Today, we wrap up our month of food here at We Turned Out Okay with a show on the mindset of getting our kids to eat!
If you have been loving the food/family focus this past month here at We Turned Out Okay, but didn’t have a chance to take notes, I have great news – I made you a FREE, two-page Food and Family infographic! It combines key takeaways from this month, favorite recipes, and grab-and-go snack ideas so that you can have all that information in one place. Best of all, when you print it out and put it up on the refrigerator, babysitters, grandparents, and older siblings will all have an idea of what to do when you’re not home and your little one is hungry
Go to weturnedoutokay.com/foodandfamily – see how well you do on my one-question food quiz – and sign up for the We Turned Out Okay Guide to Food and Family. (Note – if you’re reading this in iTunes but the link is not clickable, tap on the three dots to the right of this episode’s title to bring up a menu; choose View Full Description from that menu, and the link will be clickable 
During part one of How to Get Your Kids to Eat – back on March 1 – I shared about how I helped my picky eater become more adventurous (and my part in creating that picky eater in the first place). If you have picky eaters and you’re trying to get them to eat something, take a listen by clicking here or going to weturnedoutokay.com/059.
For today’s show, I’ve come up with three key aspects of the mindset you need when thinking about kids and food.
Click here or go to weturnedoutokay.com/065 for notes from today’s episode!
The three key aspects of a happy kids/food mindset:
1) make mealtime not so much about the meal, instead focusing on the fun aspects of sitting down together with family and friends – it’s more relaxing for everyone, and just a lot nicer to think about enjoying mealtime rather than girding for yet another food battle
2) take into account what your child has eaten over the course of a week, and try not to worry so much about what he or she has eaten at this meal, or even today; when he was younger, my Jay could go days and days without virtually any solid food, and even today will sometimes eat next to nothing… and then the next day or a few days later seems to have a hollow leg! Letting kids figure out for themselves when they’re full or when they’re hungry is key not just to avoid battles today, but so that our kids approach food in a healthy way as adults
3) eat a variety of foods; doesn’t that sound simple? And yet it can be so tough, when all they want in the world is nuggets and fries! Today I help you figure out how to make eating a variety of foods the reality in your home, even with your pickiest of eaters
Adapting your food and kids mindset to include these three aspects will, not coincidentally, allow you to worry less and enjoy more every day with your young child! I know this firsthand, because these were the three things that helped me get my kids to eat.
At the end of today’s episode, I shift gears and bring up an FAQ about my forthcoming book for parents of young children – Positive Discipline Ninja Tactics: Key Tools to Handle Every Temper Tantrum, Keep Your Cool, and Enjoy Life With Your Young Child – a favorite FAQ that, when I first read it, made me snort tea through my nose!
Q: How do I recommend Positive Discipline Ninja Tactics to my sister/cousin/best friend without saying in effect “hey, you’re a sucky parent – read this book!”?
A: We all know someone who we wish their parenting was better. Maybe they bring too much drama in, maybe they’re just too worried about everything child-related, maybe they fly off the handle really easily. How to recommend a book that will really, really help – without making them think you disapprove of their parenting style? Try this: make a general recommendation out to your social media peeps. Post into Facebook, twitter, instagram, or Pinterest and just say something like “here’s a book that I got a lot out of… Everybody should read it, you’ll love it and be a happier parent when you finish it!”
When Positive Discipline Ninja Tactics goes live in Amazon – the plan is currently for this to happen in April – it will be free for three short days! To get notified immediately the moment it goes live, go to positivedisciplineninjatactics.com; this is also where you can grab my anti-tantrum infographic, perfect for printing out and placing on the fridge so that babysitters, grandparents, and older siblings know how to handle a tantrum in your home!
Key Links
In today’s’s conversation, the following We Turned Out Okay episodes come up: weturnedoutokay.com/056 (how to handle every temper tantrum), weturnedoutokay.com/059 (about how I got my picky eater to become more adventurous), and weturnedoutokay.com/064 (feeding kids beyond Nuggets and Fries)
Click here or go to positivedisciplineninjatactics.com to sign up for your fridge-worthy anti-tantrum infographic and to get notified immediately when the book goes live in Amazon, because it will be FREE for three short days!
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