Got picky kids when it comes to food, at least nutritious food? Do your kids try to crawl under the table when they see broccoli on the table?  Do they try to slip the dog their squash only to find the dog won’t eat it either? You’re not alone. It seems to be a fairly common phenomenon among households with kids. And, not just young children either. Older kids can be picky eaters as well.

I have been blessed with having both teenagers and younger kids at the same time. Both sets with different dietary needs and different likes and dislikes when it comes to food. My teenage boys are athletic, physical, growing boys. Even though they both look full grown (at 6 feet tall) they are still growing and their bodies, inside and outside, need the right foods to help them with this.

My two younger children have different needs both physically and emotionally when it comes to food. They are both adopted and we’ve had to learn the challenge of dealing with children who have had to go hungry in their past. Hunger can do many things to you emotionally.  We’ve had to learn to help our children understand they won’t ever go hungry again.

All of my kids are different eaters with different taste. My 16-year-old son has a sweet tooth that never seems to end.  I think sweet teeth would be more like it. It’s a constant struggle to get him to lay off the sweets.  My 19 year old could really care less about the sweets. My 9 and 10-year-old are very food focused and just want to eat.

In the process of raising 6 kids (2 of mine are already grown so they and their taste buds are on their wn) I’ve come up with some things that have helped my family over the years.

1. Respect their appetites – If they really aren’t hungry, don’t try to force them to eat. Don’t bribe them to clean their plates. And please don’t use the starving children speech. Likewise, if your child has a tendency toward overeating, help him or her to understand what it means to be full.  We quite often ask one of our younger boys, “is your tummy comfortable?” That’s when you need to stop.  Don’t make them feel guilty or bad for how little or much they eat.
2. Encourage but don’t force – Encourage kids to try new foods but don’t force it on them. They’ll just hate that zucchini even more.
3. Let them help with the meal planning – That’s easy for me since I own a menu planning service.  After the menus are out for that week I will let the whole family decide what we are eating for the week. It makes a huge difference when they have had a say so on what to eat.  They don’t always agree, but we manage.
4. Let them help with the cooking – I hear moms say that they would love to let their kids help in the kitchen but they don’t want to deal with the extra mess. It’s a great bonding time, a time to teach kids responsibility (you helped make the mess, you help clean) and if they cook it they are much more likely to eat it. Trust me, it works.
5. Have fun with meals – My family LOVES breakfast for dinner.  Pancakes, waffles, omelets, you name it.  Try having special dipping sauces (Ranch dressing works wonders) for veggies at meal times and snack times.  For some reason kids love to dip their food in things.
6. Give them their own cookbook – There are a lot of cookbooks out there that are geared to kids of all ages. My younger boys love to look at the pictures and plan on the things they are going to make. My youngest one now wants his own apron, chef hat and cooking show.  Hmmm….
7. Become friends with the smoothie – Do you know how much you can hide in a simple smoothie?  Lots. And, your little picky eaters will never know the difference.  You can pack a lot of nutrition in a smoothie. So what if it’s consumed through a straw?
8. Set the example – You can’t get your little mini me’s to eat nutritiously when they see you eating McDonalds and Dunking Donuts. Show them how to enjoy clean whole foods.
9. Pizza, Fries, Sodas, Oh My! – Teenagers are notorious for wanting to live off junk.  Mine are no exception. They want their bodies to look good but they want to eat junk. As a parent of teens, it can be a real challenge once they start going off on their own more and more. You aren’t always there to control what they are eating. Plan on having as many sit down meals as possible (sitting down at your own table and not McDonalds) during the week. Your family needs the bonding time as well as the proper nutrition they receive from the home cooked meals.
10. Just one bite rule – Let your kids know that if they will just take one bite, they don’t have to take another if they don’t like it. Chances are they will decide they do like it and if they don’t now, next week they might. My kids’ taste buds seem to change from week to week.

What are some creative ways you’ve gotten a picky eater to eat?  We’d love you to share your suggestions.

At a recent orthodontist visit, my 9 year old daughter was given bite blocks that prevent her from biting her teeth together.  “You’ll need to make sure she doesn’t eat food that requires much chewing,” the orthodontist told me.  My jaw dropped and I watched his expression that I assumed was judgment when I described how limited her diet already is.  As someone who will eat just about anything, I’ve historically had a low tolerance for picky eaters, you know…those adults who ask a million questions in restaurants before ordering, or vegetarians who hate vegetables (I dated one of those once).  Then I became Bakha’s mom and I had to expand my views.

