Help for Picky Eaters
One of our KIWI staff members asked me today if I had any advice for how to get a picky toddler to eat. Sound familiar? It did to me, I’ve had 8 years with a picky eater!
Susan Lamontagne, the founder of Eat Smart, Grow Strong, a campaign to encourage children and parents to eat better, recommends sprinkling mealtime with a little creativity. “After being a terrific eater for his first couple of years, my son suddenly went cold turkey. Dinnertime became miserable. My husband and I consulted childcare books, feeding experts and our son’s pediatrician. The advice was always the same: ‘Ignore it’; ‘It’s just a phase’ and ‘Don’t let it become a battle.’ Do these people actually have children?”
In a desperate effort to heed their advice, Susan and her husband unwittingly invented a game that their son couldn’t resist and—surprise—got him eating again. Their scheme? “We told him that we had invited dinosaurs to dinner. He smiled and ran to the table”.
They began by talking about all the different types of dinosaurs and their foods of choice. “We imagined and physically reenacted how they ate. For the leaf-eating Apatosaurus, with his long neck, we held our food up high and raised our mouths. The Apatosaurus loved his greens, so we dropped our heads and chewed as if we were grazing on grass. And what about the infamous Tyrannosaurus rex? When my son asked why the T. rex was always grumpy, I replied, ‘Because he didn’t eat his greens.’”
So, try thinking out of the box when it comes to our kids. Making mealtime fun sounds like it could be the answer! —Maxine W.
