Tomorrow, Michelle of In the Life of a Child is going to be hosting her new Picky Eaters Club carnival where you can come and share your tips for getting picky kids to eat. I'm posting mine today because there is no guarantee that I will even be able to sit down tomorrow, I'll be so busy. =) Today I will tell you how I get my picky kids to eat green beans. I don't know why this only seems to work with green beans but it works like a charm. I must warn you, it is demented, very disturbing, and still makes me wince that my kids like it so much.
We kill our green beans in a tortuous, graphic, and very loud way. We eat them to death. It all starts with the pile of quietly uneaten green beans. I take notice and start my pleading-bribing-threatening routine. "Please? Just eat 5 of them for mommy. It will make me so happy to see you putting those wonderful vitamins in your body. Don't you want to be big and strong with super muscles like daddy? We'll make cookies after dinner if you can eat them all gone. Tell you what, I will pay you a penny for every green bean you eat. Tell you what, I will spank you for every green bean you don't eat!" Once I get to threatening my child over a green bean I realize that I need to think outside the box, and once again I fall back on this fail proof routine:
I salt their green beans, hold one up in front of the child's mouth, make it wiggle a little, and in a very high pitched voice say,
"Oh no, no, please don't eat me! Don't bite my head of off, oh please no!"
The kid promptly gets an evil smile on their face and chomps the poor guy's head off. Now comes a step that can't be left out or all they will eat is the head of every green bean. Now you must have the head scream in their mouth as they chew (don't forget to make it sound muffled as it is coming from inside the mouth).
"Ow, my head, ow. Oh no! Please don't bite my legs! Owie ow ow not my legs!"
To which the devil child will happily munch away at more of the poor, dying Mr. Green Bean. Keep going till you get all the way down to the toes and in they go.
Sadly you must sit there, hand feeding each and every green bean into their mouth, making horrific dying sounds, and feeling queasy, in order for them to eat all their green beans. The good news is that after they get a bit older you can just say: I know you can eat them so eat them.
And that, my friends, is how I've gotten all my kids to eat green beans. I may need therapy for it later, though.
24 comments:
This is why I still feed my Little Monster Man some of his meals because at least that way he WILL eat some normal, healthy food. It is all about picking your battles :) !! And you learn to do what works best for you and for your family. Kudos to you for figuring that out!
Ha ha! We do the "please don't eat me" routine with many foods here at our house. But it doesn't work when Mommy does it...it only works for Daddy. Why is that?
You are HI~larious! :)
So far I do not have a picky eater. So far. I've only got the two right now and one is at that baby stage where she will eat anything she can get in her mouth, which is everything. She especially likes mommies books. I will keep this little trick locked in my memory somewhere because I am sure it will come in handy someday!
Way to be creative! That is so funny, I love it! My motto is "whatever works".
We have our fair share of problems but eating isn't one of them. My kids will eat ANYTHING! I think it has to do with their personalities. They will also try/do anything. I would take the credit but I have learned that if I don't want the blame for the problems I'm not taking any credit for the easy stuff!
Great tactic...kids are natural-born sadists. I used a similar method for tooth brushing when we invented the "Sugar Buggies"- tiny, invisible insects that like to eat teeth and beg for their lives when brushed ...
That's great! The sillier the better. I love your illustration.:)
Great idea...but a lot of hard work for the mom. Thankfully, my elder daughter can just be bullied to eat reasonable amounts of proper food (she'll bargain to get her quota of junk-stuff, though!). And the younger one just copies her, so all's well on the food front as of now.
We do this terrible routine as well!! I love how you describe it! We also call our peas "lizard eyes" and the boys just eat 'em up!! Spaghetti is worms and so are anything else that slightly resembles a worm. Hey...whatever works!!
LOL! That is fantastic! I just tell my kids that if they don't eat them there will be no desert and no eating anything else until whatever it is they won't eat is completely gone. Or I will disguise the food inside something else--like asparagus casarole or something.
Awesome idea!!! I just don't serve them b/c I don't like them either1 LOL!!!
Sounds like an eventful meal!
My mom did that with us too! Lol. I am sure that I will pass that on to my kids.
Hilarious, clever and sick all at the same time! :)
This is a GREAT post! On Friday, I am going to be writing about children's nutrition tips. Make sure to link back to this!
LOL and to think I told them that if they didn't eat their green beans, they couldn't have any ice cream after dinner.
Your way sounds a lot more fun!
This is hilarious! I’ve gotta try that sometime!! Thanks for sharing.
That's funny. I don't have the spunk to have that much fun at dinner time... because I'm dead tired by then, so I just mash them up and stir them in with their stir fry, or hide all sorts of things in waffles, pancakes, etc. My son, Noa, is a pretty healthy eater because my husband said death would come out of his eyeballs if he didn't eat his veggies. Now that's scare tactics, for yah. My husband has such a way with words.
This is hysterical. I would have never thought of that. My daughter though had a nightmare that she was trying to eat Jr. Asparagus of the Veggie Tales (She loves green veggies)and she was traumatized.
LOL! And the picture just wraps this story all up! I may actually try this!
is it you or your kids who will need the therapy from this one?:) sounds like a great idea and one that i will try very soon.
Oh, I got a kick out of this one! Really, this is what it all comes down to -- making it fun, and you do it beautifully. I can just see those maniacal little grins :D
We resort to the talking food routine with vegetables too. Jacqui is enamored with baby anything. We get the green beans down by splitting them open to see the 'baby beans' inside. Then the baby beans cry and carry on to be in her tummy with their other food friends until they are all eaten. Emotionally draining, but it gets the job done :D
A most excellent and entertaining tip -- so glad you joined in!
I love it! I'm going to try it! I'm in such a rut with serving veggies to my kids. It's always the same - carrots, peas, lettuce. Thanks for checking on me! I'm still here. I'm just starting to feel the guilt about how much time I've been blogging. My daughter keeps calling and I always feel like I'm too busy for her:(
I will try this for sure. Hey, if it works?!
I just posted about this topic this week. Thanks for pointing me to the link.
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