clara hughes elcc

thanks for the tip, Sharron! 

Today’s Healthy Habit Hero is Sharron, Assistant Supervisor and Preschool RECE at Clara Hughes ELCC. She offers some great advice for engaging kids in a positive way when struggling with a new flavour or food:

“When our food is presented on the table we always make a big introduction. First, we ask the children what they think it might be today? Then we slowly reveal the food, the educator smells it and says ‘oh my goodness this smells delicious and oh my it looks sooooo good. I think I’m going try it to see how it tastes.’ 

We take a fork and taste it, showing with great animation how good we think it is and then we quickly ask the children if they’d like to try it too. If the children are apprehensive we give them the smallest amount on their plate, so they too can smell it, see it and taste it with the assurance that if they don’t like it today, they can always try again another time. But if they love it, they can definitely have more. 8 times out of 10 the children ask for more! 

The more excited we are about the experience the more willing the children are to try a new food. We find that the menu provided by Real Food for Real Kids offers the children an amazing assortment of colours, textures and tastes so we have lots to talk about as we join for our meals.”

Have your own healthy eating tips for kids for the Real Food community? Let us know by tagging us @realfoodforrealkids on Instagram or Facebook and #RFRKeveryday!