FEATURED: Help! My 6 year old takes picky eating to a whole new place!

The Sneaky Chef is an awesome cookbook for any kid but particularly picky eaters. It incorporates a lot of good for you ingredients in ways that are unnoticable.

if she gets that worked up, i would send her away the table untils she composes herself, that way you let her know that the behavior is unacceptable w/out feeding it. explain to her that she is allowed to be upset, she's even allowed to throw a fit if she wants to, but she's going to do it where everyone else doesnt have to suffer.

one of my friend's pastor has a really great saying that applies well to parenting. "What you feed grows and what you starve dies" the more you fight with her the worse it's going to get.

i would also try talking to her about dinner and expectations well before dinner. explain to her why she has to eat a variety of foods and get enough to eat and gently remind her of these things you discussed while she's eating.

this is definately not an issue that's going to be solved even in a few months. we have been working on my daughter's menu and her pickiness for three and a half years.  you just have to keep at it, figure out what works, come up with alternatives and above all try not to make it fight. it does get easier. it's been about a year since we had the full on tears over food.

I have tried something like this too and sometimes it works and sometimes even the one bite turns into a tear-fest. The ones that go in get swallowed whole with a gulp of milk like a pill! What a diva!! :)

you can buy healthier pastas and breads, really if you eat these things in moderation they're not unhealthy. eating healthy is important, but it might be more effective to expand her horizons 1st and then adjust to healthier options. Gigi LOVES burritos, but burrito shells are terrible for you, so a few weeks ago i made her a burrito with a whole wheat flat bread wrap. it didnt go over well, so next time we'll try something a little closer to home, like maybe just a whole wheat flour torilla shell.

Maybe try having her help make dinner!  Sometimes if they have a hand in it, they are more willing to try it!  Or have her pick the veggie for the day and give her the options on how it can be served! 

I would try to take the power struggle out of it (though I know from experience this is easier said than done; one of my boys had eating issues to the extent he had feeding therapy for 7 months last year). I try to live by the philosophy that it's my job to offer them healthy options for meals and snacks, and their job to decide what and how much of those options to eat. I might try to talk up certain foods, how good they are, talk about how it's good to try new things, etc., but I don't force them. Recently I've been experimenting with having them try a "no thank you" bite of each thing on their plate before they're excused from the table but I'm not sure if I'll keep that up.

There's a book a lot of my friends have recommended called "How to Get Your Kids to Eat: But Not Too Much" that might be worth checking out to see if it has some good ideas for you.

Well, Im glad Im not the only one :) I do a lot of the same things- if we're having something spiced or otherwise not very kid-friendly ( like the chicken curry we had the other night that turned out super spicey!) I'll substitute with chicken nuggets or cook the kids' plain. also, I know she doesnt like mixed ingredient foods so I'll serve hers seperated out. Ive also added brocolli to pasta sauce before and she literally CRIED when she saw the tinie tiny pieces of green. My husband and I are commited to eating more healthy and so the easier things like pasta, breads and processed foods are mostly off the menu. Our diet is almost exclusively meats, veggies and fruit but I try to accomidate little taste buds as best as I can. Our little one eats or at least tries everything I put in front of him.

I guess Im worried that she's not willingly eating any veggies at all and that my efforts to get her to eat dinner with us is making unneccesary strife.