Due to her early institutional diet and years of malnutrition, Bakha has been a picky eater since I adopted her.  Apparently, she wasn’t a picky eater at the orphanage.  Her caregivers told me she’d eat anything.  But the first night I took Bakha out of the orphanage to the hotel, she refused her dinner.  I naively thought she would gobble up food from her culture because it would be familiar.  I quickly realized the food of one’s country is not the same as the food of one’s orphanage.

I spent the next several years expanding Bakha’s repertoire of foods.  I had worked for years as a speech-language pathologist, often working with children with feeding disorders, so I understood the reasons for her food aversions and I knew the methods that should help her increase the foods she’d accept.  Here are some of the tips I incorporated into our mealtimes (for more tips click here, ):

• Try adding a small amount of a new texture to a preferred texture.  If the small amount is accepted, add slightly more each time the preferred food is offered. The same can be done with new flavors.
• Kids are more likely to eat if they see others doing the same. That is especially true when they are fed in the presence of other kids who are eating, and is often how they acquire a liking for a new food.
• Encourage your child to be active before meal time – if possible, time outside in fresh air stimulates appetite.
• If your child tends to fill up on fluids, offer drinks at the middle or end of a meal.
• Lots of praise for trying new foods or finishing a meal can actually backfire. If your child realizes how important his eating is to you, he may use it to gain the upper hand at mealtimes.

It did take longer than I expected, but little by little Bakha added new foods.  After we’d been home a week, I let her drink milk out of a bowl after she’d picked out each piece of cereal.  After that she accepted milk.  At three months home, she watched a little boy repeatedly ask for more pesto at dinner and she was intrigued.  Pesto has been a staple ever since.  At six months home, I put four small bowls of mac and cheese in front of her and let her try different toppings.  Soy sauce won out and it’s still the only way she’ll eat cooked cheese.  At twelve months home, she discovered that everything tastes better with turkey bacon.  She’ll now eat oatmeal if it can have bacon crumbled in it; her pizza consists of crust, pesto, and bacon.  She recently tried an omelet (a bacon omelet, of course).  Yes, some of her food choices are a bit odd, but they are her own choices after years of never having choices about what she could eat, when she could eat, or how much she could eat.  They are powerful choices, and it’s always in the back of my mind that as important as the nutritional content of her food is, her relationship to food is even more important.  It’s one she’ll have for the rest of her life.

So when the orthodontist told me that her slowly expanding diet would have to be limited again, I swallowed hard and waited for his judgment.  His response?  “I completely understand.  My kids are picky eaters, too.  Any suggestions for me?”  Oh boy, I thought, just get me started…

Do you have suggestions that work with your picky eater?

We parents struggle quite a bit with the whole picky eating thing. It seems so universal among our kids, we might begin to wonder if picky eating isn’t somehow normal. Just how normal might surprise you.

Where does picky eating come from?

Imagine for a moment you are a mom in cave man days. All your food is hunted or gathered and there is no guidebook to tell you what plants are safe to eat and the hotline to poison control is ten thousand years in the future. Your toddler is running around, putting random things in his mouth. Some things don’t change with evolution!

As you might expect, the little ones with an aversion to bitter flavors — which often signal toxicity — and a fear of eating new things, or neophobia, might survive a bit better in this environment. Both of these traits are genetic thanks to those early survivors!

Another genetic trait, which dates back to these early days, is the attraction toward tastes that are salty, fatty and sweet. These preferences helped switch on the appetite for foods that our ancestors needed to meet their mineral and calorie needs in the lean diet days of hunter gatherers.

Fast-forward several thousand years. The Western diet, with its many processed options, is overloaded with fatty, salty and sweet foods. But, kids still have these basic genetic traits, some more so than others.

To complicate matters picky eating often peaks right about the same time as that favorite early childhood phrase, “Me do it!” Many times that tableside power struggle is all about control and nothing to do with food.

The truth is picky eating is just another normal phase of development. I know, it’s not much consolation when you are at your wits end and worried about your kid’s nutrition.

What’s a modern parent to do?

First, relax. The good news is that these genetic traits can be overcome in time simply by multiple exposures to healthy foods. And, by multiple, I mean up to 15 attempts sometimes just to get one trial. Or, about the same number of requests to get your child to pick up her toys!

