October 5, 2010 Onion Soup? No Way! Mac and Cheese? OK!
Think parents are the ones pushing their kids to try new foods and it's the kids who are always resisting? Sometimes it’s the opposite.
The other day I overheard a conversation between a mother and her toddler as they were heading towards a restaurant for lunch. I didn’t hear what item the child had said she wanted to eat, but this is the exchange that followed:
- Mother: “Oh, you won’t like that.”
- [Long Pause]
- Child: “Macaroni and cheese?”
- Mother: “OK!”
I have to admit, it took all the self-control I could summon not to point out to this mother that:
- She had just missed a golden opportunity to introduce her daughter to a new food.
- In doing so, she produced the very problem she was most afraid of. She taught her daughter that Mom prefers it when she makes safe choices, not when she tries new foods.
- All of this happened because of a prediction, which research tells us, is usually incorrect.
What's the answer? Become an optimist!
(You'll be happy to hear that I restrained myself from saying these things because accosting strangers on the street has not proven to be an effective strategy for getting my point across.)
If you want your kids to try new foods you have to be an optimist.
Parents who tend towards an optimistic outlook expose their children to more new foods because they are more likely to think their kids will like (and eat) them. But this mother was channeling her inner skeptic, and that’s not a profitable position for parents hoping to expand their children’s palates.
I know this mother wasn't thinking about new foods. She was thinking that if she ordered the food her daughter asked for:
- The meal would probably go untouched.
- Then she would have a hungry child on her hands.
- During the time it would take to order another meal, the one the mother knew all along that her daughter would prefer, her daughter would go from being just a hungry child to being a really, really hungry child.
I sympathize, I really do. But in an effort to avoid a hungry-child-meltdown, not to mention the money wasted on an uneaten meal, this mother missed an opportunity to expand her daughter's culinary horizons. She also contributed to the very problem so many mothers complain about—their kids won't try new foods.
Your feeding style can become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Since exposure is the key to new food acceptance, the optimistic strategy ends up reinforcing itself: not only do these parents discover more likeable foods, they actually train their kids to like more of the foods they taste.
The pessimistic strategy reinforces itself too: parents who offer fewer new foods constrict their children’s taste preferences by exposing them to the same (small) set of foods—repeatedly. By erring on the conservative side, pessimistic parents reduce the number of meals their kids reject. On the other hand, pessimistic parents also experience more missed opportunities to introduce their children to new foods that their kids would actually like.
(By the way, one solution would have been for this mother to honor the child’s request and to make the safe order herself. That way if the child rejected her meal, mom and daughter could have switched. For more on this topic read Using Restaurants Right.)
Research shows that parents aren’t particularly accurate when it comes to predicting their children’s taste preferences.
Young kids can be pretty flaky about food. That’s why You Can’t Feed Your Way Out of a Picky Eating Problem.
So instead of sharpening your prophesy skills, consider your outlook. Then, if you want to make predictions, remember these tips:
- Parents are better at predicting what their kids will like than what they won't like.
- If you're trying to forecast the acceptability of a familiar meal, you've got a good chance of being correct. If you're making predictions about something your kids have never seen before, it's a coin toss.
- When they have nothing better to go on parents typically rely on their own taste preferences, but research shows that the correlation between what parents like and what their kids like is weak at best. Researchers call this the "family paradox."
So, the next time you're tempted to make a prediction, remember to see the baby bottle (or your martini glass) as half full instead of half empty. It'll do you, and your kids, a load of good.
~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~
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Source:
Mata, J., B. Scheibehenne, and P. M. Todd. 2008. “Predicting Children's Meal Preferences: How Much Do Parents Know?” Appetite 50: 367-75.
Reader Comments (5)
Loved this! As the mother of girls ages six and two, I try really hard not to set up those self-fulfilling prophecies. It can be hard.
This past weekend, we stopped by a specialty grocery to get some good ground beef for hamburgers. The meat and seafood section was giving samples of marinated octopus and anchovies. Our older girl said, "Mmmm, I'd love to try the little fish!"
I actually took a step or two back to make sure she didn't get any yuck-vibes from me (I've tried both of those, and, um, no). I also wanted to let her interact with the staff and own the experience for herself. While she was sampling, I said to the younger daughter, "Hey, isn't it cool that Ava is trying something new?"
Ava loved them, and we ended up buying a package of anchovies to take home.
I certainly don't get it right every time, but this experience felt good. I love when they're adventurous and always compliment them on it--my line is, "It's fun to find new things to like!"
Congratulations on being able to contain the "Yuk!" And for doing such a good job encouraging your girls to be adventurous.
Don't worry so much about your own response to food as long as you keep encouraging your kids to sample stuff. The research shows that kids and parents frequently don't like the same foods. Plus, if your daughters are at all interested in freaking you out, they'll deliberately eat stuff you hate! That's what my daughter does to me with blue cheese. YUK.
Dina
Hello Dina! How fun to read this post after seeing you last week at the Holistic Mom's meeting (I'm the one who felt so transparent ~ I"m sure you remember!). Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that after one of week of LOOSELY following what you said about "different foods, different days" and changing the proportions of healthy vs. not, I've had quite a few revelations!
First, I was definitely the pessimistic parent ~ and I'm changing that pronto!
Second, I discovered my children are more adventurous than I gave them credit for. My 5 year old tried lobster out at a restaurant (he didn't like it but it was his idea to try it!). He also came up with his own banana smoothie recipe that he actually likes ~ and this is the first smoothie he's EVER liked! I also discovered my children and especially my 2 year old likes raw carrots. I'd offered carrots to them before a few times and they didn't like them so I just stopped. Now I know I just have to keep offering them new foods all the time ~ and never give up.
Third, I also discovered my children are much more comfortable with boundaries that I am! It never felt natural for this free-wheeling mama to set boundaries, but now I see that the boys actually respond to them with little struggle. We've gone from being a "juice-anytime" household, to only once or twice a day ~ and sometimes they forget! They're enjoying herbal teas with me and asking for FAR less sweets because I think their taste buds for sugar has gone down a notch.
It's only been 9 days since doing all this and I'm sooo pleased with the direction we're heading! So THANK YOU for doing such awesome, important work!!! (And just wait until I tell my boys about the bugs in the food-dye that your daughter wrote about!)
Thanks, Dina!
Love and Sparkles,
Kate
Kate,
You made my day! Thanks for sharing all the progress you've made since the workshop. I'm thrilled, really thrilled!
Dina
You are so, so right! I believe, too, that it's parents that can sometimes make their children picky eaters. Either they get into a rut of what they like to eat and never think beyond those choices. Or, they are picky eaters (or IMO not adventurous!) so limit their children. I did a post last year that asked parents to look at themselves and see if they were making picky eaters out of their children. It's funny how sometimes parents can see the things in their children that they want to mold and change but have a much harder time doing it themselves!
Great advice here!