French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Billon (classic english novels txt) 📕

few after-school activities to sign up for, and we were home early enough every day for me to have time to throw something together, with the miraculous B.B. Kook (as we’d now rechristened it) as my mainstay.

I also planned some new Smart Things to Say, but I made sure that they were encouraging rather than frustrating for the kids.

“You don’t like it? That’s because you haven’t tasted it enough times yet. Maybe next time!”

“You don’t like it? That’s okay, you’ll like it when you are more grown up.”

“You’re hungry? That’s fine. You’ll really appreciate your [insert next meal]. We’re having something really yummy: [insert name of dish].”

In spite of my stress, and to my amazement, The Plan continued to work. The girls didn’t try every soup the first time. But after two or three weeks, they had tried everything on my list. This was another thing I learned from the parenting books: assess the quality of a child’s food intake over a period of a week (or weeks) rather than demanding a completely balanced meal every time they sit down.

I made a point of leaving the food in front of them even if they didn’t want to taste it while Philippe and I ate our servings. After seeing us eat, the girls would usually be convinced to put a tiny bit in their mouths. Sometimes, though, we’d have to wait until the next appearance on the menu. Unsurprisingly, Claire was an even more avid taster than Sophie (who usually had to be convinced to follow her younger sister’s lead).

From my research, I had learned that “peer-to-peer marketing” works too. The funniest experiment I found was one where scientists created a new blue-colored food for kids and tracked whether positive or negative messages from fellow students would increase or decrease consumption. The results were predictable: peer pressure works. But what was fascinating was that kids who had received positive peer messages about the new blue food were more likely to try another new food the next day, even when on their own.

After reading this (and thinking about “positive messaging”), we also tried to change our language. I avoided saying that foods tasted “bad” or “good.” I used only positive words, such as “good” or “tasty.” If I thought something wasn’t healthy, I said so, and explained why, using the word “unhealthy” rather than “bad.” And the girls, in turn, were encouraged to use this language.

To convince the girls to move on to eating the vegetables in their more adult version (and to make sure I got even with my brother-in-law, who had been teasing me about my “liquid diet fad”), I made sure that the vegetables turned up in solid form—both raw and cooked—within a week of being eaten in a soup. This was less complicated than it sounded once I had planned the menus out in advance. I just put aside some of the vegetables before making the purees, and pulled them out of the fridge a couple days later. Chopping them into thin strips and serving only a few small, lightly steamed pieces made it easier for the girls to eat them. “The point is that they taste these things,” I reminded myself, “not that they eat a whole bunch.” Small servings took the pressure off me and off them too. And I made sure to serve the new vegetables with something they liked, so pasta appeared on the menu more often than I wanted in those first few weeks. But when it did, vegetables and pasta were served tossed together, and we all—even Philippe and I—followed the “one piece of pasta, one bite of vegetables” rule. Philippe soon had the girls laughing with his mock attempts to sneak extra bites of pasta, and his good-humored willingness to be “caught” made it easier for the girls to follow the new rule too.

Most important, my husband and I made sure that at least one parent sat down to eat with the kids. Our usual pattern was for one of us to be at work, with the other running around the house (doing laundry, cleaning, sending emails, opening mail) while the kids ate. Now, we took the time to sit down with them. We ate exactly what they ate, because I had also learned through my research that what parents themselves eat in front of their children (rather than what they tell their kids to eat) is the best predictor of kids’ eating habits.

In line with our theme of “festive and fun,” I had also decided to do away with punishments. But there were, Philippe’s mother explained to me, natural consequences that flow from the French approach to eating. Most important, meals are eaten in a logical sequence: entrée, plat, salade, and then dessert. If you don’t follow the order, you’ve broken the rule, and there is a consequence: if you don’t eat your entrée or plat, then no dessert. I explained this sympathetically to the girls, and they accepted it more quickly than I did. I was helped by the fact that lots of French kids’ books seemed to carry this message: there was Michel the “naughty” mouse, who tried to eat his dessert first, or Amélie, the little girl who didn’t get dessert because she said “non” to her carrots. A little propaganda couldn’t hurt my cause, so we made sure to read these stories regularly.

Sophie, however, tended to complain at every meal, and the effect on Claire was immediate. When simple encouragement didn’t stop Sophie’s complaints, I implemented Mamie’s approach: if you complain about the food, no dessert. Sophie didn’t quite believe me, but I told her in advance, and she only tested the new rule once. It was, I told her firmly, not a punishment, but simply a logical, natural consequence of her behavior: I worked hard to prepare nice meals, and her complaints (along the lines of “ooh, gross”) felt like insults. Instead of complaining, we offered, she could simply say, “Non, merci.” I think the