The other good news? How you go about those exposures to healthy foods can make things a lot easier, too. In this week’s series, kindly brought to you by Dr. Greene, I’ll cover the best tips to get your kid eating better — without a struggle, without separate kids’ meals, without the food fight or the forced bites. Really.

Be sure to join this series of posts! What’s your biggest picky eater challenge at home? What concerns do you have with your kids’ eating habits?

As parents there are so many things we want to pass on to our children.  Being a picky eater is definitely NOT one of those things.

So what happens if you want your kids to be healthy eaters and YOU are a picky eater??? It’s not an easy challenge to lead by example when you have a hard time with healthy eating yourself however it’s also not mission impossible! How do I know this is true?  Because I am still on that path myself and working on becoming a more adventurous eater! I think you would be surprised to learn that there are a lot of picky adults out there, so if you are one, don’t worry you’re not alone and there’s hope!! There are things you can do to get your kids on a path of healthy eating while taking that same journey yourself.

Get Rid of Guilt and Keep Trying

It’s so hard to “know” that you need to be setting a good example for your children but at the same time you can barely choke down a Brussels Sprout! The thing about guilt is that it is pointless and just keeps you feeling stuck.  Your kids are not doomed and neither are you…it’s never too late!  Take small steps everyday towards healthy eating, these things add up and turn into a good habit!  It takes time and many exposures for your taste buds to get used to something new.  It took me two years to finally enjoy red peppers!  I started off cutting them up extremely small (about the size of an eraser on a pencil) and would mix them in with food I enjoyed such as pasta sauce and on homemade pizzas.  Pairing new foods with old favorites is a great way to train taste buds!  Eventually the pepper pieces got bigger and bigger and now I wouldn’t think of picking them out of anything I eat!  We can work on our own eating habits at the same time as our children…turn it into a fun adventure together. So don’t waste any time feeling bad and just starting taking those baby steps with your child!

Watch Your Words and Keep Trying

Try to avoid saying strong statements such as ” I HATE broccoli” or “I don’t eat ANYTHING green” when you are eating with your kids because you don’t want to have them attach those feelings to the foods they are suppose to be eating.  The way we talk about food, especially around our kids does affect them, so instead you can try using phrases like “Broccoli isn’t my favorite but I’m going to give it another try” or ” I’m not used to the taste of spinach yet but I’m working on it!” You don’t have to like and pretend you love something when your kids can clearly see you barely choking it down.  When my daughter was younger she would say “My tongue isn’t friends with that yet” so we would keep introducing whatever it was that she didn’t like and most of the time they eventually ended up becoming friends! I think it’s good to let your kids know that everyone has likes and dislikes and that’s okay as long as we can keep an open mind and keep trying!

Get Creative and Keep Trying

Sometimes we get stuck in a food rut and forget that things can be prepared and served in many different ways! Since texture sensitivities can play a big role in picky eating it’s really important to try mixing things up to find what works best for you and for your kids.  You might find that kale is too strong raw but turning it into kale chips and voila you can eat a whole bowl in one sitting!  Personally I don’t enjoy the texture of raw blueberries but I love them when they are frozen. I think a lot of us experienced vegetables as over cooked mushy things that we had to eat as kids and that left a bad taste in our mouths so to speak!  But you can do so many things with vegetables and prepare them is so many different ways that if you are willing to explore you will find a combination that works for you and for your kids.  It might not be the same but that’s okay too.  My husband prefers broccoli raw and I prefer it steamed so when we have broccoli at our house we just leave some uncooked…no big deal!!  Buy some produce and see how many different ways you can prepare it…then set up a taste testing station at the table and give each a try…it will be fun for your kids and a great way to see what everyone prefers!

The best advice I can give is to keep trying new foods! It can take at least 15 exposures before a new food is accepted so if you don’t like something the first time keep trying it at least 14 more times! I believe we can turn any problem into a positive and picky eating is no exception. I can’t think of a better motivator to break out of the picky zone than wanting to set a healthy example for our little ones. Being a picky parent just means we have to work a little harder at it!

Stress, panic and fear…the holidays are here! The next two months are usually the most stressful for parents of children with picky eating habits. Tensions are oftentimes high during this season and dining in the homes of extended family members can make a parent feel like they have to hover over their child’s every move just to keep the holidays… well… happy! Here are four ideas to help you enjoy your festive meal with your family and prevent a mealtime meltdown:

1. Social Story

Kids love a good story, especially when it is about them! So when you’re preparing your child for Thanksgiving dinner, make a social story about how the meal came to be. What family recipes were used? What family traditions were involved? Who is chosen to carve the turkey? What is the story behind the china they are going to eat off of? Take pictures, include their name throughout the story, print it out and read it often. You can even make it funny and talk about a holiday blooper from a previous year!

