4 Surefire Ways to Get Your Kids to Eat Their F*cking Dinner
Supper doesn’t have to = shitshow.
It’s dinnertime, which is the Olympics of parenting. You’ve been training for this, and your competition is fierce. Too fierce. If you’re sick of losing and ready to be a winner, then you’ve come to the right place. Here are four surefire ways to get your kids to eat their f*cking dinner:
1. Add Sprinkles for Excitement
Your kid is whimsical, creative, brilliant… truly one of a kind. You can’t stifle her unique style and passion for life with a slab of chicken breast and some bland green beans. The key to getting this child to eat is to make her plate as beautiful and colorful as she is. Rainbow sprinkles, fluffy whipped cream, and tie-dyed designs should adorn every plate. If it takes you a few extra minutes to crochet her rainbow noodles into a three-dimensional unicorn, so be it. She deserves the best, and you need to step up your game.
2. Call It a “Snack” Instead of Dinner
The word “dinner” is so gross, isn’t it? Just straight up unappetizing. So you really can’t blame your kid for not wanting it. Snacks, however, are IT. In fact, if you really want your child to be well-nourished, you should call all meals snacks. Eliminate the words breakfast, lunch, and dinner from your vocabulary right now. Watch in amazement how calling meals snacks will actually reduce your child’s snacking. Instead, they will be mealing. You’re welcome.
3. Let Them Pick the Menu
The problem with children today is that they aren’t given enough power over the adults in their lives. It’s gotten so bad that this newest generation of children aren’t even eating their dinners. The best way to solve this is to let your child choose dinner every night. Here is a simple system you can put into place that will make your evenings so much more pleasant: Tell your child that you need to have the menu planned by 5:00 pm, which will allow you time to run to the grocery store. Limits are important, however, so let them know that they can only change their mind twice while you are cooking.
4. Use a Fun Dessert as a Motivator
Bribery is the best way to get a child to do anything. In fact, science says that bribing your kids raises alpha-adults who can manipulate their way out of any situation — score! Start with something small, like a cupcake, to motivate your child to eat their veggies. Each day, as the child becomes accustomed to your bribes, ratchet up the prize. Eventually, your kid will be eating Baked Alaska Flambé the size of his head prepared by a French chef you flew in from Paris. But those peas will be all gone, and you–the puppet master–will be the one laughing.
The Bottom Line
Whichever method you choose to get your kid to eat their f*cking dinner, remember that every cleaned plate is a trophy. Not for them, but for you. Carry that shit around in your purse and the next time some judgy mom gives you a side-eye at the playground because your angel is throwing sand onto her dirty kid, yank it out and rub it in her snotty face. Because we all know that the only metric for good parenting is how much dinner your child eats, and you play to f*cking win.
