Picky Eaters

I admit it, I always had a little bit of a secret smile when people would talk about their picky eaters.

"Well, if you didn't give them an option, they would eat what is put in front of them," I thought, probably rather smugly.

My three older children were all great eaters, and did exactly that -- tried new foods willingly, ate what was put in front of them, all the things I parent would want. Sure, they preferred some foods to others, but so does everyone. What was important was that I never had to worry about "getting" them to eat something!

Enter the preteen years, and the more time my children spent in other people's homes (including their father), the "pickier" they became. M, especially, started to protest an increasing number of foods.

Then along came the foster children, and my eyes were totally opened! Anything that vaguely resembled a vegetable was suddenly fought tooth and nail. It felt like I was making up for all of those years of toddler power struggles I missed out on, and in hyper drive!

My family has not changed its eating habits -- I serve just as many green things as I ever did -- but we have had to make some adjustments to table behavior as we sort out how to respond to these new challenges.Here are a few tips for dealing with picky eating that I have found helpful:

Amy McCready wrote an article on TODAYMoms which is filled with great tips for dealing with picky eaters in the house. (I am a big fan of Amy McCready and her website, Positive Parenting Solutions. Her online class was really inspirational to me.)

Mayo Clinic has a straight-forward and insightful piece on the topic.

The rule at our house is that you try everything. It is not appropriate to decide you don't like something based on how it looks (and even worse to decide based on what it is called!), so if you sit down at our table, know that at least some of everything is going to make it into your mouth. If there are choices at the table and you don't have to try everything, then the second rule kicks in -- there are vegetables at every meal. Period. So if you hate them, you might want to get them out of the way at the beginning, rather than saving them to the end!