Getting Veggies Eaten

Many families we work with at The Confident Eater are frustrated as their children are not eating dinners and especially as they're not having their veg. Part of the problem is often the inordinate stress that seems to build around dinners.

We dash home from work, grab the kids, whiz around the kitchen at a million miles an hour preparing a dinner worthy of a Masterchef, collapse exhausted at the table and then our children refuse to eat what we've cooked.

Sound familiar?

I find that part of the stress for both parents and child is that we are expecting all the "good" food to get eaten at dinner. We are content for our children to have a sustaining breakfast and lunch but at dinner we want them to eat veggies. When they don't we feel defeated.

My suggestion is to change our view of meals throughout the day. If our child can eat some carrots for a morning snack, some cucumber with their lunch and some frozen peas as an afternoon snack then what gets eaten at dinner is less important.

If our child eats no veggies at all then we take several steps back and look to give them a comfort level with them. We don't willingly eat something we don't have that basic comfort level with.
I remember talking to a mother with an autistic child who got her son to overcome the first part of his vegetable phobia using wooden blocks in the shape and colour of vegetables. She had to take several steps backwards to take one forward.

What can we do as parents to increase that comfort level?

Would you like some inspiration as to how to get your child more comfortable around fruit and vegetables (having a fruit aversion is actually a lot more common than you'd expect)? If so please get in touch as we have mini programs that can give you fabulous and gentle strategies to work with even the most selective of eaters.

Or if you have a child that eats some veg but you'd like to increase variety and volume. Yep, can do that too