Try It
Sunday, October 3rd, 2010Today Andrew’s class did a “taste testing.” They were learning the difference between sweet and sour. For sweet, they all gobbled down slices of apple. It was a food most of them knew and they welcomed the familiar taste.
For sour? They tried lemon. Some kids chomped down bravely on the strange yellow fruit. Some loved it so much they begged for more.
And then there’s my son. He tentatively smelled the lemon. Then stuck out his tongue and very carefully liked it. The look on his face was PRICELESS. It was that “HOW COULD YOU TELL ME TO PUT THIS IN MY MOUTH!” look. They took a picture of his cute little face all screwed up in a grimace at the smallest lick at the evil little lemon slice.
He doesn’t have to like everything. But it’s important that he tries new things. We’re just having a little trouble getting him to experiment.
It made me think of a book I just finished reading – Emily Franklin’s Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, and 102 Recipes. Awesome read, by the way, but I’m not really here to plug the book… She tells lots of stories about trying to get her kids to eat new foods. Some were abysmal failures. Some were amazing successes.
But they were willing to try it.
Maybe her experiment worked because her kids were a bit older than Andrew. Or maybe my kid is just way more stubborn that hers.
I guess the only answer is to keep throwing new things in front of him and hope that eventually he’s willing to try it.
