when it’s our child’s birthday and we ask them to pick their favorite meal. Or sometimes, it might work for us (in terms of our schedules, what’s in the fridge, etc.) to give our child options one evening. For example: Would you like a cheese quesadilla or grilled chicken for dinner? I am able to make either tonight.
But at the end of the day, you are in charge of what food is offered, when it’s offered, and where it’s offered.
Second rule of mealtime: Your child decides what and how much to eat.
Our child’s job at mealtimes, on the other hand, is to decide how much they eat of what is offered and whether they eat a particular offering at all.
If you serve your child veggie lasagna but they reject it and ask for chicken nuggets instead, and then you make the chicken nuggets, well then you’ve just conceded your role and put your child in charge of what’s for dinner.
And, ultimately, they’ll never eat the veggie lasagna or whatever it is you’ve offered.
Instead, calmly explain that this is what’s for dinner tonight. They are welcome to eat what and how much they like, but there are no other options. This is what can fill their tummy.
Sure there will be some protesting. Maybe even a full-blow tantrum. But this should come as no surprise. In the past, you’ve always made them food they’ll eat and never served them food they don’t want to eat (or, if you have, you’ve swiftly removed it from their plate… I’m guilty!). So you’re changing what they’ve come to expect, and that’s really hard for children: the misalignment of expectation and reality.
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