In our house now we have two toddlers - a 4 year old and a 2 year old. Let me tell ya meal time is NEVER dull. We have all the singing, emotions, story telling, throwing of food at times and even refusing certain food items. The whole gambit can happen at our dinner table.
I wanted to bring up this topic again regarding family meal times, because we all have spent more time at home and are eating together more often as a family. I did another post back in November about family meal times and why they are important - CLICK HERE. For children, sitting down to eat together a great opportunity to learn and get to connect. We always have dinner together and talk about our day. Both of my children eat fairly well, but they also decide at times that certain foods aren’t their favorite.
I love this terminology “that food isn’t my favorite, right now.” This is a great way to phrase something if your child doesn’t want to eat something. As the parent your role, is to prepare the food and put the meal in front of the child. The child’s role is to decide how much they are going to eat. There is nothing worse, as the parent, than slaving away to cook a delish meal and have your child refuse to try it. This can often lead to an escalated and heated situation where everyone gets upset.
So how can you avoid that from happening? Or if it does happen how to do you deal with this situation?
Start by making sure you (as the parent) don’t over react. Keep your cool and ask why your child doesn’t want to try their food? Is it too hot? Too cold? Have they touched it? What does it feel like? Do they need help with their utensil? Try to assist them in getting ready to eat that food item.
If they are still refusing then ask them to take a bite. You can take a bite of their food and show them that it is good (and describe the taste, smell and texture). Then offer them the utensil and let them try. Explain that we need to try the food that is offered to us to see if we like it. It might not be our favorite food right now and that is ok. Sometimes we all have to eat some foods that aren’t our favorite right now. Even though it isn’t your favorite today, you could still learn to like it more in the future. That is why we always try a bite, to see if we like it today.
Having a conversation with your child, helps to reassure them that you are listening to them and hear the fact that they don’t love this food item. That is ok for them to not love something. That reassurance helps to build trust between you and your child.
I promise that if you let your child express to you why they don’t love certain food items right now that will help empower them to try new things, but also be ok with giving their opinion. We always have a bite of the food and then determine how we feel about that food item. One of the RDs I follow on Instagram, calls these “no thank you bites.” She instructs families, to have your child take a bite and then if they don’t want more they can say “no thank you.” I love that approach as well.
Know as a parent, that if you child has tried a bite of the main dish at dinner, told you that isn’t his favorite and doesn’t want any more of that food, that is ok! There will be another meal time and they will have a chance to eat food again. They are the ones that can decide how much they eat! Work to try avoid using the terminology “you don’t like that” or “you are being picky",” because your child will start to believe those things. Our goal should be to encourage and empower your child to decide how much they want to eat. Keep offering those foods that “aren’t their favorite” to them and pair with some preferred foods. You are doing an amazing job as a parent. It can be hard at times, but hopefully these tips are helpful and encouraging for you to keep offering those challenging foods.