These types of stories support the social and emotional issues surrounding the food served which may facilitate a new thought process for a picky eater. Sweet potatoes might have been rejected initially, but a story about it being grandma’s secret recipe and mommy’s favorite food when she was a little girl might encourage a bite… or two!

2. Setting the stage

Once you have made your holiday plans start setting the stage for success! If you are going to grandma’s house and there isn’t enough room at the main dinner table for kids, start practicing with your child eating at the “kids table”. At your Aunt Betty’s and she expects all the kids to eat off china plates? Then start practicing by eating off of “special plates”. Will there be eating by candlelight? Practice with that! Recreate the scenario your child will be experiencing in order to make them feel comfortable and willing to eat in a new environment.

3. Sous Chef

We know that children are much more likely to try a food if they have helped prepare it. When they have a vested interest in the meal it can increase their desire to partake in all the food festivities! Going to your in-laws? Ask if you can bring the salad or dessert that you and little Sally made!

4. Statements

It can be stressful when well-meaning family members, who only see your kids once a year, make judgmental comments. “Billy STILL isn’t eating green beans?” “If Johnny came to live with me for a week, I would have him eating.” Statements like these can be hurtful to you and may negatively impact your child. Come prepared with a response to these types of statements.  Make sure the responses are delivered in a calm, educating voice.

“I am glad that you are bringing this up. Billy was very nervous about coming today. So can you help him by not mentioning his pickiness and honoring his efforts to at least try?”

Or:

“Actually, Johnny has a feeding disorder and we are working hard in therapy to encourage him to try new foods. We would love your support this weekend in making him feel relaxed about eating.”

Planning ahead can allow you to feel more confident and help keep you in the mindset of nourishing your child’s emotional needs as well as their nutritional needs during holiday meals.  What are some ideas you use to prepare your child for holiday meals? How have you handled negative comments about your child’s picky eating?

Happy Feeding!

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Fluorescent orange mac n cheese noodles: Replace the bright orange brand with the white cheddar brand (it really does help reduce your child’s unnecessary exposure to synthetic chemicals).

Or if your kids are like mine and freak out, then stick with the bright orange, only don’t use the ENTIRE packet of bright orange powder the next time you mix the box up – use 90% of the pack of fluorescent orange powder mix, then slowly cut back to 70% of the pack, then 50% of the pack?..until they are less dependent on seeing that bright orange bowl of noodles!

2) Less is more

Look for the following on food labels:

• Ingredient lists with FEWER ingredients
• Ingredients with SHORTER names
• Ingredients that you can PRONOUNCE
• Ingredients that your GRANDMOTHER cooked with

3) Organic Options

Oh, how we wish that organic food was easily affordable! Because by law, organic food is not allowed to contain these synthetic chemicals, genetically engineered proteins and chemicals and all of the other harmful substances we’ve been discussing in our posts this week!

Unfortunately, it is these safety laws that make organic food more expensive, since organic farmers must adhere to strict standards and testing when it comes to ensuring the safety of their products.

So if you can’t afford an entirely organic shopping cart, then choose ONE THING in your kitchen to convert to organic, consider choosing something that your children consume a lot of (in our case it was milk, in yours, it might be bagels). Just making that one change will help reduce a huge heaping serving of chemicals in your kids diets!

As we converted our family over to a more organic diet, our pediatric bills actually dropped…..a lot! So the money we saved at the doctor’s office helped pay for that extra nutritious food!

NOTE: given that different children have different allergies and sensitivities, make sure to read ALL labels before feeding your children, especially as manufacturers often change their ingredients unannounced.

Start with Baby Steps

The important thing is to remember not to make the perfect the enemy of the good and that ANY start is a good start!

And Remember….

This is a slow and steady process. It will not happen overnight (even though you may want it to!), so you may want to consider approaching it the same way you approached potty training or weaning your child from the sippy cup…a slow and steady process!

