Picky Eaters: How a mom tightened up the snack routine and a timer added some grease

Mar 20, 2012 by

“I put some thought into my delivery and implementation of the new snack plan and today tried a new approach that totally worked,” Debra told me.

A mom of three, including one extremely picky child, Debra is a mom I’m coaching. I visited her home at dinner time a few weeks back, and observed that she spent the entire meal pressuring and manipulating the picky child to eat. As a result, nothing was getting better.

We looked at what ways she and her kids are “out in the woods” and where her fence posts are built.  She does have…

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Solution for Picky Eaters: PediaSure, Why Not?

Nov 9, 2011 by

I just learned of the existence of PediaSure. Apparently it’s been around for at least ten years, but I just discovered it, seeing one of its commercials for the first time. I’m chagrined, but shouldn’t be surprised, to learn that such a thing exists.

There may be some justifiable use of this product, though it’s hard for me to imagine any. For a child who is physically or mentally ill or has genuine, physical sensory problems, I’ll suspend judgment for now.

If it’s for the typical picky child, though, PediaSure is a “solution” that offers false security while aggravating the problem of pickiness in a child. It’s a child’s solution to the problem, not a wiser parent’s solution.

PediaSure will resolve the root problems of pickiness about as well as giving in to a terrorist’s demands or giving a child the candy bar he’s throwing…

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The Codependent Mom: Feeding Your Child’s Food Addiction

Oct 17, 2010 by

When your baby started to scoot around the house, you probably changed your decor. You moved breakables or dangerous items out of reach. You covered your electrical outlets.

You may have also cleaned up your personal act in various ways to make a healthy, safe, positive environment for your dear baby.

You kept careful watch over your little one, and with a sensible combination of environmental adjustments, vigilance, and training of your baby not to touch those dangers that couldn’t be removed, you made your house a place where your darling could play and learn and enjoy freedom and safety.

You limited your child’s choices, without offering dangerous fun in order to get her to do beneficial things. You wouldn’t, for example, say she could chew on the electrical cord if she would play with her blocks first.

You wouldn’t…

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Six ways to insure kids eat dinner whether there's dessert or not

Aug 22, 2010 by

Are you using dessert to get your kids to eat meals?

It’s not normal for a child not to want to eat dinner.  If they don’t, something’s gone wrong.  They can and should be hungry for real food at dinner time. If they’re not, maybe they’re not feeling well.

More likely, either they aren’t hungry because they’ve had untimely access to food or they are ignoring their hunger and refusing to eat because of some other reason. Maybe they want to jerk their parents around, or maybe they’ve dug in their heels about the dinner that’s served because you’ve forced them to eat it in the past. Maybe they’ve been pushed to eat so…

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Why Dessert as a Bribe is a Bad Bargain

Aug 13, 2010 by

Let’s just say we want to eat ice cream every night as dessert after dinner. We’re grown-ups, so we eat our dinner first. The problem comes when the kids, who don’t care about what’s good for them, just want to eat the ice cream and skip the salad, meat and veggies.

So we make a bargain, for their own good: they have to eat dinner before they can have ice cream. Sometimes it works. Sometimes maybe it’s the only way we can make the children eat their dinner.  It becomes complicated, though: just how much dinner must one eat to get the ice cream? If they won’t eat what we want them to eat, we deny them the ice cream. Then they throw fits. Should we quit eating ice cream? Should we let the kids do what they want? Things are not going well, and no answer to the problem…

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