Planning meals and cooking is time-consuming as is, but it becomes even harder when you have picky kids in the house. These picky eaters can be fussy about food because they’re naturally sensitive to particular tastes, textures, or smells. They may also learn this behavior from the adults around them. These tips will help you maintain healthy eating for picky kids.
Punishing your little ones for their eating habits will be counterproductive, regardless of how they adopt selective eating. Instead, chew on these tips to practice healthy eating with your kids.
1. Create a Routine
Like adults, children need somewhat rigid schedules to go about their day smoothly. Disrupting their daily routines will affect their sense of normalcy and cause them to be less cooperative at the dining table.
As a parent, keep breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack times regular so your kids will eat like clockwork. If you stick to your schedule, your youngsters are more likely to stay full until the next mealtime. They may get hungry early, but giving them food between meals will only encourage their picky-eating tendencies.
If they refuse to eat when they’re supposed to, let them be and save their food for later. After all, they’re more likely to touch it when famished.
2. Plan Meals With Variety
Serving different kinds of food will make mealtimes more exciting for your kids. It’s an opportunity to diversify what they consume and help them get the nourishment they need. Plus, it will expose them to new cuisines, inspiring them to try unfamiliar delicacies at a young age and allowing you to see which ones they like.
When planning your meals for the week, give your children the freedom to choose what they get. Although you’ll still control the situation by setting and limiting their options, letting them pick what to eat can help discourage their pickiness.
3. Give Them Meal Prep Duties
Actively participating in food preparation may entice your young ones to finish their meals. This activity helps them feel independent and emotionally invested in what they eat.
Create the illusion of choice by deciding on the safe, manageable tasks to delegate and asking them what they want to handle. Take this opportunity to know what they think about what you’re preparing and hear their opinions.
4. Check the Calories
Heavier drinks will spoil your kids’ appetites. Milk and juice can have enough calories to energize your children during the next scheduled meal and ruin their routines. Trying to feed them when they’re stuffed is a losing battle.
If you want your little ones full between meals, be mindful of the snacks you give them. They can still have milk and juice, but limit what you give them in a day so they’ll get hungry just in time.
5. Be a Picky Server
Prepare nutritious foods for your kids as much as possible. They’re already selective about what they want on their plates, so make every opportunity count. To keep them healthy, serve them high-fat and nutrient-packed foods like avocado, nuts, chia seeds, and eggs. Avoid options with empty calories such as soda, pizza, and sugary beverages.
Extra virgin olive oil is oozing with fatty acids and antioxidants; find a way to incorporate it in your recipes. If you want to give your children a dessert, go with dark chocolate and yogurt with berries because these superfoods masquerade as kid-favorite goodies.
6. Put a Premium on Flavor
Kids will eat almost anything as long as it tastes good. Use quality ingredients to make your youngsters fall in love with your cooking even more. Fresh meats, fruits, veggies, seasonings and spices will make the simplest meals more delicious because they lack preservatives or additives that can diminish their natural flavors.
7. Keep Portions Small
It’s easier to convince your children to eat and finish food in small quantities rather than in large amounts. Filling their plates with small portions of everything they need will make the items they hate more palatable. Use this psychological technique to trick them into eating their way to good health.
8. Be Creative With Fruits and Greens
Sometimes, it all boils down to presentation. If your little ones notoriously leave specific foods untouched, use art to capture their imagination. Form a “broccoli” smile, carve faces in apples and serve star-shaped watermelons.
Likewise, hide veggies in their favorite treats. Eggplant meatballs, zucchini pancakes, kale- and tomato-topped grits and carrot rice are yummy ideas to try!
9. Prepare Appetizing Drinks
Drinking takes less effort than biting and chewing. If your children resist certain solids, turn them into liquid. Blend their most-detested fruits and vegetables to make irresistible smoothies and shakes.
10. Set the Right Meal Environment
Picky eaters can be moody eaters, too. Make your dining area as conducive to undistracted eating as possible so they can be in the right frame of mind every mealtime. To pull this off, keep your electronics away and turn off your TV and make your space inviting when feeding your young ones.
Furthermore, have conversations with your kids while eating. It’s the kind of distraction you want to take their minds off the foods they dislike and divert their attention to cleaning their plates.
11. Make Mealtimes Playtime
Toddlers love to play with food. If you let your kids enjoy a sensory meal, they may finish off what you give them down to the last morsel after squishing and pushing it around. The best part is you can sit back and watch them since they can eat at their own pace.
12. Be Cool With Their Quirks
Do you also have kids who eat sandwiches only when they’re crustless and in triangles? Is one of your children into nibbling at bananas horizontally? Does peanut butter on scrambled eggs make sense in their mouths?
You should respect their odd eating behaviors as much as possible no matter how you feel about them. Indulge your choosy child’s request for a separate plate for each food if it means everything will end up in their tummies.
Win the Battle Over Food With Strategy
Young picky eaters ultimately decide what they want to put in their mouths. As a parent, you can influence them without being too pushy. Work with their eating habits without stress or pressure using the above tips. If you succeed, everybody wins!
Author bio:
Cora Gold is a healthy living and family blogger and the editor of women’s lifestyle magazine, Revivalist. Connect with Cora on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest.