How to Deal with a Picky Eater/Vancouver/Our Four Suitcases

How to Deal with a Picky Eater

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Being a parent can be a tough gig. Raising children is a huge responsibility. Making sure your child eats right, gets the proper nutrition and learns proper table manners can be a challenge. Going out to eat at a restaurant is a treat. Anyone who has taken their kid to a restaurant knows how frustrating it is to have a picky eater. It's annoying for parents as well as other diners when a child acts out at a restaurant.

You can avoid this potentially bad situation by staying home with your child, by praying they can behave or by doing like some parents do and threaten them "within an inch of their life" if they carry on in public.

Personally, I have found that the "long con" works best with my own kids. I've been conning my kids for years! Trickery is so much more fun than bribery and less expensive.

It was great to be able to return to dining out in public. I missed being able to have someone else cook and serve me a meal that did not require any cleanup after by me.

Once I caught on to the fact that my twins could be trained to be civilized in public I was overjoyed. It just required some creative thinking and planning on my part to get the required results.

My daughters were picky eaters as babies. Once one baby discovered the sweet taste of pureed fruit she refused to touch those mushy peas or anything else until she had her fill of mushy pears.

I eventually gave in and allowed her to have fruits first before pleading with her to eat anything else. That was my first mistake.

Once twin #1 realized her power over me she owned me. No amount of frustrated pleading works with tiny terrors.

Sweet potatoes were my saving grace and alternating between mushy peas, mushy fruit and sweet potatoes did the trick. My first food con.

It worked right up until the twins discovered that they could drag out the meal process by tossing food out of their high chairs. I eventually gave up trying to get them to stop and went out, bought a big blue tarp and let them have their little food fights while I did dishes or puttered around the kitchen.

They hated eggs, they hated porridge and they hated everything but applesauce for a week. Food jags were all the rage at two years of age. I gave them whatever they wanted until they got sick of it, mistake #2.

By three years of age my toddlers had turned me into their personal chef to whom they dictated the menu. I was a willing accomplice in my own demise, grateful even that they would eat anything rather than worry that they were hungry. More fool me. By the time the twin dictators turned four I had had enough of the power struggle and I took back my pride by being the sneakiest mom ever!

That's right, I'm not ashamed to admit that I used my mother's own tricks on my kids. I started lying to them. My mother lied to me for years and as a child I believed every word. Unfortunately, I was gullible to my mother's food tricks for far too long and never got to eat past the fuzzy part of any artichoke until I was thirty, when I learned that Mom used to lie about the heart of the artichoke being poisonous because she wanted to save the best part for herself. The perfidy! *tips hat to mom* My mother is a genius.

Every new parent wants to be a better parent even if their own parents are great. We want to succeed on our own and sometimes fail to listen to the advice of the parent that has been there, done that. Mistake #3.

I knew that I had to be crafty. I sat down and opened up a newspaper and started to read out loud about a circus that was in town. Once I knew that I had their attention, I gasped and read out loud from the paper "5 year old's teeth turn black and fall out from not eating proper vegetables." I then jumped up and ran into the kitchen, in full sight of the gawking children and threw open the freezer and immediately threw out a bag of frozen vegetables. I then got down on my knees in front of both of them and swore that I would never let them get black teeth. I told them how we would only eat healthy food from then on.

The next morning I cooked the dreaded scrambled eggs and told them it was not eggs but "BIG GIRL YELLOW FLUFF". I have never looked back at those days of torture. My kids ate healthy. In fact, just the other day, my 21 year old daughter asked if she needs more green beans as her hair is not as silky as it used to be. You do know that green vegetables give you silky hair and long gorgeous eyelashes, right?

I'm an experienced parent, now. Believe you me, I have had to learn it ALL the hard way.

Ultimately what I have learned is that the long con works the very best.