The 5 biggest mistakes to avoid with a picky eater
The internet, family and friends are all full of advice about how to get your child eating. The longer you have had a fussy child, the more strategies you have probably heard that will supposedly get them eating.
If it were easy, you would have slam dunked that recipe or idea months ago. But it is not. Resolving picky eating can be simple, but it is rarely easy.
It is also easy to fall into some of the pitfalls and unintentionally make progress more difficult.
Making sure you are not falling into some of these traps is a great start.
Avoiding those mistakes
1. Misguided expectations. Expecting your child to go from looking to eating.
Eating is a complicated process. In fact, it is one of the most complex physiological tasks we perform.
Depending on the expert for the precise figure, but there are upwards of 30 steps in the eating process (and likely more for the neurodivergent).
I simplified this to a 7-step process in my book Winner Winner I Eat Dinner.
The book takes you through the steps from looking at a food to being able to eat it. Seven steps.
These steps are very much like stepping-stones too, so skipping a few doesn’t usually yield great results …
Therefore, if you expect your child to see something new and immediately eat it, you are probably going to be disappointed.
How many times have you cooked the ‘special thing’, put it onto your child’s plate, got a hard no from them and felt totally defeated?
My expectation would be that I would get a no from a child who suddenly has a food sprung upon them at the table.
Using a swimming analogy. You would not take your child to the local pool for the first time, chuck them in the deep end and have them swim competently.
Plonking a new food on your child’s plate and expecting them to eat it is very similar.
2. You don’t go from crackers to eggplant.
New foods can be an enormous challenge for your child.
Sometimes as a parent you inadvertently make this worse. You desperately want them to eat the greenery, or the meat or the cheese and so that is what you’re trying to get them to do.
Rather than do this, the best plan is usually, meeting your child where they are at. If they are stuck on a limited diet of crackers and toast, their first thought is not going to be “how can I get me some of that kale?”.
Introducing a new cracker or a new topping for the toast is likely to be far more successful, and definitely not a waste of time.
Building genuine confidence your child is able to eat new foods and eat them comfortably and happily is far more valuable long-term than trying to go from the toast to a salad.
3. Not recognising progress.
As discussed, there are many steps in the eating process. It is therefore super important not to get focused on the final step, chewing and swallowing. There are many little steps that come before that that are equally as valuable.
Remember the stepping-stones? Food anxious children rarely go from looking at a food to eating it. Everything that happens in between is equally as important.
Maybe that is becoming more comfortable around certain foods, or perhaps it’s
becoming interested in what mum and dad are eating. All these can be really positive signs and not to be discounted.
Knowing how to recognise progress can make a real difference in long term outcomes.
Family and friends can give you a wrong steer in this regard, advising you there is no progress if something is not being eaten. But it really is not that simple.
4. Not believing there is a solution.
Families have often spent months or even years trying to support their child to eat more comfortably and more widely.
Each time there is a fail, it gives your confidence a bit of a knock and makes you less and less confident you are going to be able to help your child.
Indeed, most children who are picky eaters are ‘stubborn’ around food.
Which is logical, if food is difficult why not say no?
The paradox is, that once you decide there are no solutions, or none that you can do yourself, your often stop really trying.
Not because you are lazy or don’t care, but because you feel stuck and continually get faced with that hard NO from your child.
When you stop trying then the chance of progress stalls too. Your child is not going to be able to make progress if you are not gently and consistently supporting them to do so.
Believing you can make a difference and then setting out to make that a reality is where it’s best to be, but there is often a huge psychological hurdle preventing that.
5. Giving up too soon.
Many parents are doing great things in the feeding domain.
They have many of the basics in place, but then the results don’t come and so they stop.
Teaching a child, and especially a food hesitant one, is a long-term project.
Moreover, you have those 30+ steps to work through so although you may not be seeing new things eaten, a lot of other positive things can be happening.
However, because we are programmed to only see progress measured by what gets eaten, you often stop doing things that are working, or are helping.
I always relate teaching a young child to eat, to teaching them to read. It is that constant exposure and that loving consistency that is going to pay off.
Eating is no different. It is about love and long-term
effort, and keeping going even if the results aren’t obvious.
Winner Winner I Eat Dinner
Winner Winner I Eat Dinner goes into all these topics in detail and shows you how to work through the steps to eating confidently and easily.
It could be just the support you’re looking for. You can take a more detailed look here: https://theconfidenteater.com/books/
Judith is a PhD candidate in psychology, MSc Psychology (first-class honours) and is a graduate of Cambridge University. She is an AOTA accredited picky eating advisor, internationally certified nutritional therapist and neuro-motor development practitioner. She works with 100+ families every year resolving fussy eating and returning pleasure and joy to the meal table.
She is also mum to two boys and the author of Creating Confident Eaters and Winner Winner I Eat Dinner. Her dream is that every child can approach food from a place of safety and joy, not fear.
Learn more about Judith here: https://theconfidenteater.com/about/