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Navigating Picky Eating (Without the Panic!)

by Roxy Krawczyk, M.A. Ed.

“My kid used to eat all kinds of foods, even broccoli! Now all they want is crackers and cheese sticks. What happened?!”


If you find yourself asking this question, you’re not alone. Just about every parent experiences this moment as they watch their young child shift from an adventurous eater to a far more selective one. 


The good news is that there is a good reason for your child’s sudden food finickiness! And there are some easy things you can do to help guide them back to the land of variety. But first, let’s break down why children tend to go through a picky eating phase so that we can better understand how to help them through it.


Food neophobia — the predisposition for rejecting unfamiliar or unknown foods — is indeed a normal human developmental phase. Typically, it hits its peak when a child is between 2 and 6 years old. (Sound familiar?) 


Several biological factors play into this spike in food sensitivity. First, young children likely taste bitter and sweet differently than adults do. They are more sensitive to compounds that give foods a bitter flavor (think cruciferous vegetables and some cheeses), which means they may notice bitter flavors that are too faint for adults to detect. 


At the same time, children seem programmed from birth to seek out sweet. Studies show that young children actually appear to have a higher threshold for sweetness, meaning that they can’t detect the sugar in a food until it is more intense. So just as a child might taste bitter notes in a food when an adult does not, an adult might taste more sweetness in their food than their child does. 


From an evolutionary perspective, these predispositions are actually beneficial to our species’ survival (as is a general wariness of new foods!). Bitterness in plants is an indicator that the plant contains compounds which can reduce digestibility and/or cause illness. Children are even more susceptible to digestive upset than adults, and their heightened sensitivity to bitter flavors offers them increased protection. 


Alternately, sweetness in a plant is a sign of its ripeness, which is the time when it is least likely to contain toxins or compounds that reduce digestibility. In other words, sweetness is one sign that a plant is safe to eat. Sweetness is also an indicator of more calorie-dense foods. Since children have a higher need for energy-dense food than adults, it makes sense why they would find sweet foods extra appealing.


So there is a general biological basis for children having different food preferences from adults. But it doesn’t stop there! There are, in fact, a multitude of interrelated biological and environmental factors that influence a child’s eating tendencies:

De Cosmi V., Scaglioni S., Agostoni C. Early taste experience and later food choices. Nutrients. 2017;9:107

 

And based on their individual biology, some children are even more predisposed to food sensitivities than others. Some carry genes that heighten their sensitivity to bitter or sweet flavors. Others are highly sensitive to certain sensory properties of foods, such as smell, texture, or consistency.

 

However, parents can take comfort in the fact that regardless of individual differences, all children go through changes in their relationship with food. In fact, studies show that young children around the world demonstrate a cross-cultural tendency to resist and even refuse new foods. Why?

 

As children become more aware of the sensory properties of foods, they also begin to more closely scrutinize all foods. Much of this stems from a biologically-based fear response. During this period, children develop a much narrower category of “safety” for foods, which often focuses on predictability. Foods that are always the same in texture, flavor, and consistency (i.e. crackers) are highly predictable and thus feel safe. In contrast, foods that appear varied — or ones that look the same but have a different flavor or texture from one to the next (i.e. berries) — get lumped into the unpredictable and unsafe category. Even foods that were previously liked may get moved into the refusal category if it does not match the child’s new narrower criteria for “safe” foods.

 

The good news is that children can (and do) learn to like new foods! It just takes time and consistency. Research shows that it can take up to 15 (or even 20) exposures to a new food before a child decides to trust it. In fact, even after a child is willing to taste a new food, it may still take up to 15 more exposures for a child to decide they officially “like” it.

 

Uh-oh. Does that mean we must force our kids to eat steamed broccoli 30 more times before they’ll decide to like it?

 

Not at all!

 

Firstly, not every “exposure” to a new or refused food has to involve eating. The ultimate goal is indeed for your child to taste the food so that they can start to get familiar with its flavors and textures. So yes, it is important to continue offering your child the food at meal and snack times.

 

But even if your child staunchly resists eating that delicious lemon roasted broccoli at dinner tonight, you can still take advantage of the meal to show how you eat and enjoy it. Watching a trusted adult model their positive relationship with a new or refused food is an important form of exposure. (So remember to cook it in ways and recipes that you like, too!)

