8 Tips for Getting Your Foster Children to Eat Healthier Foods

It can be a real challenge to get any child to eat something that is green, so when it comes to vegetables, particularly if they are green, they will be rejected most of the time by a very high percentage of children. Encouraging healthy eating for foster children can bring even greater challenges!

This aversion to ‘greens’ has been one of life’s mysteries for as long as anyone can remember! There’s just something about green veggies that seem to repel children. Once you get them to sample various vegetables, it’s usually not an issue. It’s the time leading up to that that has left you in a quandary. How do you get children, and especially foster children, to eat greens and other healthy foods they literally refuse to try?

Check out the following eight tips to see if maybe there is something that would work for you.

1. Don’t Press the Issue

When considering foster children, you may know something about their history, but probably not a lot about the foods they were introduced to at a young age. With this in mind, it is not at all helpful to insist that they eat everything on their plate.

Bear in mind that most children are rebellious by nature. If you are interested in fostering, wherever you are based you will go through similar introductory processes. If you are fostering in Birmingham or anywhere else in the UK, it will be explained that the most important aspect of being a foster carer is to build a relationship with these children. They are probably hungrier for that than for any food you can place before them!

The first step in getting foster children to sample healthier foods is to gain their trust.

2. Work on the Reward System

One thing you can try is to work on a reward system you’ve created. This is a concept central to Behaviour Modification that has been practised successfully in schools and childcare centres for several decades.

The premise is that everyone, especially adults, needs to be rewarded for the things they do. You wouldn’t, after all, go to work every day if you weren’t getting paid, would you?

If you see that as something different from getting children to eat their veggies, remember that it will, indeed, be “work” for them to try something that looks so evil in their mind!

Devise a reward system based on their willingness to try healthier foods and up the ante if they actually eat the whole serving. The reward system is one of the best tools you can have in your array.

3. A Little Bit of Theatre Goes a Very Long Way

One thing many parents and foster carers have learned is the art of disguise much like costumes in a theatre production. For example, if children refuse to eat greens you can chop them finely in a food processor and then add them to meatballs. Children are used to seeing green specks in their meatballs because of the parsley, so they don’t pay attention to it.

Also, you can juice veggies and then add a dark colour fruit juice to the blend such as grape, blueberry or blackberry juice.

Use spiral-cut zucchini (courgettes), for instance, instead of spaghetti and by the time they realise it’s not pasta they will be in love with the taste and texture.

4. Let Them Plan the Vegetable of the Day

Something else that often works is letting them have a turn planning the vegetable of the day. You might get the same veggie every time it is their turn to choose, but at least you will get a clue as to which vegetable they are not averse to.

At this point, it helps if you can get all the adult family members to praise the vegetable they’ve chosen. Have them say something about how it is one of their favourites and that they wish you would prepare it more often. You’d be surprised at how well this works. Children actually like to make you happy!

5. Introduce Tasty Fruit Snacks Instead of Sweets

Unless you’ve developed a working relationship with their birth parents, you may not know what kind of foods they’ve enjoyed in the past. At this point, it’s trial and error but the one thing you know without a doubt would be that all children love sweets.

Instead of buying them sweets and cakes, you might want to buy natural fruit snacks without added sugar. Some have been sweetened with natural alternatives like agave, but even if not, they are still much more nourishing that a chocolate bar.

6. Teach Them to Cook These “Hateful” Foods

Children are also proud of their accomplishments. Start teaching them how to prepare some of the foods they don’t like. Even if they only help to stir the food or rinse fresh vegetables before you steam them, children will have played a role in preparing that night’s dinner. It usually encourages them to eat what they’ve helped with. After all, they “did” help you cook that night.

7. Encourage them to grow their own veggies

Growing your own veg is something that all the family can get involved with. Even if you don’t have a garden, you’ll be surprised at what you can grow in small pots on sunny windowsills.

Many vegetables such as salad crops and herbs are very fast-growing and children will love watching the little green shoots peeping up through the soil. Most children enjoy this experience and relish eating food that they have grown themselves.

Growing your own fruit and veg is not only an excellent way to encourage healthy eating for foster children, but you’ll be eating fresh, chemical-free produce and saving money at the same time.

8. Express Pride in Their Efforts

Children love to be praised. That’s a fact. Each and every time they at least make an attempt at trying new food, praise them for their efforts.

“I know how difficult for you that was, but you did it! I’m so proud of you!”

A statement like that often encourages them more than any other reward you can offer. They do, after all, seek our approval. This is also vitally important for children in foster care. Too many children blame themselves for the behaviours of their parents. Always show them how special they are, and they will bask in your affection. It’s true.

Conclusion

So then, now you have eight tips on how to encourage healthy eating for foster children. You know how ineffective it was to tell them, “It’s good for you,” so try something different.

Each of these suggestions has proven highly successful with children in all kinds of families. Sometimes all it takes is validating their opinions. Once you’ve won them over to your side, you will see how readily they are willing to try almost any new food you place before them. Wait and see if we aren’t telling the truth!