Good Parenting: Pleasing a Picky Eater
Posted on Thu, Feb 03, 2011
As the mother of a 5 year old and a 16 month old, I often find myself spending a lot of time thinking about meals and preparing them. My 5 year old daughter has been a picky eater since she was a baby. She would often spit food out or just flat out refuse to eat it. To this day I still consider her a picky eater, although her desire to try new foods has increased.
I decided it was necessary to get creative in order for her to expand her "horizons" when it came to food. I have made eating and choosing food a somewhat fun and creative process. For example, I decided to make "fruit shish kebabs" with her ( since skewers are sharp this is obviously a supervised activity). We would each take a wooden skewer and several different types of fruit (cut up) and put it on the skewer. We tried to use lots of colors from the rainbow. Strawberries, blueberries, honeydew and even kiwi were some of the fruits we used. A year ago she would not touch a piece of kiwi and now she loves it.
Like most kids she likes candy and would eat it all day long if I let her. She loves candy necklaces. While we let her eat them once in a blue moon, we thought there has to be an alternative. One morning I was making myself a bowl of cheerios and I thought this may be something we could use. All you need is some string and a couple of handfuls of cheerios and you are good to go. This may seem basic and somewhat common but you can incorporate some academic lessons in this activity as well. For example, estimating how many cheerios to use and measuring the string with a ruler are just a couple of things we did to reinforce some basic math skills. We actually had a discussion about cereal and all the different kinds. From this discussion I got her to try some new healthy cereals.
Last but not least we decided to get creative with beverages. I have always been a stickler when it comes to allowing my kids to drink juice and soda. Juice is ok at parties and once in a while at school but we never make it a regular part of our diet because of the sugar content. We purchase a lot of seltzer (some flavored and some plain) and I came across vanilla flavored seltzer at stop and shop. I tried it once and I was hooked. It has zero calories and zero sugar. One day I decided to have a glass of vanilla seltzer and add a splash of orange juice to it. I used approximately 2 oz of orange juice and 4 oz of seltzer and it was delicious! I let my daughter try some and she loved it. We decided to name the drink "creamsicle" for obvious reasons. We tried the same thing with cranberry juice and seltzer and called it a "spritzer". These drinks have been a big hit in our house. You have tons of flavor without all sugar.
I have definitely noticed my daughter eating more and less reluctant to try new things. Getting creative was fun and allowed for more opportunities for eating healthy foods.
Happy Eating!
--posted by Hearts & Minds Music mom, Debbie Geller