8 Ways to Ease Mealtime Stress with Your Picky Eater

Here’s the scene: It’s dinnertime again. You’re sitting down with your picky eater to eat a healthy meal. There’s a lump in your throat as you brace yourself for what’s to come.

You know what you want your child to do: You’re hoping beyond hope that your honey will eat something on their plate. You know what you’re afraid of: Unpleasantness. (To put it nicely.)

Wish you could take the stress out of mealtimes?

Wish you had a rule book for what to do as you sit down to this meal?

Well, here’s the next best thing - my 8 things you can do to ease mealtime stress with your picky eater. I’ll cover what to say, how to start the meal off on the right foot, how to respond to behaviors you don’t like….and more.

8 Ways to Ease Mealtime Stress with Your Picky Eater

1)    Provide expectations – in a few words – at the beginning of the meal.

Start the meal with a few brief words on what you want your honey to do.

You could say:

Momma wants you to sit at the table for 5 minutes. 

Or, I’d like you to have ONE baby bite of cheese.

Whatever your expectation is, make sure that it is something your child can reasonably do.

2)    Introduce your child to what’s on their plate.

Take a minute at the outset of the meal to specifically tell you child what foods are on their plate. This is show and tell time, so, point to each item and state what it is: This is avocado, this is your favorite tamale casserole, and these are your strawberries. Your milk is in your cup.

This is the moment where you:

a)     ensure your child knows what you're offering

b)    teach your honey different food or recipe names

If your child tries something new and likes it, you want to make sure they know how to request it again in the future! Telling them about what they are eating is how you do that. This is especially important if foods are pureed (e.g., squeeze pouches with applesauce or other fruit/veggie combos) or presented in combinations (like lasagna or casseroles) so they know the components of the food.

3)    Sit down with your own plate of food! Preferably, what your child is eating.

Life is busy, and you have children. You are probably multi-tasking all-of-the-time, but a wonderful way to help your kiddo through a meal is to sit down next to them

and eat,

and talk,

and just be.

Eating alone simply isn’t as awesome as eating with someone else. Providing your presence, your time, and your attention at the table goes a long way toward encouraging your child to eat, to stay seated, and to see appropriate table manners in action. So, on that note…

4)    Model mealtime behaviors you want to see – chewing with your mouth closed, using a napkin to wipe hands, staying in your seat, etc. 

While you are seated at the table, your child is watching you. This provides you an opportunity to do the exact things you would like your child to do. Say please and thank you. Use your napkin. Chew your foods. Use your biting teeth to take a bite off of an orange slice. Stay in your seat.

5)    Talk with your child about preferred topics.

So, here you are, seated with your child, eating. A great thing to do to make this time enjoyable for your child and less stressful for you, is to talk about fun stuff!

It can be very tempting to talk about food - to say how yummy the broccoli is and to tell your honey to try it. Or, when your child does try something new to say, “Do you like it?!” or “How does it taste?”

Instead, what I encourage you to do is to talk about your child’s favorite Disney character. Describe all the ways that their favorite teacher is wonderful. Tell them just how much you loved playing with them at the park earlier.

Here’s why: Chances are, your child isn’t very excited about coming to the table. Eating is sort of a stressful time (or maybe a majorly stressful time). Your honey is asked to eat things they may not always want to eat. They may have to sit longer than they like. Etcetera. Often times, when we have to do something we dislike, we prefer some distraction.

 Remember how the Seven Dwarves whistled while they worked? They weren’t all Happy. They needed to take their minds off of their jobs. Similarly, your picky eater may need help taking their mind off of their plate.

6)    Provide praise frequently for mealtime behaviors you like and love.

You know that I’m ALL FOR praise, rewards, positive reinforcement, and any other good stuff for motivating your child. So, please, go ahead and lay it on thick! Give copious praise and attention for anything you see that you like!

7)    Unless behaviors are dangerous to self or others, try not to awknowledge them.

Is your child kicking the table and making it shake? Are they scraping their fork across the plate so that your ears hurt? Is your honey dropping crumbs on the floor?

Yep, it’s annoying.

BUT. It’s not hurting anyone, and it’s not ruining anything. So, chances are, it’s better to attend to something else – like the fact that your child is still seated at the table! Or, the fact that they are drinking their milk! Or, how they touched a pea!

And, I know what you might be thinking: If I don’t tell my child when they are doing something wrong, how will I teach them not to do those things? How will they ever learn?

If that is what you are thinking, then I will ask you this: Have you ever told your child not to kick the table before?

If the answer is no, then go ahead. Tell them to stop kicking the table. Tell them once and move on to greener pastures.

If the answer is yes, then they probably already know they shouldn’t be doing it, and telling them again isn’t going to magically stop it. (But you know what might? Diverting their attention with a fun topic of conversation, or praising them for other behaviors they are already doing that you love!)

Sound good?

8)    Periodically, remind your child what’s available, while still letting them choose what to eat.

By now, you’ve been eating away with your honey for a smidge, so, you might want to just give them a refresher of what’s available on their plate.

“Remember, you have your milk too!”

Or, “You have beans on your plate!”

You’ll notice these are simply statements about what is on the plate. These are not requests to take a bite, or expectations to do something specific with the food. The purpose of these statements is to remind your child what’s available.

The reason that these are NOT requests is that we are trying to keep the meal low-stress and give your child a lot of choices in the meal. You may have stated some expectations earlier in the meal for which you are planning to reward your child. If so, you can provide reminders around those expectations too.

That’s it! An 8-step little guide to help you through mealtimes with all of the things you can say and do to make dinner as positive, low-stress, and successful as possible. Use the comments below to let me know if you’re walking away with any new ideas that you’d like to try.

Other Related Resources:

If you liked these ideas on what to say and do during meals to support your child with better eating, you might also be interested in the PRIDE Skills. These are a set of skills for parents that help them teach their child to engage in better play. (Better is code for “with fewer undesired behaviors.”) The PRIDE Skills are part of a larger evidence-based practice called Parent Child Interaction Therapy.

This is not medical advice and is provided for educational purposes. As I describe here, a thorough assessment by a team of professionals before making mealtime changes is best practice.