In Part 1 of this series we explored why it is so important for children to learn about food before they take the risky step of putting it in their mouths.

In Part 2 we explored why modern family life makes it extremely difficult for children to develop a natural relationship to food and eating.

In Part 3 we explored some of the long term damage that can be caused when we overstep our natural authority and try to coerce our children to eat.

In Part 4 we will learn how to:

If you're anything like me, getting the rid of the battlegrounds doesn't get rid of the stress!

As with so much of parenting, the key is to find a way of keeping that stress firmly locked up inside until you can find a way of safely releasing it.  

Allowing it to leak out at mealtimes is going to undo all the good work you're trying to achieve.

As such, I think rushing into phase 3, outlined below, is potentially a bad move.

To begin with it's worth simply finding a safe plateau of calm neutrality to rest in for a while.

Other than reinforcing the defensive mantras above, I would strongly advise not talking about eating at all.

When you feel ready to talk without leaking stress and frustration the best thing to do is to start talking, not about eating, but about food.

For example:

"This fresh bread is yummy, I particularly love the crusty bits round the outside."

Not:

"This bread is yummy, would you like to try some?"

What you are trying to do is to develop an appreciation for and a language to express the different qualities of food.

Language shapes our thinking and our experience.  The more developed our language the more sophisticated our experience becomes and the easier it is to define the things we feel safe with in relation to food.

When you are ready to do it without leaking, you can start to engage your children in short conversations about the food they are eating.  Ask to try it yourself if you are not eating alongside them and talk about how you experience it.

Listen carefully to whatever your children say about their food.  The clues they give you help shape the future development path.

Just be careful to keep an eye on yourself, if you are leaking stress, or using the conversations to try and suggest eating something new stop yourself and retreat to a calm neutrality until you are ready to open up again.

None of us are much interested in exploring food if we are not hungry.

When we are hungry we pay more attention to food, all aspects of food, not just the food that we already know is safe to eat.

We are more acutely aware of the smells around us, the appearance of food and what others are eating.  

In essence, our brain is encouraging us to search for things that can safely satisfy our hunger and nutritional needs.

This is the ideal time to learn about food, even if we are not prepared to eat it yet ourselves.

The problem is that many children will do their best to make sure they are not hungry at mealtimes.

Snacks are safe.  They are typically simple foods that our children have eaten over and over again.  There is rarely any pressure from parents to 'try' something more challenging at snack time, so they are also enjoyable eating occasions.

Of course, unless you are a very switched on parent, they are also often relatively filling and low in nutrients.

Children will learn to demand snacks, not just as a way of getting something they know they like, but also as a way of protecting themselves from being too hungry at more challenging mealtimes.

Part of our natural authority as parents is to actively manage this situation by:

As already established, we learn about food through our eyes, looking at food and in particular, observing others eating, then by touching and smelling long before they risk putting something in their mouths.

The more we can provide these opportunities the faster our children will learn.

Family mealtimes are the holy grail, but as previously discussed, often extremely difficult to achieve with the pressures of modern family life.

Where they can be achieved it's important to make the most of them.

Try to stick to the following rules:

Once you feel you are ready to remain neutral move to the next step, creating a development path.

Hopefully by now you are starting to build a picture of your children's safe foods.

Moving from these will happen naturally through safe exposure to other foods, however it can be helped here and there by providing safe development paths.

There are no hard and fast rules on development, but there are some things that can help your thinking:

It can take months before you'll see any sign of progress, then, all of a sudden, when you least expect it, they'll say... can I try some of that?

When this magical day arrives be prepared... don't pounce!  Better to say, 'are you sure?' and 'don't forget you don't need to eat anything you're not sure of' than, 'yippee! yes, of course you can, here, have as much as you want'.

Then, act cool, as if what they are doing is the most natural thing in the world.

At some point you can ask, in as neutral a way as possible, what did you think?

It all sounds simple enough and for most of history it probably was.

Unfortunately for us, modern family life and eating habits have transpired to make life much much more difficult.

We need to understand how before finally working out what to do.

When understanding how children learn to eat I find it helpful to think again about their instincts for survival.

If they put a potential food into their mouths that turns out to be poisonous they risk making themselves very ill at best.

As such, putting food in their mouths is only something that is going to happen when they are absolutely sure it's safe to do so.

Unfortunately, us telling them a food is safe doesn't work!

Like all things in those early years, children learn, not by lecture, but by example and observation.

The first step in their learning about a new type of food is to see it, to smell it and most importantly to see other people eating it.  When they have observed others eating it and surviving enough times, then they might consider moving to the next phase.

Handling a food gives them some clues as to whether it might be safe to eat.  Touching it against their lips or tip of their tongue gives them more information.  If they can do that safely without a reaction then next time they might be prepared to go further.

