A picky eater can be a disruptive influence in a roomful of
daycare children. When one kid complains or outright balks at a specific type of food, it encourages the other students to behave in the same way. To avoid this domino effect, the best route is to bypass your child’s picky side before you even get to the school.
Know Your Child
Pay attention to the foods your daycare child enjoys and the ones she won’t touch at all. Use this knowledge of her preferences to plan the lunches and snacks you send to school. By reducing the potential confrontations before leaving home, you make it easier for your child and the daycare staff to manage meals and snacks satisfactorily.
Include Your Child
Ask your child to help you slice bananas or apples, spread the condiments, and generally participate in preparing his own meals. When he has some of his own effort invested in the food he eats, he will be much more agreeable to eating a variety of different things.
Make Meals Fun
Including a
favorite fruit or tasty addition to her daycare meals will give her an incentive to eat what she brings to school. You can also experiment with cutting foods into fun shapes, using an assortment of colorful foods, or even making a game of eating the least attractive foods before moving on to the tasty bits.
Be What You Want To See
If you want your children to eat something, it should be part of your meals as well. Children tend to mimic the behavior of their parents, including avoiding foods you don’t care for and focusing on the things you find the most desirable. Because you are the major influence for your child, it is important that you demonstrate the behavior you are trying to elicit.
Playing “airplane” sounds like an adorable way to encourage children to eat, but it is an impractical approach for the daycare environment. Instead, providing tasty and exciting dishes gives your kid a reason to want to eat, and that helps meal and snack times more enjoyable for everyone.
