What Crazy, Silly, or Sneaky Thing Have You Done To Get Your Child To Eat? (#Giveaway: Win $50 AmEx Card)

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Ragu Asks $50 Gift Card Giveaway
I don't force my kids to eat something they don't like but I do ask that they clear their plate of 'yummy' food before enjoying desert.

 

 

Parenthood is filled with rewards.  Parents are awarded with beautiful ballet recitals, Boy Scout badges that parent and child have both worked  hard to receive, report cards with straight As (maybe a B or two), and decent manners.
Most parents would agree however, that one of the biggest challenges is getting our kids to eat well. Most parents will do whatever it takes to triumph in a suppertime scuffle.  Most of my regular readers know that I am not one to make my kids clear their plates or eat something they absolutely despise.  They won’t get desert if they don’t clear their plate though.

Crazy things I’ve done to get my kids to eat their dinner:

  • I admit to letting my daughter eat inside her playhouse while the rest of us ate at the table.
  • One thing that I’ve been able to pull of with my 5 year old is that I tell her that there isn’t any ice cream in the freezer but if she eats all of her yummy food, I might be able to pull something off.  I have to hide the ice cream on the top shelf of the refrigerator, in the way back so she can’t see it before I pull that trick.  I’ve only done that twice.. really.

 

Ragú,via the new Ragú Asks campaign is asking parents to tell their stories on Facebook.com/Ragúsauce.

Watch this hilarious video of a mom letting her kids eat braided sphaghetti (with Ragú sauce) off her head. A little over the top, I know, but it’s pretty funny!

 

To keep things saucy here on TheMommyInside.com, I am going to randomly offer one TheMommyInsider.com reader a $50 AmEx card!

How would you like to win a $50 AmEx giftcard?

To enter to win tell me something crazy, sneaky, or silly that you did to get your child to eat, in the comments below.

Earn two extra entries per action:

Entries accepted through 11:59pm March  20th 2012.
Winner will be chosen via random.org
Winner must respond within 24 hours or a new winner will be drawn.
Open to U.S. residents, 18+.  No P.O. Boxes.

Alicia Hagan, Editor

Disclosure: Ragu is providing the gift card for prizing only. I am not being compensated for sharing this with you.

333 thoughts on “What Crazy, Silly, or Sneaky Thing Have You Done To Get Your Child To Eat? (#Giveaway: Win $50 AmEx Card)”

  1. Just for fun…could this include horses?? I have hollowed out the inside of a carrot, stuffed it with medicine, put the top back on, and let him eat it. Only works once, though.

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  4. my son refused to eat all vegetables- so i made him carrot muffins for breakfast- it was a long process too- but worth it- he ate it
    tcogbill at live dot com

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  11. I add applesauce and smashed fruit to pancakes and muffins. Tried to hide vegtables in spaghetti once, but I did not mash them up enough and she picked them all out! haha

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  12. I’ve blended all kinds of veggies into various other foods so that my kids get some veggies in. I’ve also disguised foods as other foods to make them look more appealing! ie meatball cupcakes with mashed potato frosting

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  28. They’ll eat anything except veggies. So I put pureed veggies in every ground meat dish, such as hamburgers, meatloaf, spaghetti sauce and they gobble it up.

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  32. We’ve totally put his plate of food on the floor- he sometimes just prefers it. When he’s sick I’ll let him eat ice cream, just to get some calories in him.

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  43. I dont have kids, but I was a picky eater as a child. My mom would let me help make dinner – for some reason if I helped prepare it I was more willing to eat it

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  44. My daughter loved music so I would play music and we would eat one food for each song – this only worked when she was really little 🙂

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  48. My nephew doesnt like spinach but he loves pasta. So I often make him a home made tortellini or ravioli.

    Thanks,
    riadeliza823(at)ymail(dot)com

    Reply

  55. There was one event for me as a child when a teacher made me eat all my sweet potatoes and I threw them up over the table (and even hit her hand. haha) so I never forced food on kids, but did tell them there was no dessert until they did eat at least a bite or two of what was offered. There was never a “cafeteria” in our house with other things prepared for kids who didnt like what we were having. Now our youngest 3 of 6 at home are 12, 14, and 19 and they love EVERYTHING, even putting us to shame by trying more than we do!

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  102. I made whelks in coconut sauce for my family. Instead of leaving the whelks whole I cut them into small pieces. Everyone loved it and were surprised when by how the shell and the whole whelk looked like.

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  109. I’ve added veggies to things without them knowing. If it doesn’t change the taste and they don’t see me making it, I’ve got it made. 🙂

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  113. Everynight is a struggle to get my son to eat. I usually threaten to not allow him to do an activity he likes if he doesn’t eat. IE. play playstation, or watch cartoons for the rest of the night

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  115. I don’t know about CRAZY, but I swore I’d never be the mom who would yell at her kids about food, and I’ve done it more than once. Thank you for the giveaway!

