Help with 8 year old son?
Question:
He wont eat meat and a lot of his old favorites he just wont eat at all anymore.any ideas?
Answers:
I was the same way when I was his age. My mother gave me Geritol...I don't know who told her to do this, but all I know is I took it and was eating everything
This could be a phase he is going through, or he just might be a picky eater. What has worked for me in the past is to let him control MOST of his menu. Sit down with him and make it a fun activity. Tell him that you will help and for every 2 items he picks, you get to choose one. So for awhile he might be having chicken nuggets and mac and cheese, and that's ok because he will be having your choice too. He may not eat all of it, but tell him he has to eat at least one bite of everything or the menu goes away and you go back to eating what everyone else eats.
Children that age love to make choices and feel like they are in control. You can tweak things abit to push him in the right direction and help him to start making better eating choices. It also helps if the whole family is in on the task, that way everyone can help.
Hope this helps! :-)
You should slowly try to wean your son off the mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. Don't take it away so quickly, he'll resist and crave it more. Give him mac and cheese once a week and chicken nuggets once a week, then switch it to rotate (one week: chicken nuggets, next week: mac and cheese, next week: chicken nuggets, etc...) and if he has no objections, start to get rid of the food from his diet completely. It's a slow process but that's how my mom got me to stop eating fruit roll ups 24/7! Hehe. In replacement, get him more healthier things to eat and start educating him on why it's so important to eat like that. If your son is a sports fan, you can tell him that the reason his favorite sports star got to be so tall and famous was because he ate healthily and exercised regularly. Kids love imitating their role models. A better way is to get rid of/hide all the junk food (mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, anything else...) and put all the healthy foods on full display. If he already eats fruits and veggies, he should have no trouble adjusting to eating more of it. As for the meat problem: you should try sneaking it into his diet. Make spaghetti and meatballs but cut up the meatballs into slivers and incorporate them into the spaghetti (that way it's unavoidable to eat them). Or you can use meat substitute. Get your son to eat tofu. Tofu has many of the qualities of meat and it's how a lot of non-meateaters get their protein. I'm not exactly sure how to get your son to eat more though, sorry. You could make a deal with him: eat all of his meals and you'll take him to the amusement park or something. Good luck and I hope I helped a little.
Be consistent. If you introduce broccoli at one meal, and she turns up her nose, wait a few days and offer it again. Eventually, she may give it a try.
Introduce new food in small portions. A large amount of any food on her plate can be intimidating to a toddler.
There are some foods that your child will just not like. She may develop a taste for them later on, but don't make dinner time a battlefield. More importantly, don't make yourself crazy. If your child hates radishes, the fact that you spent 15 minutes carving that radish into a rose isn't go to make her like radishes any more.
The food pyramid combines fruits and vegetables into one category and encourages several servings a day. If your little one has a sweet tooth, don't hesitate to serve fruit at meal times in lieu of veggies.
Get sneaky. Add small amounts of new foods to the existing favorites. A few pieces of cooked, diced chicken breast stirred into the macaroni and cheese might go down unnoticed!
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