How do you get your kids to eat healthy? Do you use rewards, "Eat your broccoli and you'll get dessert."? Do you use punishment, "Eat your zucchini or no tv tonight."? On today's episode, I teach you a method that actually works and that builds intrinsic motivation so that they'll eat their broccoli even when you're not there.
You've tried rewards and punishment. And it works in the short term, but once you take away the reward or the punishment, the child is no longer willing to eat their vegetables. So what is a parent to do?
You need to do the following: teach the why with storytelling, which accomplishes the following:
Hello, mamas and Papas. Welcome to dads smarter, not harder. This is the show for loving parents looking to do better. One step at a time. I am Jun Loayza. I live in San Francisco with my wife and two daughters, Juniper, who is four and Kimball, who is two.
Today, we're going to talk about something that I'm sure you struggle with. How to get your children to eat healthy. This is something that we struggle with in the past. But today, I want to tell you the secret. The secret of how we got Juniper to want to eat her broccoli. To want to eat her vegetables. And you're going to be able to do this too, by the end of this episode.
And before I get started, I want to talk about the things that we're doing wrong. I'm talking about using sticks and carrots to get our children, to eat their vegetables. Right. These are the external motivators to get them to eat them. And we don't want to focus on these extrinsic motivators. We want to get them to intrinsic motivation so that even if we're not there, they're going to eat their vegetables.
Right because the successful parent is able to remove themselves from the situation and the child is still able to make those independent and good choices. So what is the reward or the carrot? The carrot is. Juniper. Eat your vegetables and you'll get to eat chocolate at the end. Yeah. So this is going to work. It may work sometimes. Maybe not every time, because they're just going to be like, oh chocolate. I just won't eat the chocolate now.
But the reason it's not good in the long run is you train them. That the only way they're going to eat their vegetables is that they're promised dessert afterwards. You don't want to get in that place because then that's that extrinsic motivation. I'm only going to eat these vegetables because I want that reward at the end. And then if you don't offer that reward, they're not going to eat it. So you don't want to get in that position and you don't want to build that habit.
The second of which is the stick. Eat your vegetables, or you're not going to get a watch TV. Eat your vegetables, or you're going to go straight to your room
Again, If you place these extrinsic motivators on the child and they're not going to focus on learning that vegetables are good and healthy for them. Instead, they're going to feel resentful. They'll only eat it because you told them to, and unless you have some kind of punishment for them at the end, some kind of a stick, they're not going to learn to eat their vegetables.
Okay. So now we know we don't want to get into these extrinsic motivators. We don't want to use carrots and sticks. So, what can we do?
And the framework that I want to teach today is that it all starts with why. We want to teach them why they should be eating their vegetables. We all know it's healthy and to be honest, many of us try to teach that. So we'll say things like. Juniper, eat your vegetables so you can be nice and strong.
Or Juniper. Eat your vegetables. So you can run really fast at school. Or Juniper eat your vegetables because you're going to be very healthy. All these things while we're talking logically and make sense, it's not going to pique the interest and intrigue of the child.
What we have to do is we have to mix this logic, this reasoning. With entertainment with intrigue, with fantasy.
And the best way to do this is with storytelling.
Let me give you an example. There was a period where Juniper absolutely was obsessed with long hair. She had been reading these books with princesses with very long hair. And that's what she wanted. I don't want to cut my hair. I want really, really long hair. Okay. So I went with it, I started telling her stories about how these princesses, they eat their vegetables, they eat their broccoli. And with that broccoli, they got really, really long hair.
I started drawing pictures. With people that have really long hair and asked them, why do they have such long hair? And she would eventually respond to me. Oh, it's because they ate their broccoli. And then I would draw these people that has short hair that has shriveled up here that wasn't shiny. And I would ask them.
What happened to them? Why don't they have long hair? Oh, it's because they didn't eat their broccoli. That's right. So, what I do is I start to build these stories about the effects of not eating healthy. So in this case, very specifically with broccoli, it was about getting really long, really shiny hair because ultimately if you're healthy, that's what happens. We just make it very specific. We make it very clear and impactful for the child.
Another aspect of this is I let Jennifer know that inside of her tummy, she has soldiers. And these soldiers work really hard to keep her healthy. When she eats healthy, these soldiers are nice and strong.
But when she eats things that are unhealthy with too much sugar, Then these soldiers get weak and you can get sick. And when you get sick. That's when you start losing your hair. That's when you start getting hair, that's not very shiny.
So with these stories, I start crafting a world where Juniper understands the effects of not eating healthy. And in this way, I'm creating that intrinsic motivation to start eating healthy. So she's not making the choice of eating her broccoli because she wants a reward or she has some kind of punishment that is waiting for her.
Instead, she knows that through these fairytales and through these lessons that I teach her that ultimately she's going to be healthier and she wants to be healthy because she wants that long hair and she doesn't want to be sick.
Okay. Let's take this a step further. So we want children to eat healthy and we also don't want them to eat too many snacks and treats and desserts. And how do we do this? Well, one way you can do this is to try to control it yourself and have rules. For example, Juniper, no dessert before dinner, and you can try to craft these rules and then you have to be the policeman and you have to enforce those rules. And we want to step out of that situation.
We want to craft a world, a home where there are no rules where children can make those independent and wise choices themselves. And the best way to do this is to let them have that full control. But you have to teach them the consequences. So in this example, we don't want our kids to eat too many desserts or treats it's bad for them.
So the way I taught Juniper is I let her know. Juniper these treats and these desserts, they have a lot of sugar. And when you eat a lot of sugar, several things happen. One, those soldiers in your stomach, they get sick and they start to die. So they're not able to protect you from sickness.
Number two, those bacteria that get strong and he start multiplying and multiplying in your teeth. And when you have all these bacteria in your teeth, you can start getting holes in them. And then we have to pull them out. And then number three, if you're eating too many treats and too many sugars.
Your hair starts to lose its healthiness. It starts to get not shiny and it can fall off.
So whenever Jennifer wants to eat dessert before dinner, I let her know. Juniper, of course, if you want to eat dessert, if you want to eat your treats right now, that's okay.
But what happens if you eat too much at dessert? Um, my hair will fall off. That's right. And what else? My soldiers or get sick. That's right. So Jennifer is able to make those decisions. She'll say to me. Okay, Papi, I'm just going to eat a little tiny treat and they are going to eat all my broccoli.
Okay, Juniper. If that's your decision, you can do what you want to do.
And there you have it. That's how we've crafted a household where we don't have rules. We don't have to enforce them. We just have lessons that we teach and our children are able to make responsible, independent choices.
So let's do a quick recap.
Number one. Let's stay away from sticks and carrots. We don't want to focus on that extrinsic motivation. We want to focus on intrinsic motivation. Number two. Let's stay away from rules. Rules again are extrinsic motivators and we end up having to be the policemen to try to enforce them. So we have this constant tension.
Of us versus them.
The child is thinking that we're preventing them from doing what they want to do. That's not the place we want to be. The child needs to think of us as the parents, as the teachers. Ask their guides, the people who are on their team.
And number three. It starts with a Y, but the best way to teach the Y is through storytelling and fantasy and involve them in this fantastic world that teaches them a lesson. In this world. The people have long shiny hair because they eat a lot of broccoli.
Your world is going to be completely different because your child wants and likes different things. All right. That's it. Hopefully, this was helpful. If you have any questions. Reach out to me on Twitter @ junloayza Thank you very much.