How to get picky kids to eat healthy WITH you (for my peace

CassPerkins

I have a six year old son and he is pretty active. He does karate three days a week and although he half-*kitten* it now, he still does it. He also plays outside with his friend down the road. I just can't get him to eat healthy foods with me. He will eat carrots and cucumbers, but the rest is semi healthy stuff. I say this because it is loaded with sugars or carbs. He is really skinny, which isn't a concern, and I know he will eventually grow to eat more foods, but I just want to get him to occasionally eat more nutritious stuff WITH me. He use to love chocolate milk, eggs, oatmeal, apples and other things, but now he pushes them all away.

Picky children ::sigh:: It doesn't help that his stepmother and my parents give him stuff I'd prefer him NOT to eat.

Any tips on how to "trick" him to eat healthier even when he thinks he isn't? Or any idea on how to get him to eat stuff that we both know is good for him? I know there is hope because I was just as picky, but he needs nutrients now and not six years from now.

gingerb85

I never tried to trick my kids into eating anything. I never made different meals for the kids and didn't do the "short order cook" thing. They were required to take at least a "no thank you" bite of everything on the table. If they didn't eat, they had to wait until the next meal - no snacks. Even still, we didn't keep unhealthy snacks in the house. We had fresh and frozen fruit, yogurt, things like that. We rarely ever had desserts after dinner. It helps sometimes if you involve your child in the food prep process. They are more likely to eat it if they helped make it.

The stepmother/grandparents thing is hard. My in-laws live next to us and always have. My MIL has huge jars of all sorts of candy, a freezer full of ice cream, cookies, lots of "junk." My MIL (whom a love, but she does drive me batty sometimes) would say at family dinners when the kids would pick up an apple to eat, "Don't eat that - you'll ruin your dinner!" which was usually something like fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, or otherwise filled with refined carbs, fat, and salt. For the most part, I let them eat whatever at their grandmother's house (although did try to limit the candy/ice cream/cookies via talking with MIL) but they knew the rules were different at our house.

EJsMummy26

I never tried to trick my kids into eating anything. I never made different meals for the kids and didn't do the "short order cook" thing. They were required to take at least a "no thank you" bite of everything on the table. If they didn't eat, they had to wait until the next meal - no snacks. Even still, we didn't keep unhealthy snacks in the house. We had fresh and frozen fruit, yogurt, things like that. We rarely ever had desserts after dinner. It helps sometimes if you involve your child in the food prep process. They are more likely to eat it if they helped make it.

The stepmother/grandparents thing is hard. My in-laws live next to us and always have. My MIL has huge jars of all sorts of candy, a freezer full of ice cream, cookies, lots of "junk." My MIL (whom a love, but she does drive me batty sometimes) would say at family dinners when the kids would pick up an apple to eat, "Don't eat that - you'll ruin your dinner!" which was usually something like fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, or otherwise filled with refined carbs, fat, and salt. For the most part, I let them eat whatever at their grandmother's house (although did try to limit the candy/ice cream/cookies via talking with MIL) but they knew the rules were different at our house.

I love the "no thank you" bite. I was picky growing up, and I've come to like things I didn't like before. Broccoli, Onions, beans (recently), cooked peppers, shrimp, crab. We don't keep anything "white" in our house whole wheat is what we eat! Hoping to pass this along to our little guy.

Our little guy (18 mo) will only eat fruit, and until lsat week we added peas. He ate tons of veggies as a baby. My MIL & FIL watch our son while my husband I both work full-time. We talked with them about offering him vegetables at lunch, just a few and if he didn't eat them fine; but he can't try anything if it isn't offered. So within in a week he went from from eating NOT A SINGLE PEA to eating a bowl full. Hopefully one new thing a week and I'll have a healthier eating child. Right now he'll eat plain pasta, mac & cheese, yogurt, cheese, not a fan of meat I've tried it all. Once he gets older I'm going to steal the "no thank you" bite.

Hang in there.