How to Get Your Kids to Eat Their Vegetables

From the GF archives…

A mother picked up her daughter
from my house today and remarked casually about her two girls “They
still don’t eat any vegetables!” A few minutes later, she announced
again “I just can’t get them to eat vegetables.” Well, as soon as they
walked out the door my daughter announced “Why are we the ONLY ones who
have to eat VEGETABLES!”

Four years of hard work to get
my kids to eat their veggies went down the drain. “Well,” I said, “we eat
vegetables because they are healthy–and they taste good. And you do
have some friends who eat vegetables–Billie has to eat vegetables,
right?” Finally, I asked “Do you want a break from eating your
vegetables?” thinking it might be good to lose the battle and win the
war. So tonight, my two kids took a break from eating vegetables while I
enjoyed a bowl of kale and some out of this world asparagus parmesan.

The
truth is, my kids don’t willingly eat vegetables. They have to eat some
vegetables if they want dessert. And it’s usually something green: my
son will eat a salad, my daughter will have some peas or green beans or
cucumbers. It’s completely optional but if you want something sweet at
the end of the meal you need to have “vegetables first–dessert second.”
I don’t feel like it is bribery–you just have to do xxx in order to do
yyy. Dessert is definitely a reinforcer.

“Fine if you don’t
eat it but we can’t move on to dessert.” I say if they don’t want the
vegetables. And I am truly fine with them not eating any vegetables and
skipping dessert.

My kids didn’t always eat vegetables
with dinner. For a long time, I didn’t want to force them to eat
vegetables.They would eat whatever they wanted. There were enough
rules about eating since they couldn’t eat gluten (or dairy) that I really wanted
eating to be fun and without additional complications so I held off on forcing the
issue. They would eat vegetables in the summer and although they
occasionally did eat some vegetables, it was not a routine but a random
event.

Then I went to visit a relative who doesn’t cook
at all but had decided for health reasons her daughter who was a very
picky eater needed to eat vegetables with dinner. After years of her
saying “She doesn’t eat vegetables” she decided that it was imperative
that her daughter eat vegetables after a life threatening illness. Since
she doesn’t cook at all, she had a bag of frozen green beans and a bag
of frozen peas and she would alternate them. Peas one night. Green beans
the next. She would put a cup of water in an omelet pan and bring it to
a boil with a little salt. Then she would boil the vegetables in the
water for four minutes. When I returned home from our visit, I was
inspired and the kids had been served vegetables every night for almost
two week, so we began our routine.

To make it a little
more fun I often put the peas or beans in shot glasses and gave them a
choice. “Peas or beans?” I would yell for the fun of it as I cooked
dinner. It didn’t matter to me which they chose. We just needed to start
incorporating vegetables into our dinner more regularly. “Do I have
to?” they would whine at some point. “No.” I would say. “You don’t have
to eat them. But if you want dessert we have vegetables first. Dessert
second.” That’s it. End of story. Very unemotional.

You need to start somewhere.

“Where
is your leverage?” I remember learning at a parenting course. Well,
dessert was my leverage. I guess for other people it could be something
else. I know the relative who got her daughter to eat her veggies used a
second helping of pasta as her leverage. Sometimes you need to finish
your veggies, but you never need to clean your plate. Half of whatever
is healthy is the unoffical rule at my house.

And
gradually, my kids have learned to eat their vegetables. I don’t know if
they like them. But I am guessing they have learned to not hate them.
And I don’t make them eat kale–although some kids love it. They eat
vegetables that kids eat: carrots, cucumbers, pickles, green beans, peas
as well as a few family favorites: artichokes, olives, sauerkraut, and a
salad. And they each have the things they will eat and won’t. My son
will eat a salad but will eat only one pea. My daughter will eat salty
peas but won’t go near a salad.

It’s not easy–it is
hard work. But, it’s not magic–it’s just a moment in your life as a
parent when you realize that eating vegetables is important and
necessary to health and not something you can opt out of. I was a picky
eater so I am completely sensitive to picky eaters, but eating
vegetables is too critical to good health to be something kids don’t do.

“Rome
wasn’t built in a day” so it’s okay if you move gradually toward having
them eat vegetables. Start with one carrot or one pea. Make it
unemotional but make it count. One pea at a time. (Or jicama.) Just do
it.