Trick Your Kids into Eating Meals by Calling Them ‘Big Snacks’
My son is a person down to eat dinner basically at any point. It’s just before 10 a.m. as I write these words, and I bet he’d be game to eat dinner right now if I asked him. (He’d be surprised at the offer, but I’m almost certain that surprise would quickly be replaced by excitement.) This isn’t the case for all kids, though. I see you parents out there with the kids who just don’t seem to have the time or interest to consume a full meal in one sitting — and yet, these same kids will ask for a snack five minutes after leaving the dinner table.
A recent post on the Honest Toddler’s Facebook page paid homage to this common — and infuriating — inconsistency, and parents came with the perfect solution: a simple reframing may be all that’s needed. Consider this suggestion from a commenter named Mary:
I asked my son if he wanted a corn dog for dinner in an hour. He said no. I asked if he wanted a corn dog for a snack in an hour and yes got this huge smile and said yes and now I’m the coolest mum ever.
And then Laura tied it up nicely with a bow for us:
We call meals “big snacks” and it works like magic.
Stop Calling Kids ‘Picky Eaters’
Life is all about growing and learning and morphing (or attempting to morph) into the best possible versions of ourselves. As such, there is a certain thing I am going to stop doing, and I’d like you all to join me on this quest: I think it’s time that we...
Read moreYou can use whatever variation on this language most appeals to your kids. One commenter says she makes her kids a “snack lunch” everyday with finger foods; another kid prefers to call lunch a “snack plate.”
You can keep the lunch food itself the same; maybe just cut it up into bite-sized pieces or serve it in a bento box to make it look more snacky, and the kids will be fooled.
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