a "consequence" that actually worked!!

One magical day when my older girls were about 4 and 6, they discovered that they could have an opinion about the foods they ate. Since that moment they have become ridiculously picky eaters. Leah, for the most part, has pulled out of that phase and will eat most anything or will at least try it. Naomi, however is a different story. She won't eat 90% of what I cook. Her saving grace is that she WILL eat any fruit or veggie raw, but no cooked veggies, only frozen...and i mean with ice crystals on it. If the ice crystals melt, she won't eat it. Naomi will not eat rice, or potatoes. The only meat she likes is chicken and anything else is "disgusting".

I am used to Naomi's comments about my cooking, but Leah surprised me last week when I served a dinner of chicken and green peppers etc. Leah looked at it and said in a very teenager-ish voice, "This is dinner? Really?"

That didn't sit very well with me. So for a consequence, she got dinner duty for a week. I told her I wanted her to understand how much effort went into cooking a meal so she was in charge of coming up with the menu and cooking it. Of course I helped with running the stove etc. but for the most part, she was on her own.

She did a great job and loved it! We had waffles and pizza and grilled cheese. I don't remember the other meals, but she read the recipes and cooked them up all the while sounding a bit too much like me with comments such as, "Stop eating snacks I'm making dinner." and "I spent a lot of time making this meal and it's rude to say it's disgusting." Well, now she knows how it feels and has been VERY generous with her compliments ever since.