What To Do When Your Child Won’t Eat Their Broccoli

It is only natural that your child doesn’t like eating vegetables – literally. It a survival instinct picked up hundreds of thousands of years ago by your ancestors. What happened is; there was a tendency for bitter or sour tasting plants to be poisonous and the sweet, sugary ones to not be poisonous. Your great great great grandparents had to stick to the sweet tasting stuff to increase their chances of surviving. This is why kids grow up instinctively preferring sweet stuff; you learn to love the bitter and sour stuff.

Next time your kid refuses to eat their vegetables, don’t take it too hard. They mostly don’t mean to be difficult. Here are a few things you can do:

1. Breastfeeding your child can actually make it easier for them to try out new food later on – like vegetables. This is because the taste of breastmilk changes according to the type of food the mum has been eating, unlike formula which tastes the same always. If its too late to breastfeed your child, no need to worry. Just read on.

2. If you ask your child to eat their vegetables once and they refuse, don’t insist. Let the conversation drift to other things and try again another day. It might take a good number of tries to get them to eat it but a back-and-forth between you and your child might get them defensive and make it a mission to not eat their broccoli. Patience is key.

3. This step will require you to have a taste of your own medicine, so if you don’t like vegetables either, brace up! Prepare a meal of vegetables that you like and eat it in front of your kid – passionately too. They will likely get curious very soon and want to try it out. Don’t disappoint them.

4. If you want your child to warm up to vegetables, you might want to start easy. Offer your child the sweeter vegetables – carrots, tomatoes, sweet peas etc. Introduce the bitter ones a bit later when your kid is more comfortable.

It will help if your child feels like eating vegetables is not solely your decision. Get them involved. You can ask your child what vegetables they would want to try and/or how they want it prepared. You can make it exciting by making special shapes or pictures from the vegetables, or even creating stories. They can help you get the food prepared.

If you have enough space for a little vegetable garden in your house, you can start one. Get your child to work on it with you – turning beds, planting seedlings, watering, harvesting, and eating. You kid will like the idea of “eating the fruits of your labor”.

So, next time your kid acts up about eating vegetables, don’t let it bother you too much. You have a few tricks up your sleeve to get them to do it without resorting to a fight.