Want to know the trick to get your kids to eat veggies, meat, fruit? Feed them veggies, meat, and fruit! Ok, ok, I hear you. You've tried that. You have served broccoli raw, steamed, roasted, dipped in chocolate and nothing works. Your child just doesn't like broccoli and refuses to eat it. So what now? Serve them broccoli and insist that they eat it. Not just using a stern voice or threatening to take away something if they don't eat it. Serve them broccoli and nothing else until they eat it. My now eight-year-old daughter once went 3 meals being served the same wrap over and over again. We served turkey wraps with cheese and veggies one day for lunch and she just didn't want to eat it. She loves turkey, cheese and veggies so it took us a while to figure out what the problem was. Finally, we realized that she wasn't a fan of the spinach wrap that it was served in. Now, I had a couple of choices. I could have opened the wrap up and told her to just eat the insides of the wrap. I've done this before when something was served on a white bread sub and I wasn't willing to fight a battle to get her to eat something that I didn't even believe was that healthy. My husband and I came to that conclusion when our oldest decided she didn't like mayo. We aren't going to force our kids to eat something they don't like if it isn't healthy to begin with. Now back to the wrap. After some time of insisting that she eat her wrap or she would be quite hungry, we put the wrap in the refrigerator and sent her upstairs for her nap.
She will not wilt away to nothing over the course of a two hour nap...trust me! Well, she woke up from her nap and was pretty hungry. Great, here is your wrap. Tears, yelling, and pouting commenced. That's fine, you don't have to eat it now, but know that it will be your dinner. And it was served for dinner. While the rest of us sat down to eat, whatever dinner we had that night, she was served her same turkey wrap. She struggled through a few bites and ended up going to bed with a pretty empty tummy.
Now, I'm sure some of you are having a hard time with this. Plenty of people do. However, I can reassure you that she is a healthy, thriving kid who has not had any health related issues as a result of this event.
Back to the wrap...
A few more bites were had for breakfast the next morning, but not much real progress. This was a real disappointment because we were heading to a family birthday party where, those of us who ate our food, were going to enjoy pizza, cake, and ice cream! We packed up the wrap in a sandwich bag and plated it up when pizza was served (despite the grumblings of grandparents). Finally, whether it was out of hunger or desire to eat cake and ice cream, the wrap was consumed!!
We laugh about this story now, but, all jokes aside, this took a lot of patience and commitment to the overall lesson in order to stick to the plan. I wanted to cave several times, but my husband reminded me that we would lose all credibility if we didn't follow through with what we said. Not only for this daughter, but also for the one two years older who was watching our every move quite intently. He's right. Most often the most important part of parenting is in the follow through. Rewards and consequences can vary greatly from house to house, but the common denominator in success is following through once you have set parameters.
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