Am I being cruel?**UPDATED**

pigpen

Glad you are seeing positive results.. long may it continue!

heretolearn_2

Don't make too much of an issue or bang on about 'healthy or unhealthy' eating. He doesn't need or understand those messages properly at his age - all he needs to know is that is the food we are all eating from now on, (you could give the 'big boy food like mum and dad' angle if you think that would help). The last thing you want is to make the healthier stuff seem like a penance!

Just start making changes one at a time. Some ideas for you:

1) I always had a rule that you have to eat at least one mouthful of everyfood that's served, even if you think you won't like it.
2) I also had a rule that you weren't allowed to declare you don't like a food until you have tried it on 5 separate occassions (we all have things we don't like, I'm not into forcing kids to eat what they genuinly don't like, but kids will just say 'don't like' automatically about anything new. After a couple of tries they often find they do like it after all).
3) Likes/dislikes have to be consistent. If you like chicken, then you eat it whether it is on or off the bone, grilled, baked, turned into nuggets, in big lumps, minced, cut into slices or cubes or whatever. You eat it. Lots of kids are allowed to get faddy over stupid things like the shape of food! Had a visiting child who was a proper little *** in lots of ways and when I gave him chicken and rice, carefully researched as being his favourite food, he started being really rude about how disgusting it was and he only ate proper chicken with bones in (drumsticks) not chicken pieces. Wouldn't listen that the chicken was exactly the same stuff. Just looked at him, said 'tough !!!! then, 'cos that's all there is for dinner, you'll be hungry won't you' (I know, bad to swear, but this kid would torment a saint) and his eyes bugged out and he shut up and ate it.
4) It's worth getting tough over eating normal food with you instead of his own special food. My stepsons ate nothing but chicken nuggets and chips for virtually every meal ever, and definitely every time they came to visit. 'That's all they'll eat' I was told. I eventually cracked and just made a normal meal, plonked it on the table in front of them, gave them that fierce 'mum' glare as soon as they opened their mouths to complain...and you know they ate every mouthful, and went on to eat everything given to them (pretty much) ever since. They'd been eating normal food at nursery I'm sure, they just had mummy and daddy wrapped around their little fingers. Tell him to stop eating baby food all the time and that it's time to eat big boy food, and how much yummier big boy food is, so isn't he lucky.
5) Have cereal surprise for breakfast. Chop small pieces of fruit and hide under the cereal, half a banana one day, a handful of grapes chopped in half the next day, a spoonful of tinned manderin orange bits the next. Every kid I know has a sweet tooth (fruit is sweet don't forget) and has enjoyed the game of trying to guess what todays surprise is, (even better if you tell them today's surprise is giant's bogies or something) and then digging down to find out.
6) 'Snip chips' - I used to make chips out of parsnips instead of potato, son used to love them as slightly sweeter. The name is funny too. No need to spell out that they aren't potato. Start off with fried if that's what he's used to, then start doing oven ones/wedges instead.
7) Most kids love noshing down on corn on the cob (start with one cut in half) if you let them get in as big a mess as they can! Make it into a game - who can eat this without getting any stuck to their nose and of course mum and dad accidentally on purpose get bits on their noses so the kid can have the fun of pointing this out.
8) Kids like eating what they've made. Can you make individual pizzas and let him make pictures on top with bits of vegetables? Can he come and stir something for you? Can he mix toppings for jacket potatoes?

bestpud

That is fab news - I'm so pleased for you! :j

Good to hear his behaviour has improved too!

I know my mood is horrendous (never mind dds ) if I have lots of rubbish food - especially sugary things, so I'm sure it makes a difference.