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  125. My kids will actually eat pretty much anything. If there is something they do not like I just ask that they try it first and then “smile” at it 🙂 Its something one of the day care teachers I used to work with said and I thought it was cute. We also sing a lot so I often make up silly songs when I am getting lunch ready and they sing along.

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  134. i do the ” oops, didn’t i tell you there were xxxx in the dish?? sorry, though it looks like you like it anyhow”. my older one swore up and down that she hated pumpkin anything. i made a pumpkin cake – almsot like a pound cake with some chocolate chips… she lvoed it!! but said it didn’t count since it wasn’t pumpkin pie!!

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  138. My kids don’t like brocolli. I blend it in the blender and put it in our pasta sauce and they have no clue at all. 😉

    sassysasha817 at gmail dot com

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  146. For years, our Son thought turnip was yellow potatoes. It was the only way I could get him to eat turnip. Also, we told him that barbeque sauce was ketchup. Sneaky, but it worked. He was a little ticked when he found out the truth!

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  149. If the kids didn’t eat what I fixed, they couldn’t go outside to play with their friends. This was a big deal – living on a cul-de-sac lots of fun things going on that they didn’t want to miss!

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  156. My son never liked his vegetables. I tried lots of things and one finally worked. He always looked up to the neighbor boy next door, thankfully he was a good kid too. Knowing he would do whatever the neighbor boy did I had the neighbor boy over to dinner for a week and gave him 10 bucks to eat all the vegetables and say they were delicious so my boy would eat them too.
    JasonCrooks75 (at) gmail.com

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  164. My kids/Grandkids have all been good eaters, but I do admit to bribing w/a fav DVD (as in, “You can watch while you eat!”) from time-to-time!!!((1955nursehjc4me(at)myway(dot)com))

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  174. NO EAT, NO TRIP TO HERSHEY PARK THE NEXT TIME WE GO…..AND IT HAS ALWAYS WORKED FOR ME….IT YOU SAY SOMETHING TO YOUR KIDS …KEEP YOUR WORD AND THAT MEANS NO TRIP TO HERSHEY PARK….MY KIDS KNEW I MEANT IT

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  192. well for my that was a very long time ago since my kids are now grown but I do remember alot of bribing going on with them using candy or promises of a new toy the next time we go to a store, usually in the end they just refused and would sit and pout about it so I eventually gave in to them and just let them slide, to this day my son who is 23 still isnt much of a vegetable eater, corn was the “only” vegetable he would eat as a kid, but he has expanded his choices to now include green beans, peas and even broccoli but never a salad, he just wont eat it
    Thanks for the great giveaway

    Reply

  198. My children love anything on a stick…I have no idea why, but it gets them into food. I put vegies, cheese, meats…all the healthy stuff on skewers and they love it! 🙂 Thank you.

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  200. We allow our daughter to put ketchup on EVERYTHING. I don’t how she eats some of the things, but it gets her to eat her vegetables.

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  231. I often use vegetable that have been shredded or pureed to fool even myself! Add some butternut squash into mac & cheese or extra veggies in a meatloaf and no one knows the difference!

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  249. Sometimes, I like to arrange my children’s food in the shape of smiley faces to get them to eat. And also, I threaten that one child will eat the other’s food if they don’t. That works sometimes.

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  268. I have done everything from the Happy Dance to the Airplane in Hangar scenario to get my son to eat. He is a very picky eater and sadly to say most of the time it doesn’t work. I can only hope that this will change as he gets older. Thanks for the giveaway!

    katbirdfl (at) gmail (dot) com

    Reply

  272. I always hide veggies in our pasta dishes and never own up to it until after they have eaten it and said it was good. Then I am like, “Aha! There were mushrooms, carrots and onions in that!”
    ape2016(at)aol(dot)com

    Reply

  279. We were once so desperate to get our son to eat that my husband told him the police would take him to kid jail if he didn’t finish his dinner. Our son was about 3 1/2 at the time. We didn’t use that ploy again, although it worked that time.

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  286. I told my son that eggs were cheese when he was very little b/c I knew he liked cheese and wouldn’t eat the eggs if I told them they were eggs. Now he loves eggs!

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  301. I like to give my kids finger food for dinner — baby carrots, individual broccoli spears, sweet potato fries, etc. I’m pretty lucky, though — they like fruit and veggies!
    kcoud33 at gmail dot com

    Reply

  305. I have the dessert sitting in plain sight and my kids know that they have to finish their main course before they can indulge
    Thank you for hosting this giveaway

    Louis
    pumuckler {at} gmail {dot} com

    Reply

  312. I dance for my daughter and help her eat, I usually do the “carlton” dance from the fresh prince

    tbarrettno1 at gmail dot com

    Reply

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