If your child is a fussy eater and you’re at your wits end to get him to eat, here’s a tactic that seems to work for me quite consistently:

Let your child observe other children eating.

Nearly every time we have gone out with other parents who have children around the same age as Gavin, Gavin generally eats a lot more than he usually does.  And if we want him to eat even more, all we have to do is offer his food to the other child and Gavin will go into hoarding mode. 

For instance, I offered him a biscuit which he declined.  When his friend asked if he could have one of Gavin’s biscuits, Gavin suddenly decided he wanted a biscuit, too.

Of course, I suppose it takes a certain personality in a child for this to work…

I should have thought of this earlier, though.  When I was studying Dentistry, one of the behaviour modification techniques we were taught was called “modelling”.  One of the ways to help young children accept dental check-ups is for them to observe another child getting a check-up in a positive environment.  Being able to see that the other child is happy and unafraid of getting the check-up helps to reassure them that there is nothing to fear about having the procedure done on themselves.

Incidentally, while I was passing the time in a shopping mall in JB, I saw a VCD that is supposedly designed to help encourage your child to eat healthy food called Baby Gourmet.  There are three volumes, but I only saw volume 2 and 3 for sale.  I decided to buy volume 2 and try it out on Gavin, especially since it received the Dr Toy award - Gavin’s Thomas the Tank Engine book had also received the Dr Toy award and he loved that book so I figured we couldn’t go too far wrong with this VCD.  Besides the VCD was on RM15.90 - a small price to pay if it meant my son would eat better.

Since I bought the VCD, I’ve played it once for Gavin.  He paid little to no attention to the VCD which is basically a recording of various food pictures and soothing music in the background.  Perhaps it would have worked better if I had started using it on Gavin when he was younger and less discerning about what he watched on TV? 

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