These are my dilemnas, if someone could offer some advice. 1)Even when we follow all of the above "meal-time" rules, there are often times she won't eat, and is asking for food with-in a half hour. I am not about to make her a full meal again, but I also don't want her to just have a snack. 2)She is a slow-poke eater and sometimes takes 45 minutes to eat when the rest of us are done in about 20 minutes.

I will definitely take the advice of the earlier comment and try to involve her in meal prep. Great idea.

To offer advice for the one who doesn't like salad greens: We had salad for lunch one day when some friends were visiting. My daughter refused the salad, like she usually did, which was okay with me at the time b/c I hated salad as a young child, although I did want her to learn to eat it. My friend said, "oh Abigail, it's fun to eat salad, you can pick it up with your fingers and dip it in the dressing." Now, I've never seen anyone eat salad with their fingers, but this hooked Abigail. She has eaten salad ever since and has finally progressed to using a fork. She loves the "red dressing" (catalina) and has even tried the "white" (ranch).

And a side note with food aversions: I am much more lenient with not having abigail try something if I know I disliked it as a child. It's a good reminder for me to be more patient with her when dealing with food, because food aversions are real, (I hated tomatoes!!! and raisins cooked in things. I still don't like cooked raisins), and I need to remember that when dealing with her.

Hope this is helpful! :)

Reading some of your comments and stories, I think that we may have been blessed with a fairly agreeable daughter when it comes to food. She certainly has her likes and dislikes, and it has been a process to teach her to eat many new foods, but overall we are not dealing with especially strong aversions, gag reflexes, etc.

The conclusion that I am seeing over and over again is one simple word- balance!

Balance between offering and tastily preparing new and healthy foods, and yet not force feeding them. Doing your best as the parent to set the example, take the lead, and help to encourage healthy eating with your own positive attitude, but also knowing when to back off from a child who is truly having a difficult time with a particular food. And knowing the difference between a physiological struggle to eat (ie. gagging, or extreme aversion or fear), and a disobedience issue.

It just reminds me of the fact that parenting is something that we do not have the resources or strength to do on our own, but only through the grace of God, and His spirit working in us. Very little in parenting is cut and dried- each child is different and so is each family, and God is faithful to provide what we each need to parent the children that He has given to us.

I would like to add that I agree so much with the comments about including children in the food preparation process, and that is actually one of the next posts I plan to write in this series!

Anyways, I enjoyed all of the comments last time and have enjoyed the discussion going on this time. I agree that it's a good idea to keep offering and encourage bites of new dishes etc. while keeping a kid's personal abilities and such in mind.

I'd also like to comment on something Rosemary said--how involving her kid in the process of preparing foods helped him accept the food more. I have also found that to be really helpful, and it has other benefits as well! :D And Tami mentioned perseverance with offering foods in a non-confrontational way. I have also found that to be helpful. A few times our 2 year old has absent-mindedly tasted something she normally rejects and ended up eating most of it!

Healthy eating doesn't necessarily come naturally, so we do need to help our children train their palates toward healthy choices. I think it's important and even necessary. Feeding our growing, developing children healthy food is very important, as is teaching them to eat healthfully and to see the value of it. I do want to make that clear, that I'm not about making the child in charge or something, or that we have to pander to every whim of our children. I just know that it is important to balance all of that with what our children are capable of. :)

I think I said it before, but I was a VERY picky eater with some true food aversions. At 26, only a few of the true aversions I had exist, and I am far more likely to try new things and appreciate old things that I could not stomach before. And that took some discipline on my part, but it also was just growing up. :)

But if a new food bothers them, I just reintroduce it in a few weeks. For the most part, my daughter is consistant. She doesn't like asparagus, peaches, tomatoes, onions or olives.

We believe strongly in first-time obedience and are aiming for that in every area. However, food just isn't an obedience issue to me. I've found ways to cook healthy and tasty and my family pretty much eats what I cook. If occasionally they don't like something, it doesn't offend me, nor do I think it is disobedient to express a desire to not eat it.

There have been a few "showdown" times when my daughter has been defiant about food - throwing it, spitting it, etc. We deal with those issues like every other obedience issue. It's not fun at the time, but she is a very pleasant two year old to take to a restaurant because of those times.

There are some scientists that theorize that some people are super-tasters--they experience food tastes and textures more intensely than the rest of us. I think that might be true of my son. Food used to be a battleground for us and then I realized that I am punishing him for being who God made him to be. It wasn't an issue of the will. It was an issue of torture.

Our current policy is that I cook one meal a night (I refuse to be a short order cook). I serve small amounts of new or disliked foods to my son and make sure there is something (even if it is fruit and milk) available that he likes. If he eats everything that is served to him, he has the option of getting himself something else to eat. If he doesn't eat it, there is no discussion, he is just done eating for the night. There are plenty of evenings that he happily chooses to not eat what he is served, he doesn't complain, and he is excused hungry. Those are the days that I don't have to drag him out of bed the next morning! He is up before I am getting his breakfast. :-)

A turning point for me was when I asked myself what do I want my children to be when they are older? Is it absolutely necessary to eat everything they are served? Or is it important for them to eat a healthy variety, be able to politely refuse food they dislike and make sure that they don't offend the person preparing food for them?

My son is 14 now and I won't say that the toddler years weren't difficult at times. I do think that we need to be careful to offer a variety of foods, encourage and praise them for trying new things, but ultimately to love them and not make the dinner table a battleground. There are plenty of other opportunities to teach our children about obedience and submission.