How To Encourage A Picky Eater To Try More

Trying to get a picky eater to taste new foods can turn dinnertime into a battleground. Eating dinner as a family is one way to encourage your child to eat. One of the best ways to encourage a child to eat is to set a regular family mealtime. Children learn so much through imitation and role modeling, which can be used to your advantage as a parent, particularly if you have a picky eater.

Olivia is very much a picky eater but has slowly been getting better and better. I’ve heard how school can influence your child’s eating habits so I am hoping it does, for the better.

Eating healthy

All parents want to see their children eating healthy foods, but sometimes trying to coax a toddler to put a piece of carrot in her mouth (and keep it there) is a bit of a trial. Eating dinner as a family can help persuade a picky eater to try new, nutritious foods, as they are more likely to give the foods a go if they see you eating them too. It is so important to help children develop healthy eating habits.

Sharing a family meal is also economical both for the family budget as well as time. Rather than preparing a separate meal for the children (which often contains greater amounts of packaged, convenient finger foods) only one, healthy meal needs to be organized. In a busy household, slow cookers are great for ensuring a hot, home-cooked meal is ready at the end of they day. Alternatively, cook extra each time you are in the kitchen and freeze a family-sized portion for those days when the thought of standing over the stove is just too daunting.

Improved manners and eating skills

Eating dinner as a family also helps children develop good table manners and allows them greater opportunity to work out how to use utensils properly. Be careful not to put too many overt demands or restrictions on dinner time, as this may make fussiness worse. 

Instead, allow your child to calmly observe you. Through role modeling, you can show your children how to behave at the table, such as not talking with your mouth full, keeping elbows off the table, taking small bites, or whatever your family’s particular rules are. With a bit of time and gentle persuasion, they will gradually follow suit.

Allow your picky eaters to use their hands to eat if they want to. Eating is a very tactile experience for toddlers and feeling the food is often part of the fun. While hands and fingers may be the chosen eating utensils for some time, they will gradually master the skill of handling a spoon or fork through watching you. It may be even messier to start with, but have patience, it will get better!

Family communication and bonding

Taking time to sit together as a family, without the interruptions of the television or telephones, is a great way to increase family communication and bonding. Time spent together at the dinner table is the perfect opportunity to talk about interesting things that happened during the day, upcoming events or making plans together for the weekend. 

Casual chatting also takes some of the pressure and emphasis off the actual food. This may be of benefit to your picky eaters, as they may not feel as threatened or stressed about what is on the plate and may be more willing to try some new foods.

Even if you can’t eat dinner as a family every night, take the opportunity to have a meal together whenever possible. Even if it is just lunch on the weekend or a quick breakfast before school, the benefits will be well worth the effort.