How your picky eater could be doing way better than you realise

A mum in the Complete Confidence Program told me a story that was so similar to a million others I hear on a regular basis that I had to share.

On the surface it does not seem as though this is a ‘win’ at all. In fact, many parents would have seen this as anything from frustrating to a disaster. Mum has been in the program long enough though that she was really excited and understood all the messages that her son was trying to communicate.

It was lunchtime on a Saturday, and she was eating crumbed calamari. Her primary-aged son Marcus* finds new foods really challenging but asked whether he could try the calamari. Mum said sure and he took a piece. He put the piece on his plate and stared at it for about ten minutes.

Finally, Marcus picked it up and took a tiny nibble of the crumb.

Fixing picky eating can be a real challenge. This is made twice as difficult when we miss cues that tell us actually our child is making progress. We are not taught to look for the subtle signs that say our hard work in fixing the problem is working.

We look for the obvious — our child is eating a new food — and for sure that is a great sign! But often there are many other little clues along the way that we miss. When we do not see these two problems arise: