When Children Try New Foods...Top Tips!

Welcome to spring! :-) 

How I love this time of year, the sense of awakening, opening, freshness and colour that starts to creep out across the land. And not forgetting the wonderful warm sunshine! 

Talking about 'opening up to new things', I thought this would be perfect for another of our archive gems to get you excited! 

This Month we are looking at 6 Tips that can help children open up to trying fruits and vegetables. 

Have meal times become a battle zone trying to get your children to eat their greens? 

Do you struggle introducing new foods to them, only to have them demand chips and ketchup instead?

Wouldn't it be great to eliminate these struggles once and for all? Notice how great that would feel!

Click here to find out what the 6 Tips are...

http://myfruitandvegetablefriends.blogspot.com.es/2013/08/top-tips.html

And I invite you too, to post in the messages below what tips do you find work for your and your children? 

Metaphors: Encouraging Fussy Eaters

I came across an interesting article on PositivleyPositive.com the other day. A great read on how to help children talk about their feelings. A simple story of a mother and child sharing a moment of honesty to help resolve an argument (you can read the article using the link below).  

Metaphors are also a great way to teach children. Metaphors (a story with a parable) are used in NLP to help the unconscious mind unlock solutions and answers within which can help any given situation. The receiver becomes so wrapped up in the story that they don't realise there is a meaning and solution hidden in there. All is not lost though, the unconscious mind is paying attention and challenging situations and unhelpful habits can quickly be resolved. Here is a great one to use with children for healthy eating...

Here's a little story about Sue...Sue loves music. Everyone has certain types of music they like to listen to and Sue is the same. There is music to relax to, music to dance to, and music to cheer you up. Sue has just the right piece of music already for each of these things. 

She thought to herself one day, "It's funny how my brain knows without even thinking what my ears need to hear to make me feel a certain way". Sue then thought of a time when she heard a piece of music which she knew she didn’t want to listen to. It may have been a great piece of music by a fantastic singer, but it just didn’t settle well with her. She can often tell these tunes just by skimming through a music collection menu when deciding what to listen to. Sue trusts her senses and hears what they are saying. 

Sue now happily lives a healthy life enjoying a wide variety of music, knowing that her ears are receiving many different types of wonderful sounds. Sue also listens to new, unknown music every now and again, feeling excited at what wonderful things she may learn and experience. Some of her favourite songs today that she loves were once a new, unknown song for her in the past. Sue is very happy to have tried listening something new as she now dances to her new favourite song.

You needn't explain the metaphor, just notice what shifts may occur in your child being more open to trying new things and listening to what their body needs. They are a lot smarter than we give them credit for sometimes!

Article - Communication Tools To Help Kids Talk About Their Feelings