We’ve all been there, trying to coax/bribe/threaten our kids to eat their meals while they squirm about and turn into artful dodgers. Sometimes we resort to theatrics and put on our best British accents and talk like Charlie from the Charlie and Lola series by Lauren Child. In the book, “I will never not ever eat a tomato“, Lola flat out refuses to eat all sorts of food and clever big brother Charlie tells a funny stories and rebrands them with exciting names and fussy eater, Lola ends up eating ’green drops from Greenland’ (peas), ‘cloud puffs from Mt Fuji’ (mashed potatoes), ’orange twiglets from Jupiter’ (carrots) and finally ’moon squirters’ for tomatoes. Watch the hilarious You Tube episode.
Of course we don’t expect the kids to eat everything and like it (even adults don’t), my goal is to get my children to be open to trying new things. Just one itty bitty bite.
A mom I met recently, C. introduced me to the ‘No Thank You Bite’. Just take one bite and if you don’t like it, you say ‘No thank you’. I thought it was brilliant and tried it at home. It might be that it’s concise and catchy and definitely much more appealing than “if you don’t eat that, I’ll take away your Lego magazine” but it works (most of the time)! And to take it one step further, if they try it and like it, Pikelet & Lollo now call it a “Yes Please Bite”.
Try it in your household!
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Quick update: As I was editing my piece, Nancy Tringali Piho from one of my favorite blogs My Two Year Old Eats Octopus posted a similar post on the Two Bite Rule. I love the Two Bite Club story published by USDA talking about the food groups and encouraging kids to eat. Child care centers, day care centers and kindergartens can obtain free copies here.
Till our next Happy Meal!