Additional Resources

Learn more about the importance of reducing your child’s exposure to environmental toxins at www.drgreene.com, , Healthy Child Healthy World and the Environmental Working Group
Learn about Additives and Nutrition Action at the Center for Science in the Public Interest
Additive Free and Preservative Free Food at Feingold Association
Additional Books, Films and Resources at AllergyKids.com

Feeding a picky eater can be one of the most stressful things a parent has to do. It’s frustrating, worrisome, stressful, annoying, disappointing and downright exasperating at times. It can be really easy to just throw your hands in the air and give up trying to get your picky eater to eat new or healthy foods. After serving something three or four times and having your child refuse to even give it one nibble it might feel like you’ve given it your best shot and it’s time to move on.

But did you know that it can take at least 10 exposures to a new food before it is accepted? That number grows for very picky eaters so the message I want to share with you is not to give up too soon! It’s also important to note that I said exposures, which doesn’t necessarily mean bites of food are even eaten. An exposure might be touching the food, smelling it, licking it. Interacting with new or non preferred foods is building helpful steps towards eating them. Slow and steady is the key when you are training taste buds. I speak from experience; it took me two years to learn to like peppers.

Getting back to the 10 exposures, it is very easy for the 6th or 7th time to feel like a million when you are trying to get your child to try a new food, so it’s really important that you actually keep track of how many times you have offered a new food. Relying on your memory isn’t usually effective for us busy parents! That is why we created a free Today I Tried chart to provide you with a visual tool when it comes to helping your picky eater expand their food choices.

This chart is really easy to use, just choose the new foods you’d like your child to keep trying and write them on the left hand side. Each time your child tries that food they can write a check mark or draw a happy face in that box. If at the end of 10 exposures your child is still not able to eat the new food, take it off the menu temporarily and try something else for a while. Don’t make a big deal about it simply say that you will try again when they are a bit older. This way you can feel good knowing that you and your child both tried your best and that it’s okay to move on.

Keep in mind when you are working on a certain food to serve it in different ways because sometimes changing the texture can make a big difference for picky eaters. Take carrots for example, you can serve them grated thinly in a salad, as a soup, roasted, steamed or even in a fresh juice!

Be sure to celebrate your child’s willingness to keep trying – even if it’s just giving a cucumber a kiss! All those baby steps lead to big changes one day as long as you keep trying!

What is your best tip for feeding a picky eater?

“Ugh! I never thought I would have a picky eater. Day after day, meal after meal, so many opportunities to totally FAIL as a parent!” Parenting a picky eater can be frustrating and stressful, causing any parent to succumb to the chicken nugget and french fry rut with these words: “At least I know he’ll eat it and there’s some comfort in that.” But once a family has fallen into that rut, that hole, that cavern…that deep, dark pit…well, you get the idea. It’s hard to climb out.

This week’s blog series focuses on the topic of picky eating in children. I will share strategies to help your kids become more adventurous eaters at breakfast, lunch, dinner and even in the school cafeteria. Whether you just want to know how to keep your little gourmet on the right path to adventurous, healthy eating or you are trying to find your way back to eating a veggie or two, this week’s ideas are for you.

Let’s start with 2 strategies you can begin using right away:

1. Nix the Label: Picky Eater. Although my career is focused on solving picky eating, I want you to know I never use that term in front of a child. Kids will always live up to the labels we assign to them, so best not to give them the picky eater brand. Instead, find what your child CAN do. If the best he can do is carefully spoon a Brussel sprout and put it on his plate, then declare him “The best Brussel sprout balancer in the west!” Start there. Learning to be an adventurous eater is a step by step process. The first step to learning any new skill is celebrating the smallest accomplishment and then, build from that. Tasting a Brussel sprout may still be weeks away, but today, he’s feeling darn good about his interaction with that veggie.

 

2. Sit! The first thing I do when I visit a home is make sure your child is positioned correctly in their high chair, booster or appropriate seating at the table. Nine times out of ten, kids are positioned incorrectly. One mother told me just last week: “I had no idea what a difference buying the correct booster seat would make for my daughter”. Once a child can sit up on their own, make sure their hips are at a 90 degree angle and they have a foot rest for stability. Toddlers and younger kids need additional stability around their hips to keep their trunk still while they practice learning to eat finger foods, use utensils and even learn to chew more advance foods. A rolled up towel behind their back to provide lumbar support and stabilize the sides of the pelvis is an easy solution.

Do you have a picky eater? How much stress does it create for you? A little? A lot? Tell us about it – we appreciate your input!

