The words we use around food are really important and can influence our thoughts and behaviours as well as those of our children.
We can get really hung up on what our children are and aren’t eating and whether or not they’ll try a food i.e. actually put it in their mouth and eat it. But, this just adds to the stress when we’re feeding a fussy eater or when any child is faced with a new food.
I’d like to encourage you to take a step back and take away the pressure to eat by thinking not about whether your child is going to eat or even try a food but how you can encourage them to explore the food.
There is so much more to trying food that the ingesting it.
Exploring food, and therefore behaviours which are to be encouraged, includes:
- Pointing out an ingredient you have been trying to get them to learn to like when at the shops or reading a book
- Touching it (since some children are scared to touch new foods)
- Helping to prepare it
- Simply accepting that it’s on the plate or putting it on their plate themselves
- Picking it up and feeling it or squashing it
- Licking it
- Putting it in their mouths and spitting it out
- Eating a pea-sized amount
- Eating a whole mouthful or more.