Sweet Incentives

Sometimes it is difficult to get a kid to clean their plate.  Maybe there is too much on their plate or maybe it is just something they don't like or are afraid to try.  Around here, I try and keep lunches in the realm of what the kids will eat.  Pretty much bite sized foods including a meat, vegetable and fruit.  But even when there are items on their lunch trays that they like they still won't eat it all. 

Most of the time I offer a dessert after lunch.  It is usually something like sugar free jello or applesauce.  Even that sometimes doesn't work to get the plates cleared.  Until recently.

I had the idea of letting them see the dessert.  I spoon out the desserts in little cups before lunch.  Then I place them on a pretty plate, along with the spoons.  I put the dessert plate in the middle of the table, just out of reach but definitely not out of eye sight, where it can be seen throughout the entire meal as something that they want but know they have to finish lunch to get.  For the last two weeks this has worked like a charm.  I even used bananas in cups with rainbow sprinkles on top.  Something that would have normally been on their plates (minus the sprinkles) but eaten first over the green beans.

At first, I went easy on them.  "Ok, two more bites and you can have the dessert."  Still leaving food.  (By the way, I don't overload the plates to start with)  By the end of last week I still felt like I was being too easy.  So this week I got a little tougher and said "plates have to be cleared before dessert" and it still worked.  Clean plates.  Vegetables, fruit and all was gone.  Since this trick, no one has gone without the treat at the end of our meal.  They see it, they want it.

 That blue jello is just beautiful!

 Just out of reach.

 Almost done!

Aahhh, a clean plate!