 

You can also use non-mealtime activities to get your child more interested in and comfortable with new or refused foods. One fun way to do this is to involve your child in learning activities based around food, such as reading books, singing songs, or sensory play. Another highly effective strategy is to invite your child to participate in the growing, harvesting, and/or preparing of their food. Doing this work together creates lots of pressure-free opportunities for children to see, feel, talk about, and even taste meal ingredients. It also allows you to naturally model your own familiarity, interest, and enjoyment of different foods.

 

Worried about finding time to start a family garden amidst your already busy schedule? Remember to utilize the resources you already have! Ask your local librarian for some great books. Invite a family member or friend to teach your child how to make their favorite dish. Explore a new world cuisine during family dinner! There are so many ways to build in exposure to foods in different forms, contexts, and cultures that can be both easy and fun.

 

For example, at A.L.M.A., we engage children in positive food exposure all day, every day. We are constantly talking about, learning about, singing about, reading about, and playing about food! We plant, tend, harvest, prepare, and eat our food together with the children. And we very intentionally include foods from a wide variety of cultures on our menus. Parents will often report back to us with shock that their child ate (and enjoyed!) something new at home, but we are not surprised! All of the work we do to build familiary and trust between us, the children, and our food makes them feel safe and encourages them to be brave.

 

It is important to note that while authoritative encouragement can be helpful, trying to pressure children into eating is generally counterproductive. Overt attempts to control what, when, or how much a child eats tend to create a power struggle. Increasing conflict over food then feeds into more fear-based responses and prevents your child from making consistent progress.

 

The best thing parents and caregivers can do is to control the environment that surrounds food at home. What does that mean? For one, don’t offer foods you don’t want kids to choose! Instead, provide lots of access to healthy foods and offer children genuine choice. Try the “Division of Responsibility” feeding model in which you choose which foods to offer for a meal, and your child freely chooses which to eat. You don’t have to wax poetic trying to convince your child to eat the broccoli. Just spending some intentional, screen-free time together during meals and modeling your own enjoyment of foods is enough.

 

Eating with your child also allows you to model different food vocabulary, which is more important than we often realize! There are so many ways to talk about foods that we like and foods that we don’t. However, many times children will simply say “I don’t like it” when they don’t want to eat a food, even if the problem is actually just that they are tired, not hungry, or wanted something different to eat.

 

We can use curiosity questions to help our children zero in more specifically on how they are feeling. Then we can model different vocabulary by talking about our own experiences with food. Helping our children to understand and express themselves more accurately can help avoid reinforcing the idea of “I don’t like it” in their minds (and ours!).

 

Parents are under an enormous amount of pressure to feed their children “well.” It makes sense why you might panic when you see your child’s accepted food list begin to quickly dwindle. But it is important to remember that a period of picky eating is normal in young children. And, in general, the best thing parents can do is to keep calm and stay the course. Studies assure us that kids will eventually accept new foods if we can just be positive and persistent.

 

 

References

Dewar, Gwen, Ph.D. “The Science of Picky Eaters: Why Do Children Reject Foods?” Parenting Science, https://parentingscience.com/picky-eaters.

 

DiGiulio, Sarah. “What Makes Kids Picky Eaters — and What May Help Them Get Over It.” NBC News, 10 Feb. 2018, www.nbcnews.com/better/health/what-makes-kids-picky-eaters-what-helps-them-get-over-ncna846386.

 

Loughborough University. “Food Refusal.” Child Feeding Guide, 2017, www.childfeedingguide.co.uk/tips/common-feeding-pitfalls/food-refusal/#:~:text=Why%20do%20children%20often%20refuse,had%20to%20scavenge%20for%20food.

 

Scaglioni, Silvia et al. “Factors Influencing Children's Eating Behaviours.” Nutrients vol. 10,6 706. 31 May. 2018, doi:10.3390/nu10060706.


About the Author 

Roxy Krawczyk is a Montessori teacher, education consultant, and freelance writer. She holds Montessori certifications in both early childhood (AMS) and adolescent education (AMI), as well as an M.A. in Education and a B.A. in English. Roxy has ten years of experience teaching in the classroom, and she has spent the last five years consulting for early childhood programs. She loves using her passions for education, research, and writing to help parents gain new insight into the ever-changing job of raising small humans! 

