resolving picky eating - to scared to change

When I saw this earlier today I thought how true this is in the fussy eating realm.

I speak to parents daily who desperately want food to be easy. For there not to be struggles over what to eat or whether there will OK choices at a restaurant.

But, they are understandably, really nervous about tackling what seems like an insurmountable problem. The words I hear all the time in relation to their children are "stubborn", "so determined", "refuses to even try anything".

Moving forwards seems impossible and we wonder whether we have the energy to take it on. I totally get it. Many of us, me included, have so many plates spinning that bringing in a new one or even moving the others seems like a recipe for disaster.

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The bad news is that in 99% of cases we are the ones who know the change has to happen and we are the ones who are going to have to drive that change.

The good news is that often it is way less painful than we anticipating! A lot of things we can do that support children to eat are positive things.

Parents often feel really nervous when starting to work with us as they think that it's going to be negative. In fact, it's mostly the opposite.

The guide - Creating Confident Eaters - is a great example of this. We are not encouraging parents to take away favourite foods. In fact, the opposite. We are using the favoured foods as a base to gently move to another food.

The steps we suggest are often fun things like making a 5 minute ice cream. Who doesn't want extra ice cream? (I know there are some children who don't like ice cream :) My eldest disliked chocolate until he was 10).

It's also about making food a safe and relaxed event, rather than something that is often challenging and uncomfortable for caregivers as well as fussy eaters.

There are also a lot of children - generally 8+ - who really would like to eat differently as they begin to realise how limiting a narrow diet can be. Although this is something they'd love to do, they don't have the skills to be able to eat new foods without support.

Again, this is where we, as parents are critical. We are the ones that provide the road map, the skills and the confidence for our child.