“But they are picky eaters!” This is the com­plaint I often hear from par­ents when dis­cussing ways to help their chil­dren make bet­ter food choices. What most par­ents fail to real­ize is that this is a learned behav­ior not a genetic trait. The good news is that par­ents can help their kids to UN-learn this behav­ior. The key to suc­cess lies in the com­mit­ment to be a strong par­ent, even when your kids are con­vinced you are evil incar­nate for not let­ting them have Pop Tarts instead.

When my kids were old enough to start adopt­ing their own opin­ions about foods my wife and I estab­lished a few sim­ple rules. These were the “Rules of Engage­ment” that we reminded our chil­dren of in a calm and “mat­ter of fact” tone when chal­lenges arose. If you make eat­ing any­thing into a trau­matic event you are going to fail, so don’t over-react. Remain even tem­pered but diligent.

The “Rules of  Engage­ment” we followed:

• “Don’t put more on your plate than you can eat”

You can always have more but we don’t waste food so make sure you can fin­ish what you put on your plate

• “You have to at least try it”.

You can’t decide whether you like or dis­like a food until you have at least tasted it.

• “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it”

This is a really impor­tant com­po­nent to the rules. Kids have to be offered the power of choice BUT… not alter­na­tives. My favorite response to a deci­sion by my kids not to eat some­thing at din­ner time was always:  “No, you don’t have to eat it but it sure is a long time until breakfast”.

Yes, they went to bed with­out a com­plete meal in their tummy once or twice.

They were not allowed to snack on any­thing unless they fin­ished what was served.  I can count the times they chose not to fin­ish a meal on one hand. Chil­dren are fast learn­ers and hunger is a great moti­va­tor Throw in desert, and you won’t have much trou­ble get­ting them to eat foods they may snub their nose at.

Rest assured that you can­not starve a child overnight.

Par­ents who cave in and offer alter­na­tives do so out of an unnat­ural fear that some­thing bad will hap­pen to their child if they don’t eat. This is how kids learn to be picky eaters. It also makes it dif­fi­cult for kids to eat healthy as adults. A lot of kids are addicted to the taste of corn syrup. That is why 1 in 10 kids will develop dia­betes and it is why obe­sity is the biggest health threat today. If you don’t course cor­rect now as the cap­tain of the ship, your kids will have a very hard time find­ing their way as adults.

You also don’t have to worry about child ser­vices show­ing up at your door because your kids turned down steamed broc­coli and you wouldn’t let them eat Pop Tarts instead. The fact is you are being a bet­ter par­ent by remain­ing dili­gent about the rules.

Be hon­est with your­self and your kids.

If it tastes bad to you, it tastes bad to them too. Don’t force them to eat some­thing you your­self are hav­ing a hard time get­ting down your gul­let. They will see right through the cha­rade. Let’s face it some foods are an acquired taste. If they weren’t, who would ever eat Aspara­gus? If you want kids to make bet­ter choices, you have to make bet­ter choices with them. Don’t make hot dogs if you want them to eat grilled chicken. Don’t make fries if you want them to eat broccoli.

Adap­ta­tions are okay.

If you have a picky eater mod­ify and adapt to help make the tran­si­tion with foods they don’t care for. Offer them a small amount of healthy dress­ing to dip their veg­eta­bles in. Driz­zle a lit­tle honey on a banana or let them dip an apple in some almond or peanut but­ter. Even a small amount of choco­late sauce can be used to make some­thing seem a lit­tle less intim­i­dat­ing. Don’t overdo it. Even­tu­ally they won’t need to dip and driz­zle. In the mean­time do what­ever you need to do to help them learn to love some new things.

Give them ownership

Take them to the store with you and let them pick the pro­duce. When you get home give them a pair of scis­sors instead of a knife and let them help make the salad. Scis­sors are a sta­ple tool in our kitchen and there is no faster way to cut up romaine let­tuce or fresh spinach. Hope­fully you are wash­ing all of your pro­duce and this is a great job for kids to do too. If your kids help to pre­pare the food, they will take pride and own­er­ship in eat­ing it and watch­ing you eat it as well. Use pos­i­tive rein­force­ment when they do help and when you eat. “Man that was the best salad I ever ate!” The power of sug­ges­tion should not be underestimated.

You can’t always be the good guy when rais­ing kids.

That is in the par­ent hand­book on page 4. At some point you have to be the adult and know that spinach is a bet­ter choice that potato chips.

What­ever you try, do not give up. Keep try­ing until you find what works. It may require some cre­ativ­ity and step­ping back for per­spec­tive. In the end you will have done your chil­dren a great ser­vice by teach­ing them how to make and enjoy health­ier food choices. It is a life­long gift and your respon­si­bil­ity as a parent.