Games to Help Your Child Eat

My little boy just will not eat dinner, let alone vegetables. Well, let me be honest, he eats but needs to be coaxed to do so. I tried everything, talking it out, being stern, being kind, preparing his fav-food, letting him skip a meal so he is hungry – but NO. It’s also true that kids of a certain age, get their mind off routine tasks (like eating!) and focus on more interesting things like games, blocks, tablets. So of course, eating is only just a mere activity that is on their back burner.
So I tried hard to come up with something that can focus my little boy’s energy on eating. Here are 3 ideas for dinner table games that sort of work for me to get food into his belly.

Eat a Country
So everyone on the table takes turns to name a country before eating a spoonful or a bite. You are not allowed to repeat the names of countries said by others. If you do, you don’t eat on that turn. The aim of the game is to finish all the food on the plate quickly. If you take a second helping of veggies, you get to eat 3 straight spoonfuls! The person who finished his food plate first is a winner. Now, names of countries can be substituted with names of vegetables, fruits or anything else that the child feels comfortable with. My son loves this game and stuffs spoonfuls into his mouth quite well!
Spell a spoonful
Each person on the table gets to say a word and the person sitting next to them should spell it out. If you get the spelling right, you can take a bite, if not you just say another word and the next person has to spell it. Again, the person who finishes all his food first is the winner!
Missing cutlery
Each person is asked to close his eyes for a minute while the others take away one object from the table – like forks, knives, spoons, flower vase, candle etc. And then the player takes a guess about what is missing. If he gets it right he eats 3 spoonfuls. The person finishing all food on his plate is the winner.

Am sure there are more ideas for games at the dinner table. But if you have one that works well for you, write to us about it on editor@littlepanda.cz