If your child thinks ketchup counts as a vegetable and chicken nuggets are their own food group, welcome to the club.
My son, John, was the WORST…if the Olympics had a vegetable-refusing event, he’d have brought home the gold. He was stubborn to the end, willing to sit as long as it took just so he didn’t have to eat a vegetable. Dinner time became a battlefield and his diet for a while was not what his growing body needed. I was barely proficient in the kitchen, yet I was determined to find a solution.
If any of that sounds a little too familiar, I am happy to report there are MANY ways to help your child eat healthy so that mealtimes don’t have to feel like hostage negotiations.
🍎 Let Them Play with their Food
Kids are starving until a green vegetable lands on their plate. Want to flip the script? Let them help in the kitchen. Washing blueberries in a colander, stirring pancake batter, or arranging cucumber slices into a smiley face turns eating into playtime. Young children who work on practical life skills like we do here at Jarrell Montessori by preparing their own snacks are more willing
to try new foods. When they’re older, have them help make dinner too!
Something that worked sometimes for John was to let him pick the vegetables at the grocery store (if he picked out broccoli, I acted like he’d just negotiated world peace). The control of it and then praising him later at dinner (“This zucchini tastes SO good, I love the ones you picked!), all seeded the idea that vegetables are fun to eat.
🌱 Bite-Sized Wins Are Still Wins
Here’s a Montessori secret: make portions child-sized. Instead of dumping a mountain of green on their plate, try a toddler-sized portion (start with two bites worth). A single broccoli tree looks a lot less terrifying than a forest. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests offering manageable portions and letting kids ask for seconds instead of piling food high at the start. It makes sense: if you were told you had to run 3 miles or 3 seconds, 3 seconds seems like easy street.
🥦 Be the Veggie Sticks You Want to See in the World
If you want your child to eat veggies, you’ve got to crunch away too. Dramatically declare your love for carrot sticks like it’s the season finale of your favorite Netflix show. According to the CDC,
modeling healthy eating is one of the most effective ways to build lifelong habits in your child.
🍓 Offer, Don’t Force (And if that doesn’t work…)
Threatening “three more bites or else” is the fast track to dinner-time misery. Instead, take a Montessori approach: offer healthy choices and step back. Kids love control (just ask the toddler who refuses to put shoes on when it’s time to get in the car). Respecting their choices lowers the drama—and one day, curiosity might win over suspicion.
With our son John, we tweaked this one because it didn’t work very often. We offered him ketchup, bbq sauce, and ranch dressing with every steamed veggie. We offered others covered them with cheese or spritzed with melted butter or drizzled with maple syrup (see below). In desperation, a couple times I pureed steamed squash and added it to his spaghetti sauce. Whatever it took!
Ways You Can Make Vegetables More Appetizing
- Mash them — mashed carrots, mashed cauliflower (often passed off as “potatoes”), mashed sweet potatoes.
- Add butter & seasonings — butter + salt, butter + garlic, butter + herbs, butter + brown sugar
- Sprinkle cheese — cheddar on broccoli, parmesan on zucchini or green beans, cheese sauce on cauliflower.
- Sweeten lightly — brown sugar on carrots, honey glaze on roasted parsnips, maple syrup on butternut squash.
Roast instead of steam — roasting brings out natural sweetness in carrots, Brussels sprouts, or bell peppers.- Serve with dips — ranch, hummus, yogurt-based dip, peanut butter with celery, guacamole with cucumbers.
- Bread & bake — zucchini fries, sweet potato fries
- Make “chips” — zucchini chips, sweet potato chips.
- Mix into pasta — spinach in lasagna, zucchini ribbons in spaghetti, broccoli in mac & cheese.
- Blend into sauces — pureed carrots, zucchini, or spinach in marinara or cheese sauce.
- Hide in smoothies — spinach, kale, cauliflower rice blended with fruit.
- Top with bacon or ham bits — green beans with bacon pieces.
- Stir into rice or grains — peas in rice, carrots in fried rice.
- Season with fun spices — cinnamon on sweet potatoes, taco seasoning on zucchini, garlic powder on broccoli.
- Make kabobs — grilled veggies on skewers alongside chicken or beef (and let them make their own kabob first!)
- Serve with fun names — “superhero spinach,” “x-ray carrots,” “baby trees” (broccoli).
🥕 Other Tips that Work
Expose repeatedly, Reintroduce often — It can take many exposures (even 10 – 15) before a child accepts a new vegetable.
Talk about what vegetables do — Use simple, kid-friendly language to explain benefits (e.g. “makes you strong,” “helps you see,” “gives energy”).
Final Bite
John is a young adult now and ironically, he ended up becoming an amateur chef. Never saw that one coming (yes, my 21 year old now cooks wayyyy better than me.) The kid who once gagged at a pea now whips up mashed potatoes like he’s auditioning for MasterChef. Healthy eating doesn’t have to feel like a hostage negotiation. With humor, patience, and a dash of Montessori-inspired independence, your child just might trade those chicken nuggets for a carrot stick. 😉
