Cooking with ‘picky eaters’

Cooking with children is a really lovely thing to do because not only is it an opportunity for some fun times together, it also gives your child a sense of awe and achievement when they see what they have made. There is something magical about mixing a load of different things into a sloppy mess, putting it into the oven then, voilà! The alchemy has happened and something new has been created.

Some people will tell you that cooking with children will cure ‘picky eating’. Not so! If only it were so simple. However, it can be a great way of building kids’ food confidence. Especially if there is a sensory element to their food avoidance – interacting with ingredients in a way they can cope with, will be really positive for them.

Sometimes, children will surprise you and will want to taste the fruits of their labours, or will try ingredients along the way. This can happen because, if meals have been stressful for a while, negative associations with being at the table may have built up. In other words, children may come to associate mealtimes with bad feelings, so they shut down and stay emotionally safe by keeping well within their comfort zone. Cooking in the kitchen can be a bit of a clean slate; the kitchen can be a space free from all of those pressures and worries and children may feel bolder than they do during meals. Don’t expect this, though!

Here is my advice for cooking with children who are anxious eaters:

1. Be very clear about your goals. If your goal is for your child to eat or try foods, it will be extremely hard to avoid pressuring them to do so. Pushing them to taste things will make their eating worse.
2. Let your child set the pace. They know best what they can handle. Maybe they are okay with stirring the ingredients, but not touching them with their fingers. That’s fine. Help them engage with the task at whatever level they are ready for.
3. Make the focus preparing food for others. That way, the pressure is off from the start. If you talk about how ‘you’re really going to enjoy these delicious cookies’, even if you don’t plan to pressurise them to try a cookie, talking like this is a type of pressure in itself. Making cookies for Grandma is way less fraught and they can feel proud of themselves for doing something nice for Grandma.
4. Use tools to help your child enjoy the activity in a way they can feel good about. Maybe they could use tongs to pick ingredients up if they don’t like the feel of them. Maybe they could wear (appropriate) gloves if this helps with tactile sensitivity.
5. Introduce new foods during cooking before introducing them in the context of a meal. This way, your child gets a genuinely positive and pressure free opportunity to interact with something unfamiliar, before they even consider putting it in their mouths. Like meeting a new friend in a fun and informal environment rather than at a job interview (kind of…).
6. Use cooking as an opportunity to model how you experience the sensory aspects of the foods you are handling. You can describe how the flour feels soft, or the cucumber is wet on your fingers. This will help your child learn to explore, articulate and reflect on their experience of the sense data they get from their food.
7. Never have any expectations that your child will actually try or eat the food you are preparing together. Yep, I know I have said that already, but I am saying it again because it is SO important. If you only take one thing from this article, I want it to be this.

I’d love it if you post some recipe ideas in the comments; share the dishes you enjoy preparing with your child. Also, check out the regular ‘Maker Monday’ thread in Parenting Picky Eaters on Facebook… this is our regular weekly recipe thread which is full of inspiring ideas from group members. Happy cooking!