Guest blog from Naomi Richards. Naomi is a life coach for children supporting them with a myriad of issues in their lives. She blogs at http://www.thekidscoach.org.uk
Fussy eaters
Children are fussy. They are fussy about what they wear, what they want to do and when and fussy about what they eat. They do this to demonstrate their control and/or to seek attention. A child is more likely to get the attention off their parent if what they eat is very limited. Parents, knowing that they are not getting a balanced diet, feel stressed. They also worry that meal times will always be the same and that eating out will never be an option.
Here are 10 ways to handle your ‘fussy eater’:
- Don’t make a big deal if they refuse their food. Just take the meal away and make no comment.
- Don’t force your child to eat foods they don’t like and don’t provide an alternative meal for your child.
- Disguise the foods they don’t like in food they do. They will never know there are vegetables on the pasta sauce if you blend them.
- Go food shopping with them and let them choose some foods they are willing to try.
- Get them to help prepare the meal they are going to eat.
- Make sure they are hungry when they sit down to eat otherwise they won’t eat anything, never mind anything they would not normally eat.
- Give them a taste challenge. With their agreement, blindfold your child and then put a tiny bit of food on a fork and then put it into the child’s mouth. They taste it and try and guess what it is. It’s a great ways to introduce new foods.
- Remove distractions – TV, computer games, etc.
- Try and eat around the dinner table. It will help children to take meal times more seriously and help with their social skills as well.
- Don’t call them a fussy eater – it will make them feel they should live up to that ‘label’ .
Good luck.
Thank you Naomi ‘food for thought!’
Thanks for the tips. I have a very fussy eater on my hands. Drives me insane but we are slowly getting there.
I find that the most stressful thing is not so much that he won’t eat the food, I can cope with that, it is that he won’t even try it. Not even a tiny mouthful. So I can’t even say that he doesn’t like it, because he won’t try it.
This is all so true and really does make a difference. My daughter turns 2 next month and has only started to eat proper solid food in the last 2 months. Previous to this she only ate purees. We were regularly seeing a Speech Therapist who gave very similar advice which I followed to a “T” and I have to say it worked. Its really hard not to get worked up when they don’t eat, I would know Little Bean has gone up to 2 days before without eating a thing and I got panicky, but somehow I managed not to show it (just had to go out of the room and scream/cry silently!). But by the third day she was hungry and willing to try pretty much anything.
Author
Wow you showed some storng resolve. My mum always asaid to me a big dose of fresh air…no foo for a few hours, most kids will eat!