Sometimes its all about how you present something to a child. For instance, you could set this before them for breakfast and say, “Eat your breakfast now.”
Booooorrrring, right?! Or what if you simply arrange things a little differently on the plate and say, “Mr. Sunshine came for breakfast this morning!”, while you place this in front of them:
It’s a bit different, isn’t it? 🙂 A face on your plate, with a red kid’s sized cup and a frog on your fork – who wouldn’t pick this set up over the first one? (My husband even had to chuckle when I presented it to him this morning. LOL) You can apply this idea to every area of your life or day. Is nap time horrible? Instead of “It’s time for your nap. Go lay down.”, try something like “I know you don’t really like to nap, so today you can take your favorite book to bed with you and after you read it, you need to close your eyes and just rest them for a while.” 😉 Yep, 9 times out of 10, they will fall asleep.
Is cleaning up their toys a struggle? How about giving this a shot: “Let’s sing a song while you pick up your toys. If you can get them all put away before the song ends, we’ll have a snack.” (Or go to the park or do a craft or whatever fun thing comes next.) Pick a song with lots of verses in case you need them! Haha! “The Wheels on the Bus” would be a great one and you can even make up some new verses! 😉
Quite a few kids don’t like vegetables…broccoli, for example. Ranch dressing (or another favorite flavor) can work magic. And by describing the broccoli in a different way. For example, “Let’s try some Ranch dressing for dipping your baby trees in.” Eating a baby tree is way cooler than eating broccoli. There was a time when our grandson was served broccoli salad and he looked at it in disgust, asking “What is that?” Quick thinking Uncle Matt replied, “That’s Green Dessert! It’s really good!” The broccoli salad disappeared and our grandson even asked for more! 😉
Hopefully these ideas will spark a few of your own ideas for ways to present things in a little different light that will make things go more smoothly for you and your littles. 🙂
The Kids Niche 