The last part of the learning process is to actually put it in their mouths.

You can imagine the stress it must cause when we try to shortcut this process and insist on them 'trying' a food before they are ready to do so.

So much more of our language around food is to do with taste that it is easy to see why we ignore texture when introducing our children to food.

Yet, the reality is that if we don't like the way a food feels in our mouths then we are unlikely to want to eat it.

Being told a witchetty grub tastes like chicken doesn't increase my desire to put one in my mouth I'm afraid!  And even if you told me a plate of worms tasted of chocolate I still would find it hard to want to eat them.

Like us, a child can assess texture with their eyes, they don't need to put it in their mouths.  If food has a texture they don't like or are unfamiliar with they won't eat it.  Simple as that.

Yet, how many families have the opportunity to eat together more than a few times a week?

Increasingly children either eat alone, or at best, with other children and are packed off to bed by the time the adults sit down to eat.

The second area where battles typically arise is the vexed question of how much.

How much cabbage should you eat before you are allowed a pudding?

Do you need to finish everything on your plate before moving on to your next course?

Even in the ideal world where children are allowed to serve themselves they can't possibly predict accurately how much they are going to want to eat.

The critical thing is for them to learn to listen to their bodies.  When they feel they have had enough of something they should be allowed to stop eating it.  Even if, they then go on to eat something else (a pudding for example).

They should neither be discouraged from leaving food on their plate or applauded for leaving nothing.

Any attempt to override what their bodies are telling them and control their eating risks creating a battle in the short term and seriously unhealthy habits in the long term.

To my mind, it is:

When sat next to your precious child willing them to try a new food, or take another mouthful, desperate to step in and control, it helps to remember a few simple facts about children and food:

Eventually, they start to open up again and become receptive to new possibilities, or at least they do if we haven't traumatised them by this point.

Imagine how long we would survive if the first thing we did when confronted by a potential new food was to put it in our mouths?!

It's crazy to think we can put a new food in front of a young child and expect them to try it.

Children experience food first through their eyes and noses, not their mouths.  They learn by observation and example.  

One of the main reasons family mealtimes are so important is that it gives young children a chance to experience food without having to do the risky thing of putting it in their mouths.  When they've seen us eating something enough times, when they've had the chance to become familiar with what it looks and smells like, then they might choose to try some.

Of course, if you have the chance to involve them in the food preparation then so much the better.

We all know full well that children thrive for the first 5 or 6 months on milk alone, so why do we suddenly get so stressed when they start rejecting broccoli at 18 months?

Milk contains all the calcium and protein a child needs to grow and it's a better hydrator than water.  If we keep giving our children milk to drink we can see anything else they eat through that difficult picky phase as a bonus.

See milk as a safety net and it buys you time to nurture their taste for other foods without resorting to coercion.

How many of us ate the range of foods we do now as adults when we were young children?  None I would venture.

Developing a taste for food takes years, or even decades.

There is no rush.

Equally, 'Yes' doesn't mean forever either.  As hard as it is to accept as parents, children can go off foods they previously liked, or even loved.  It might be because they associate it with feeling unwell, or it might be for another reason.  Whatever the reason we just have to live with it.

I still find this one hard to accept, but whether we like it, or not, our children are not us.  We have an influence over what they will like in the early stages of weaning and through the example we set them, but we cannot control it.

They have their own likes and dislikes.  We need to be prepared to accept they don't like some of the things we love and equally that they love some things that we just can't stand.

How can you not love new potatoes and custard?  (I don't mean on the same plate together!).

So, if we're not allowed to bribe, threaten or coerce in any way, just what is our role in developing a healthy attitude to food?  

If we can't even get them to put a tiny morsel of a new food in their mouths how can we ever get them to like new things?

It seems really obvious, but if we don't buy and prepare healthy food our children won't develop a taste for it.  

Equally, if we stock the cupboards full of sweets, biscuits and chocolate coated breakfast cereals we've only got ourselves to blame when the inevitable battles ensue.

Family mealtimes are the bedrock of healthy eating, but in the modern world they're not often possible.

That doesn't mean you can't set an example.   What you're aiming for is as much familiarity with the sight and smell of different food as possible.  Here's some things you can do:

Be receptive to what they tell you about the food they love and the food they don't.

Look for the types of textures and tastes they seem to enjoy.

If you can, ask them why they like something or dislike it.  It may be that you can tweak things to make foods more acceptable.

Be prepared to learn about their preferences.  My daughter used to love peas and sweetcorn, now she won't touch them, but she loves carrots, cabbage and parsnips so that's what we eat.

Coercion is a subtle thing.  It doesn't just take the form of bribes, threats and punishments. 

You can do almost as much harm by the inappropriate use of rewards and praise.

Celebrate a clean plate and you give them the message that it's not acceptable to leave food when they feel full.