Rewarding and bribing our kids at mealtimes are essentially ways of trying to control their food intake. But implementing respectful mealtimes and pursuing the goal of raising intuitive little eaters is contrary to control.

The thing is, though: We can still be in control at mealtimes without being controlling.

The first step to get there is to accept the premise of divided responsibility at mealtimes: that we parents are responsible for the serving factors, while our kids are responsible for the eating factors.

Next, we need to create the conditions for intrinsic motivation: food courage and food interest coming from within as opposed to being stimulated by external factors (eg. rewards, bribes, punishment). We want our kids to eat a broad variety of food, but we want them to do so willingly, not because we tell them to.

The third thing to keep in mind is to provide a pleasant and safe mealtime environment where we trust and empower our kids to make their own choices. This will...

We can all find so many arguments AGAINST involving kids in cooking:

who has the time to start cooking 2 hours ahead of dinner?
who has patience for it (could they BE any slower at peeling those potatoes?)
who’s supposed to clean up after the mess?
are those hands as clean as they say they are (I doubt it!)
this was MY time to just spend time with ME.

I get it. Because all the above

But: let’s look at the benefits of involving them:

Picky kids become less picky when engaging in cooking
Gives them a sense of independence and confidence
They learn important skills, not only cooking skills, but also basic math concepts and language skills
They learn how to structure a task
Cooking teaches them discipline
They learn where food comes from
It stimulates their creativity
They’re more likely to get a healthy lifestyle
You’ll get quality time together

(I know the last point may be a stretch, if you don’t naturally enjoy it, but engaging in a joint activity...

How you feed your kids seems to be something everybody else has an opinion about. They think you feed them too much, too little, maybe you should be stricter and make them eat what you serve? Or maybe you should be less strict and allow them to have more sweets?

Friends and extended family can sometimes have a hard time not interfering when we feed our kids. The question is: how can we handle it? And should we?

The first thing you want to consider is if it’s worth it. If it’s someone you see only rarely, you might want to let it slide. But if it’s family or friends that you see often and who make comments when your child is there, too, you might want to interfere.

Before you interfere, try to think through what message you want to convey and consider having the conversation when your child is not there.

These are my tips:

Explain your feeding approach and how they can support it specifically (ask them not to comment, bribe, pressure, etc.).
Let them see you...

Splash. There goes the broccoli. On the floor. 

Your toddler looks at you. Monitoring your response. Most of all you want to yell or throw it back on his plate. Or maybe in his face, because this is so frustrating and disrespectful to you. 

I get it. I’ve been there, too. 

But the first thing I want to say about this is that we need to understand what’s behind the behaviour. Most parents automatically think that their little one is deliberately trying to push their buttons. 

But actually, our toddlers are not trying to defy us or to be disrespectful. Instead they’re: 

-       experimenting with gravity and cause and effect

-       trying to get your attention and see what happens to mom’s face when they throw food

-       exerting their newly discovered own will

 This doesn’t mean that you should just let them do it over...

Nature works in amazing ways. Our young children actually know how much to eat (which is more than a lot of adults do, because society has taught us to ignore our inner cues on satiety and hunger). 

Our babies and toddlers are smarter than that: they know what food they need and how much. But our mealtimes get messed up when we parents start to intervene and put pressure on our littles by saying “You need to eat some more”, “You can’t be done already”, or “Finish your plate, then you can have dessert!”. 

Without paying attention to it, our young eaters automatically know how to eat in accordance with their needs.

Intuitive eating is the ability to feel and act on hunger and satiety cues. And usually that’s what we hope our children will learn when they grow older. But the thing is: they know already when they are young. Our job is to trust them with that and reinforce that intuitive knowledge. 

How to do this?

...

If you were about to launch a new product, you would advertise for it, right? You wouldn’t expect people to buy it right away. Your potential customers would have to see your product multiple times to become familiar with it and maybe end up buying it. 

It’s the same thing with children and new, unfamiliar food. They need exposure. They need time. And then they need more exposure. In short: They need to become familiar with the new type of food before accepting or even liking it. 

Two important facts about food exposure:  

-      It takes 15-20 times (or sometimes more) of exposure for our children to become familiar with a new food 

-      Exposure is not only “to taste something”. Seeing others eat it, poking it with your fork, smelling it, touching it – it all counts as exposure.

 So, when you children reject new food at the dinner table, try not to worry too...

When kids says: "I don't like it", we usually try these persuasion attempts: 

"What? But you haven't even tried it?!"

"Come on, at least one bite!"

"Why do you always have to be so picky?"

But how about next time you try "Okay"? Because saying okay deflates the conflict and takes our the pressure.

“Okay” means “I trust that you know your body best”. 

“Okay” means “I’m not going to force you”

“Okay” means “I respect your decision”

 “Okay” takes out the pressure at the dinner table. 

Which often leads to our kids trying the food anyway. 

“Okay” puts authority back where it belongs: with our children. 

Which is the foundation of a healthy relationship with food in the long run.

“Okay” will give our children space to be adventurous, exploring, curious.

Which will create a space where they can listen to their bodies. 

“Okay” is...

What’s for dinner?

I love when we’re having something for dinner that you can actually tell what is and where it comes from.

A while ago we had bought some flounder fillets from the supermarket and I told Nora (who’s 3) that we were having fish for dinner and she looked hesitantly at the white strange-looking substance I was referring to and it was almost like she said “That’s not a fish!”

Sometimes, we forget that when we tell our children “Tonight, we’re having fish!”, their concept of “fish” is NOT what’s on the kitchen counter, because in their world, a fish is a living animal swimming in the ocean or in the pond or a little creature named Nemo who has little fish friends. 

And what’s on that kitchen counter definitely does not match that image. So, sometimes we need to help them make this connection. That goes for almost anything we bring home: think about the chicken we bring home to cook, even...

Ever heard of chicken pork? No? Really?

 Okay, well, technically I’m not sure it exists either, but when one of my daughters proclaimed that she only liked chicken, I felt like my only choice was to pretend that everything was pork. It sort of worked, sometimes at least. But what I realised was that the strategy was not only backfiring (my daughter grew stronger in her belief that she only liked chicken, even though it wasn’t true), I was also manipulating her into eating foods that I wanted her to eat.

What I could have done instead:

• Validate her announcement: “Yes, sweetie, you really love chicken!”
• Expose her to other foods without pressuring her: “This is pork, it tastes a little bit like chicken, and the texture is almost the same. Want to try it? / Want to smell it?”
• Involve her in cooking: “You wanna help mommy cook today? We’re making …” (involving your kids in cooking actually helps them overcome pickiness)....

And you just welcomed your new healthy lifestyle. You have decided to be a different person now, lose weight, exercise 3 times a week, quit the booze, and indulge in veggies. Congratulations!

Chances are that you will succeed. For the next couple of weeks.

But then every-day life catches up and the veggies don’t find their way to your plate as easily. It gets complicated, it takes time, you realize that you weren’t that good at creating amazing, tasty salads after all. Dubious snacks start to sneak in, and you notice that your mind-set has shifted to “I might as well just…”. Welcome to the downfall of your new year’s resolution.

What often happens when we set up our New Year’s resolutions is that we set unrealistic and too restrictive goals that we have no chance of living up to and at the same time demanding of ourselves to make the switch over-night. And when we find ourselves having a hard time achieving those goals, we quickly fall into...