Toddlers are notoriously challenging when it comes to eating. What a toddler liked to eat one day, they will throw across the room the next. Trying to feel Zen peacefulness around the dinner table may seem like a far off dream. Even if you were conscientious about exposing them to a large variety of foods when he was a baby, by the time he is a toddler; your child will have his own ideas when it comes to eating.
Creating Zen at the dinner table with a toddler who is a picky eater seems a laughable prospect at first. Parents often feel helpless when confronted by their toddlers eating habits. We end up becoming short order cooks, resort to uncomfortable discipline tactics or give in and let our picky toddlers eat whatever they want. All of these options end up in parents compromising their values and often feeling guilty over their toddlers eating problems.
Eating Zen is achievable, however. Zen is based in simplicity and there are simple ways to make mealtime a more peaceful and pleasant experience for everyone, even with the pickiest toddlers.
Create Compassion and Appreciation for Food
Appreciation and compassion are at the core of Zen thinking. Involving even the youngest toddlers in the shopping, preparation and process of food production is always a good idea. If Zen is achieved first at the grocery store, it’s more likely you’ll be enjoying a Zen meal later on. Let toddlers have their own cart and shopping list at the grocery store or let them actively help you pick out the food that you’ll be adding to the cart. Smell the fruit, explain your choices and ask your toddler questions about the food you see.
Make connections for children that they will understand by focusing on their five senses. For example, one tomato not smell as good as another? Explain that one probably travelled across the country or the world, where another was grown locally. Or, if your child wants a name brand and you want the generic because it’s a better value, let your toddler feel the weight difference between the two foods and ask which is heavier and if he thinks it’s fair to charge more for less.
Empathize with Toddlers
Toddlers are picky eaters because a young child has young taste buds that haven’t yet been scorched by hot cheese or sanded down by the rough sugar on sour candy. A toddler’s taste buds are sensitive, so what you think is them being picky, could just be them tasting the food you are tasting differently. Our tastes change and evolve as we age, so while you don’t have to make a separate meal for your picky toddler to eat, you should dish out their portion before it is seasoned and sauced up. Zen can also be achieved by simply adding a dressing a picky toddler likes to a food you wouldn’t normally think of adding it to.
Zen is not achieved when given attention sporadically, so repetition is the key when it comes to presenting food choices to picky eaters. Regain Zen by thinking of each try as practice, even if it takes hundreds of times, even a picky toddler will eventually eat the food that they are most familiar with (although it may just be a bite or two at first).
Slow Down
Zen is not achieved in a day. Don’t put a time limit on dinner. Your toddler may not be a picky eater, but an eater who picks at their food. Eating slowly and purposefully is the Zen way to appreciate what you are eating, no matter what age you are.
Turn eating into a game by taking bites together or counting the times that you chew up each bite. A lot more food gets into a toddler’s tummy if they are sitting in front of it for 15 minutes then if it’s only there for five. Once dinner is over, pick up the food and put it away. Leaving it out with the hope that a picky toddler will eat more usually doesn’t work. If you save it, store it properly so that it is still fresh the next time you present it to your child.
Listen to Your Child
Instead of getting angry the next time your toddler won’t eat or won’t stop eating, question them instead. Anger shatters Zen. A picky toddler may be feeling ill, sad, overly excited, just trying to get attention or just want to feel like they are in control. A toddler’s growing sense of independence can come through in many ways, even at the dinner table. Create a Zen eating experience by turning off distractions like television and computers.
Be open to the idea that your food choices may not be right for your child. Zen masters study heavily to practice what young children know instinctively, as they are fresh from the source. A picky toddler could be refusing foods because of a food allergy or reaction that they can’t yet describe, for instance.
It is hard to have a feeling of Zen about processed foods, as they are often complicated by considerations like food quality. If you are asking a toddler to eat processed foods, ask picky eaters if they find it too salty, greasy etc. and adjust accordingly.
If your child is over-indulging in food in a way that is making you uncomfortable, express your concerns and ask them what it is that they like about their favorite foods. Tap into the Zen of this positive experience and try to replicate the characteristics of their favorites in other foods. For instance, if your toddler asks for cake at every meal, it may be the texture that he likes. Offer your child a muffin or nutritious dense bread instead.
Dump Expectations
Above all, eating Zen means recognizing that each child is unique. Appreciate any small successes and abandon any expectations about what a toddler should or should not be eating. Supplement eating foods with vitamins, if necessary, and ignore naysayers that condemn your food choices for your child. Have faith that everything will work out just fine and eventually it probably will.