Tomorrow’s post: Strategies for kids who don’t like to eat breakfast. The stress of having a picky eater begins early for many families. As one father told me, “Every morning I wake and mutter to myself, ‘Let the Hunger Games begin.’”

Trying to feed a picky eater is not a very fun task…I know because I do it every day…with myself! When I was little I’d go so far as to pick the grated carrots out of carrot cake…my poor mom had it rough! It’s challenging to be a picky eater and a parent who knows the importance of setting a good example when it comes to healthy eating. If you aren’t a picky eater it must be hard to understand why someone can be so difficult to feed! Let me give you some insider tips to keep in mind:

1. Texture Texture Texture: Did I mention texture?! This is a big one…try serving your picky eater fruits and veggies in different forms and textures. For example I don’t like cooked peas…but I love them raw! Texture can be one of the biggest issues for a picky eater; finding out what textures they like will be very useful information for you! Maybe they like crunchy or perhaps bumpy textures like broccoli. Every picky eater is different! So if your child turns their nose up at steamed carrots try raw slices instead or maybe grated carrots! Adding a little dip might help too!

2. Serve a New Food with a Favorite: This makes a picky eater feel comfortable knowing there is something they like on their plate. I do this with food that isn’t my favorite but I know is good for me; I can handle eating steamed cauliflower if I can mix it with rice!

3. Serve Small Portions: Trying a new food can be far less intimidating when it’s just a small bite or two. If they like the food they can always go back for more…if they don’t like it (after trying at least one bite) then at least they can feel proud to have eaten most of their portion of the new food! The goal is to create successes for your picky eater. Getting them to try one bite is worth celebrating!

4. Make it fun: Kids want to have fun its part of what makes them such great people to be around! So when you want to get your kids on board for something try making a game out of it! Look at your kitchen through the eyes of your little one and suddenly the salad spinner becomes a merry-go-round for lettuce and the sink turns into a carwash for vegetable shaped vehicles! Use mini cookie cutters to cut out fun shapes in fruits and vegetables. Keeping things light and fun will help your picky eater be more open to trying new things!

Leave a comment on the creative ways you feed your picky eater!

As a feeding therapist, I work closely with the parents of picky eaters.  Parents are often stressed and have tried everything in their power to get their kids to eat nutritious foods.  When I ask a mom or a dad what they ultimately want out of therapy, they typically respond “I just want to enjoy family dinner.”

Learning to be an adventurous eater takes time.  Here are a six strategies for keeping mealtimes joyful while learning to try new foods:

1. Farmer’s Markets, Gardening & the Produce Isle:  Before new foods ever show up on their plates, create family memories by gardening or shopping together at Farmer’s Markets and the produce isle.  Get the kids involved preparing new veggies in the kitchen by washing each one in a carrot, parsnip and rutabaga car wash under the kitchen faucet.  Older kids can chop, younger kids can count the pieces as they fall into the serving bowl. 
2. Start the Meal with a Song.  Preschools do this all the time when transitioning to a new activity, such a snack or circle time.  Try playing “On Top of Spaghetti” as you sit down at the table for Pasta Night.  Set the tone for the rest of the meal with music.
3. Dish Up Family Style: For most families, family style serving encourages your child to interact with new foods, such a peas, by dishing up his plate.  Better yet, make him in charge of dishing up everyone’s plates.  It’s simple, the more exposure he has to peas, the more he gets used to the presence of peas on his plate.  That’s the first step to eventually tasting peas.
4. Don’t focus on the bite.  All the bribing and pleading just to get kids to take one bite just adds stress to family mealtimes.  If your child continues to have trouble trying new foods, consult a professional feeding therapist, typically a certified speech language pathologist or occupational therapist who has experience with picky eaters.
5. Get Messy.  Kids need to explore foods through all of their senses and our hands have millions of nerve endings that enable even the youngest eaters to learn about all aspects of food before it reaches the mouth.  If you child can’t tolerate the texture of Grandma’s mashed potatoes (as delicious as they may be) then help him create mashed potato pictures, finger paint with colored mashed potatoes and build mashed potato mountains.
6. Keep it joyful!  Family mealtimes are about FAMILY.  Studies from Columbia University found that kids who have regular family meals grow to make better decisions regarding drugs, drinking and peer relationships.  It’s an important time for them and for you.  Focus on the family – and try some of the tips above to eventually celebrate that first bite of broccoli!

Learning to be an adventurous eater is a step by step process…enjoy the journey!