Dear Mom,

 

It is not uncommon for children to go through periods of picky eating.  The fact that your son has not always been so picky is probably a good sign that this will be just a phase, as long as you handle it correctly.  Remember, eating is one of the things you really can’t force your child to do, although you can invest a lot of time and energy trying.  What you would likely accomplish instead is to change a short-lived phase to a prolonged battle.

 

Rather than trying to “get him to eat,” set your sights on offering a wide variety of things that are nutritious and limiting the things that aren’t.  If a growing child doesn’t have a reason to avoid eating (like trying to win that battle I mentioned above), he’s going to eat something.  Your job is to make sure that the things that are available to eat will do something for him other than simply filling his stomach.

 

Have him help you pack his school lunches.  He can even pack the entire lunch himself, as long as he follows your guidelines.  Maybe you could separate his choices into bins to make it easier.  A protein bin in the refrigerator could hold yogurt, string cheese and other cheeses, and lunchmeat.  The crisper in your refrigerator could be the second bin, and could hold apples, grapes, bananas, baby carrots, bits of broccoli and any other fruit or vegetable you can think of.  A third bin in the cupboard could hold snacks.  (Use caution in filling this bin, however.  Fill it with nuts, trail mix, graham crackers, peanut butter crackers, and other foods better for him than chips or cookies.  It stands to reason that if he has the choice to eat a large serving of twinkies and pop, and doesn’t feel very hungry after polishing those off, he probably won’t reach for the fruit or protein choice next.  For the same reason, for his drink choices, provide fruit juice, milk, or chocolate milk.

 

 Allow him to choose one thing from each bin, and accessorize as he wishes.  For example, he could add peanut butter to celery sticks, or he could carry some ranch dressing for dipping vegetables.  He could make a sandwich from the meat and cheese or add a plain bagel as a snack instead.  Help him with ideas at first, but let him make his own choices within the rules.

 

An after-school snack is a good idea at his age.  Again, serve things that have some nutritive value.  An occasional cookie is fine, but more often I would offer him something like a hard-boiled egg or fruit and nuts. Even if he comes home starving (and ate nothing of his lunch), limit the volume of this snack.  This is especially important if you eat dinner fairly early, otherwise he’ll have no appetite left for dinner.  A small amount of milk or water in any amount is fine.

 

At dinnertime, serve him the same things you serve everyone else, but give him only one small bite of each food.  Serve fruit and whole grain bread at each meal, as well.  Give him milk to drink (but don’t refill his milk glass over and over if he prefers it to the food).  Allow him to eat as much or as little as he likes, asking for seconds if he wishes.  Make no comment about his eating, but instead talk about pleasant things through the meal.  It goes without saying (I hope) that meals shouldn’t be eaten in front of the television.