What if your other child is following your fussy eater?

Siblings are always going to copy each other to some extent, and it is usually the behaviours you like the least that they follow the most 😊

If your child who is a fussy eater is the oldest it can make the situation even more tricky as they are modelling behaviour for the younger ones. Young children often look up to big brother or sister and want to copy what they are doing.

Why is your other child following your fussy eater?

If we have a picky eater they are often being inadvertently rewarded. We are obviously not meaning to reward them for their fussy eating, but it often ends up like that. There may be one or more of the following that apply in your family:

1. Their food is cool. Everyone else maybe wading through a stew, but the fussy eater has a plate of ‘high reward food’ in terms of crunchy, salty, sweet, moreish.

2. They can leave it. If the food is not to their liking, they get to leave it. Meanwhile the rest of the family is eating things that are okay, but not favourites every time.

3. Attention. They get a LOT of attention. Yes, much of this is negative, but attention is attention, and it becomes self-replicating.