How to get your child to eat "icky" foods

It's all about respecting their autonomy

Meal times are consistently an EPIC struggle in my home. First I spend what feels like hours cooking something healthy for the family. I mostly hate cooking, but I do it because I value eating well and I want my children to grow up valuing healthy food and learning to eat things that are good for their bodies.

This is how that generally goes down:

After SLAVING over a hot stove, I serve up whatever I’ve made and it is inevitably followed by a chorus of “EEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!”

I say, “Please, try some.”

“No! Never!”

I say, “No desert until you have some dinner.”

“Disgusting! Never!”

This is followed by lots of tears and tantrums and then eventually they eat pasta or frozen chicken nuggets.

Well, today I had the MOST AMAZING conversation with Michaeleen Doucleff, author of Hunt, Gather, Parent (I cannot wait to share this podcast episode with everyone) and I had a small epiphany: I have been confusing autonomy and leniency. Let me explain.

Autonomy is a core cultural value in hunter-gatherer societies. I have read this over and over and over again in the literature. Barry Hewlett has said of the Aka, “autonomy is a core cultural value. People simply do not tell other people what to do, including children.” It’s also something Doucleff talks about extensively in her book. I think we have a major issue with respecting people’s autonomy in our Western society. I would go so far as to say it’s what put Trump in the White House. But let’s not get into that.

The key point here is: respecting your child’s autonomy is does not mean leniency. It doesn’t mean you let them walk all over you. You can respect people’s autonomy and still draw a hard line in the sand when it comes to your personal boundaries (with your kids AND with other adults). And autonomy is not about choice. Autonomy is not about having freedom to choose any option from a long list. It just means having agency over what you do with the options in front of you. Autonomy simply means you don’t force other people to do things they don’t want to do. You don’t engage in a power struggle.

Okay, so what does this have to do with dinner time?

Here’s the thing: when your child refuses to eat a meal you just made them, it’s not because they don’t like it, it’s because you have trained them to expect a power struggle and they are trying to claim control over what they can. It’s about power and control, not green beans versus pasta.

So what’s the solution? In the past, I always thought, “Well, okay. If they don’t like it then that’s fair. I’ll give them something else. That’s how I respect their autonomy.”

But is it? Because the truth is, I am sick of making a second meal and sick of watching them eat junk when there’s a perfectly acceptable healthy option already available. It has also occurred to me on many occasions that children in most other cultures have no problem eating healthy foods. Clearly, I am doing something wrong.

So tonight, feeling inspired by my chat with Doucleff, I thought, I am not going to stand for this anymore. I am not going to make a second meal, but I am not going to engage in a power struggle with my children over what I made. What I made was lentils, green beans and squash—a simple, healthy meal that they have eaten in the past and enjoyed. But tonight they were having none of it.

It started off with the usual antics. “There’s nothing I like! Ew! Make me something I like!”

This time I said, “No. This is what’s for dinner. You don’t have to eat it, but there will be nothing else until you have some of this. But if you’re not hungry that’s fine.”

Tantrums. Tears. Protests.

I held my ground. After a while, with no progress, I suggested we watch a movie. That calmed everyone down, but about half way through they started complaining that they were hungry.

So we went back to the dinner table and I thought, “There has got to be a secret option C! One that does not involve a power struggle or a second dinner.”

That’s when I remembered that I used to feed my picky younger brother using the “airplane” technique. I thought, “Gee, it’s worth a shot.” So I picked up a spoonful of lentils and made a motoring noise with my mouth while waving it around, “Help!” I said, “The airplane needs to make an emergency landing! It needs a place to land! Open the hanger!”

Amazingly, my daughter opened her mouth.

Then my son wanted to play.

Suddenly, lentils were in serious demand. Airplanes were flying in all directions. Lentils were landing in open mouths, being ravenously chewed and swallowed. Supply could barely keep up with demand. Then the green beans came into play. Somehow the airplane hangers morphed into hungry sharks eager to bite off the heads of the unsuspecting green beans. Within minutes, the entire green bean population had gone extinct! Decimated! Now it was up to the squash, the only remaining species on the island. Could they save the day? Could they do what the green beans had not? They tried their hardest, but they too were ultimate devoured by the heartless, insatiable monsters. By the time the chaos had settled, there were no remaining lentils, green beans, or squash. An entire island population, gone within minutes.

“More!” the ruthless monsters were saying, “More!”

I swear to you this is a true story. I do not make shit up for the sake of selling newsletter subscriptions. This happened in my very home on this very night about 30 minutes before I rushed off to type it up. Actually, I wrote about a similar phenomenon with kiss-feeding my daughter (also, funny enough, with lentils and beans and squash) not so long ago. This is a great technique for younger children, but after the novelty wore off, it no longer worked for us. I realize now, it wasn’t the act of kiss-feeding that got her to devour a plate of healthy food, it was the fact that I had transformed dinner time from a power struggle into a fun family activity.

Is airplane-feeding my children a reasonable, long-term solution to their picky eating? Will it work again tomorrow night? Will I be stuck doing this until the day before they head off to college? I don’t know. But I think the key take-away here is that you just have to do whatever it takes to get out of the shitty, power-struggle dynamic. That doesn’t mean caving in to your child’s every whim. It just means you don’t fight them. You find a way to make it fun.

Make it a game and you, too, can make your child eat a green bean.

I believe in you.