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Cultivating Community for Our Children

By Rita Castro Cassiano • December 4, 2023
Cultivating Community for Our Children by Roxy Krawczyk, M.A. Ed. Community can be very simply defined as a group of people who live in the same place or who share certain characteristics. But meaningful community — the kind that helps us to live healthier, happier lives — is about much more than just a collection of people. It’s about the connections between them. It’s true that communities develop around shared commonalities like location, values, and goals. What makes them come alive, however, are the relationships that arise from those common threads. These connections are what allow us to shift from surviving to thriving. Participating in community offers human beings a wide array of physical, psychological, and emotional benefits. Living in community gives us the unique advantage of coregulation, a process that balances our nervous systems through the people around us. This reduces our overall stress and leads to improved physical and mental health. Not surprisingly, there is a significant correlation between companionship and happiness! Community also provides us with important physical and emotional support. When difficulties arise, we have people who can offer us help and comfort. This interdependent network creates a feeling of security and increases our resilience. Just as importantly, our involvement in community helps us to develop a sense of personal identity. It provides us with the important feeling of belonging to something larger than ourselves. It fosters the development of our core values, which help to define us as individuals. And it provides opportunities to discover our unique strengths and passions as we share with and learn from others. Our interactions with our community help us learn about ourselves and make conscious decisions about who we want to be. There’s no doubt about it: community is critical to our development and success. And what is one of the very first communities that we belong to? Our school! School communities play a critical role in our early learning: social, emotional, and academic. This is because being and feeling safe is a fundamental human need. Until we feel safe, we cannot focus on much else! From a neurological standpoint, a sense of security allows our brain to better process and retain new information. From a psychological one, feeling safe encourages us to ask questions, take risks, and self-advocate. All of these factors lead to deeper learning. But the benefits don’t stop there. Studies have shown that students in schools with strong community are not just more likely to be academically motivated; they’re also more likely to develop social-emotional competencies, to act ethically and altruistically, and to avoid problematic behaviors like drug use or violence down the road (Schaps, 2003). Being part of a strong, healthy school community enables students to thrive in all aspects of their development. So how do we cultivate a strong school community? First, we establish and emphasize our common values. At A.L.M.A., our core values are compassion, respect, and equity. These values are the foundation on which we build our relationships, and they guide us toward mutual growth and success. Next, we maintain healthy, supportive relationships among students, teachers, and parents/caregivers. We do this by engaging in open, honest, and empathetic communication. We approach issues with a problem-solving mindset. We remember that we are all on the same team working toward shared goals, and we embrace our own vulnerability in the process. Finally, we create opportunities for connection and joy. We come together for social events, for volunteer work, for celebrations. We share. We laugh. We collaborate. We eat! We work to promote helpfulness and inclusiveness while getting to know each other on a deeper level. The more we connect, the stronger our community becomes. A strong school community benefits all of us, but especially our children. They reap the physical benefits of more consistent regulation and reduced stress. They learn more effectively. They develop social-emotional skills and core values that will anchor them throughout their lives. They get key insight into themselves and the beautiful diversity of others. They thrive. References Dixon, E. (2021) The importance of cultivating community . Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-flourishing-family/202108/the-importance-cultivating-community Jefferies, T. (2023) Why community is so important—and how to find yours . Reader’s Digest. https://www.rd.com/article/what-is-community/ Schaps, E. (2003) Creating a school community . ASCD. https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/creating-a-school-community Stein, S. (2023) The Importance of Community . Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-the-wild-things-are/202307/the-importance-of-community About the Author Roxy Krawczyk is a Montessori teacher, education consultant, and freelance writer. She holds Montessori certifications in both early childhood (AMS) and adolescent education (AMI), as well as an M.A. in Education and a B.A. in English. Roxy has ten years of experience teaching in the classroom, and she has spent the last five years consulting for early childhood programs. She loves using her passions for education, research, and writing to help parents gain new insight into the ever-changing job of raising small humans!

The Importance of Interdependence

By Roxy Krawczyk, M.A. Ed. • November 26, 2023
The Importance of Interdependence by Roxy Krawczyk, M.A. Ed. When it comes to raising young children, we talk a lot about developing independence . And rightly so — the period from birth to age six is an especially critical time for developing physical, mental, and emotional self-reliance. These are the years when children learn to move independently, to care for their own bodily needs, to express and resolve big feelings. But what about interdependence? Though it may not be talked about as much, this social dynamic is critical to developing sustainable health and happiness. So what is interdependence, and why does it matter? Interdependence is a state of being interconnected with others. Living in a state of interdependence means that our individual well-being is influenced by or dependent on the well-being of the people around us. This is in contrast to a state of independence in which we are entirely self-reliant, and our well-being is not influenced by the people around us. Independence is not a bad thing. Generally speaking, our goal is for our children to grow into self-supporting adults. We want our kids to be able to function independently. But we also don’t want them to stop there. We want our children to recognize the importance of interdependence. We want them to build mutual, reciprocal relationships with the people in their lives. Why? Because living and working cooperatively makes us healthier, happier, and more successful. Hundreds of studies have demonstrated that positive interdependence (i.e. cooperation) tends to result in higher achievement and productivity, more positive interpersonal relationships, and greater psychological health (Johnson, 2001). And not only are these benefits important for each individual, they also contribute to the overall health, wellness, and success of our collective. So how do we teach our children the importance of interdependence? And how do we help them build the skills they need to develop healthy, cooperative relationships? We talk about it, we practice it together, and we model it in our own lives. Highlighting moments of interdependence that already exist in your child’s everyday life is an easy place to start. You can chat about things like group projects at school, team sports, or cooperative work at home like chores and meal prep. Help your child to process these experiences by asking them questions: How do they feel about working with other people? What do they enjoy about a particular group activity? Is anything challenging? Follow your child’s cues, validate their feelings, and help them to empathetically problem-solve any issues that may arise. Speaking of chores and meal prep, involving your child in cooperative household activities has a wide range of benefits. It develops practical life skills and self-confidence, both of which are key to future independent success. And just as importantly, it also offers regular opportunities for your child to contribute to the family’s goals through meaningful interdependent work. Encourage your child to ask for help when you notice that they need more support with a task or project. Brainstorm with them about who might be a good resource. You can even help them make the request if needed. Remember to talk about your child’s strengths and talents, too! Highlight moments when they are able to offer support to a friend or family member. Reflect with them on how it feels to be able to help someone else. Use moments when you need assistance with something to verbalize your thinking out loud. This can be as simple as, “Gee, I’m really having a hard time with ____ . I think I’ll ask ____ for some help.” Demonstrate the ways in which you work cooperatively with other people in your own personal and professional life. Modeling is a very powerful tool. Acting with mutual support in our adult relationships — especially the ones our kids see every day, such as those between parents, caregivers, and educators — will naturally lead our children to build similar relationships in their own lives. While developing independence is undoubtedly important for young children, it is never too early to also begin fostering interdependence. Children as young as 1 year old can learn to ask for help, participate in cooperative activities, and absorb relationship modeling. Helping our children to build the skills for both independence and interdependence will help set them up for long-term health, happiness, and success. References Conley, Courtney. “Growing beyond Independence: The Benefits of Interdependence.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-daughter-doesn-t-have-be-miserable/ 202202/growing-beyond-independence-the-benefits. Accessed 16 Oct. 2023. Johnson, D. W., and R. T. Johnson. “Cooperation and Competition, Psychology Of.” International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2 Nov. 2002, www.sciencedirect.com/ science/article/abs/pii/B0080430767017988?via%3Dihub. Spendelow, Jason. “Interdependence: The Meaning and the Advantages.” The Practical Psychologist, The Practical Psychologist, 29 Aug. 2023, thepracticalpsych.com/blog/interdependent-meaning. About the Author Roxy Krawczyk is a Montessori teacher, educational consultant, and freelance writer. She holds Montessori certifications in both early childhood (AMS) and adolescent (AMI) education, as well as a Master of Arts in Education from St. Catherine’s University. Roxy has ten years of experience teaching in the classroom and has spent the last five years working as an educational consultant for early childhood programs. Prior to her work in education, Roxy earned a B.A. in English from Vassar College and was an editorial assistant in non-fiction book publishing. She loves using her passions for education, research, and writing to help parents gain new insight and tools for the ever-changing job of raising small humans .
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