This morning my wife was updating me on the problems some of our friends are having with getting their kids to eat. The child psychologists call this particular parental pleasure “food refusal”.
If you Google this topic to see what Doctor Internet has to offer you’ll see a lot of articles by ‘experts’ and a lot of forum posts by stressed parents. Like most of the parenting advice I read online it’s conflicting and overwhelming. My bet is that the Phd’s and child psychologists don’t have any more of a clue after their years of study than I do after my time parenting, but what I do have is some tested practical advice to offer other parents out there. One thing I am going to state first though, is that if you suspect in any way that food refusal is being caused by a medical condition then you need to see your doctor. Now on with the tips.
Tip 1: Stay in control
When a child won’t eat it triggers anxiety in all of us, but particularly in mothers because their impulse is to nurture. At the risk of sounding condescending, you have to control that anxiety. I find that easier than my wife, perhaps because as a bloke I feel less of that nurturing instinct, so often I take over when we encounter food refusal behaviours.
- Create and stick to a meal time routine. As an adult if you eat at the same time every day your body gets used to it and then if one day you don’t eat at that time you get very hungry. It’s the same for kids. Create and stick to a routine and pretty soon their mind and body will accept it as their normal day. Eventually they could be telling you when meal time is.
- Warn them that dinner time is coming. I find that this works brilliantly. About 30 minutes before food time I’ll ask her if she’s hungry. Most of the time she’ll say no. 20 mins later and she always says yes. Then when we eat it’s never a problem. Some parents might interpret that as the child being in too much control, but read that again and tell me who is really in control.
- Should you feel yourself losing that control, if it’s possible, let someone else take over. My wife and I swap if one of us is going to start screaming when, for example, the kid has thrown her food at the dog.
Tip 2: Remind yourself you’re dealing with a child
This might seem obvious but it’s easy to forget when you’re getting stressed. I’ll bet at 2am in the morning when your child just won’t let you sleep you’ve felt like shouting at them. It’s the same with food refusal. This isn’t personal, you’re just dealing with a rapidly developing child who is learning what to do and which buttons to push.
- Make dinner time fun. Sitting at a table and eating is never going to be as interesting as toddling or crawling around the house, or even as interesting as the TV. What’s more, it’s normal for them to be easily distracted. As a father part of your job is to be a clown, and using those clown skills to keep your child sat in a chair eating, is a good use of them.
- Don’t nag or argue with them about the food. It’s unlikely they’re going to respond well to that anyway and really all you’re doing is teaching them that a negative behaviour gets them some attention. Disapproval is still a form of attention in a child’s mind.
- Don’t resort to using food to influence their behaviour. This is good general advice in my mind but it’s one of the more contradictory topics on the internet. For example the webmd says this is a bad thing but the netdoctor says this is a good thing. Who knows which one is right? All I would say is that when you tell a child they can have desert if they eat their greens, they’re always going to create a problem when faced with greens, because that enables the argument which results in them getting desert. I think that desert should be something special and always outside their control.
Tip 3: Don’t assume it’s long term
It’s easy to think that the problem will never go away, that there’s something wrong, that the child is somehow broken. We’re so used to hearing about how perfect life could be with the right quick fix that when we encounter a problem, which by the way is probably entirely normal, we assume somehow we have failed forever.
- There is no evidence, at all, that food refusal leads to eating disorders in later life. Anecdotally people will tell stories, my wife has one herself about a friend who didn’t eat as a child, whose parents were told not to worry about it, and as an adult that person barely eats. But there’s no evidence to support the cause and effect implied in those stories, so you can probably stop worrying about it.
- If your child has a weight problem then it will get picked up through the regular check ups kids should have. Don’t assume that a phase of food refusal will automatically lead to malnourishment. If you’re worried go and see a doctor.
Tip 4: Pace yourself
As adults we tend to treat meal times as a rush job, something to do as quickly as possible. That’s why we invented fast food. We want as much gratification as we can get for the least amount of effort we can put into it. That’s a very 21st century ideal. It’s not great for kids. You have to change your mind set to feed a child. It’s also important to remember that the more time you take to eat, the easier the food is to digest and the more control you have over when you get full. That’s important for your health as much as theirs.
- Don’t only give them what you eat for the sake of convenience. I have no idea what tastes good to my child, I hate the taste of broccoli but she seems to like it. Meal times should be used to encourage experimentation with variety and you need to allow the time to do that. It’s also a good idea to encourage them to eat across the plate, what I mean by that is that they don’t just eat one thing at a time but that they alternate with a little of everything. Again this needs time to encourage.
- They need to see you eat a variety of foods and they themselves need to eat a variety of foods. Nutrition for children is not the topic of this post but one thing I will say is that making sure that your plate and theirs are as colourful with foods as possible is a good idea. Take the time to prepare that sort of meal for both of you.
- Don’t force them to eat everything. There is no rule that says they should eat everything on their plate. They should try everything at least once but you haven’t failed if they suddenly stop wanting to eat scrambled eggs.
- Dipping. I don’t think there is anything wrong with dipping. I know some parents who think sauces are bad, but dipping is fun and if it’s encouraging my child to try new foods I’ll let it happen.
That’s 4 tips broken down with some suggestions for you. I’m realy just voicing the opinions I have developed based on my research , my trial and error as well as on conversations and observations with my friends. If you have any opinions or suggestions of your own then by all means comment below or send them in.
Tags: food refusal, Parenting, psychology, tips
