Dr. Heidi Grant

2 Ways to Get Kids to Eat Vegetables (That Actually Work!)

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As a part of every check-up, my pediatrician asks me about what my children (ages 2 and 4) are eating.  “Are they getting lots of vegetables?  Especially dark leafy greens, and iron-rich foods like broccoli?” she asks, one eyebrow raised skeptically.

“Oh, absolutely.  Lots.” I reply, while avoiding direct eye contact.  I’m not exactly lying – my kids are getting plenty of healthy foods.  They just aren’t really eating them, at least not as much as I’d like them to.

I’ve heard all sorts of advice about overcoming the Vegetable Problem.  Hide them in other foods, serve them first and leave the chicken and pasta for later, add lots of seasonings for flavor, make a big fuss over how much you love broccoli to fool them into thinking it’s delicious.  In my experience, these techniques aren’t all that helpful.  So like many a desperate parent, I have decided to resort to bribes.

Psychologists (myself included) frequently warn against using rewards to encourage behavior in children, because extrinsic rewards like treats, money, or even effusive praise can undermine a child’s intrinsic motivation to do something they already enjoy or find meaningful.  Once a child is rewarded for eating particular foods (the logic goes), they are less likely to eat those foods willingly once the rewards are removed.

While studies have shown that the danger of rewarding desired behaviors is very real when it comes to activities children already enjoy, like reading or solving math problems, it’s possible that rewarding a child for eating vegetables might prove more effective.  When your child already doesn’t like vegetables, there isn’t any intrinsic motivation to undermine.

In fact, new research by psychologist Lucy Cooke and her colleagues at University College London shows that with rewards, children not only eat their vegetables, but learn to like them, too.

At the beginning of the study, 422 children (ages 4-6) where shown six vegetables  (carrot, red pepper, sugar snap pea, cabbage, cucumber, and celery).  They were asked to taste a piece of each, rate how much they liked it (on a scale from yummy to yucky), and put them in order of best-to-worst tasting.

The researchers focused on the fourth-ranked vegetable for each child, inviting them to eat as much as they wanted, and measuring the amount eaten (usually, not much.)

The children were then offered that vegetable again on each of the next twelve days.  Some of the children were offered a tangible reward  (a sticker) for eating it, some were enthusiastically praised for eating it, and others were not given any kind of reward.  (Children in the control group were not offered the vegetable each day.)

At the end of the twelve days, and again after 1 month and 3 months, the researchers offered the vegetable again to all the children, but this time without any rewards, and observed how much they freely chose to eat.

Initially, after the rewards were removed, the children who were given a tangible reward ate the most of their vegetables.  Those who received praise, and those who were simply exposed to the vegetable each day, ate less than the sticker group, but still ate significantly more than the control group.

But after three months, the sticker group was no different than the praise group – and both groups were eating nearly twice as much of their vegetable, of their own free will, than the control group kids.

So if you want to encourage your children to embrace the delights of broccoli and green beans (and be able to look your pediatrician directly in the eye), try introducing rewards into your dining routine.  If you aren’t comfortable with the idea of paying your kids to eat, the good news is that some enthusiastic cheerleading works just as well in the long run.  Personally, I’m planning on investing in a lot of stickers.

What the Science Says is Right, and Wrong, with “Chinese Mothers”

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In her recent Wall Street Journal essay, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, Yale law professor and mother-of-two Amy Chua provides a recipe for the kind of parenting that produces “successful” children of the math-whiz and music-prodigy variety.   Her depiction of the strict and domineering Chinese mother (Chua’s own children were never allowed to have play dates, choose their own extracurricular activities, watch TV, or get any grade less than an A) is deliberately provocative and unapologetic. It has elicited strong reactions from its largely Western audience – some applause, but mostly shock and outrage.

As a psychologist and scientist specializing in achievement (and as a mother of two myself), I must admit that some of what Ms. Chua is saying is perfectly true and worth taking to heart – particularly when she writes about the importance of emphasizing effort and persistence as keys to success, rather than innate ability.

Both in the laboratory and the classroom, I’ve seen people with very high IQs (children and adults) give up on a new task the moment it became difficult, and I’ve seen people of seemingly lesser ability fight their way through to the end and master the material.  When you study achievement, one of the first things you learn is that innate ability (to the extent that there is such a thing) has surprisingly little to do with success, while effort and persistence have everything to do with it.

Unfortunately, American students (and their parents) tend be big believers in innate ability – as if some people are just born capable of long division.  These kids aren’t reaching their full potential because they give up on themselves way too soon.

Asian students aren’t making the same mistake, because they are explicitly taught to blame their poor performances (and credit their successes) on the effort they put in to them.  It makes sense that Asians would excel in subjects like math, science, and musicianship, which require determination and long hours to master. Teaching Western kids to hang in there, and helping them to understand what it really takes to succeed, would go a long way toward closing that achievement gap.

I also happen to agree with Ms. Chua that we have a bit of a problem these days when it comes to emphasizing self-esteem protection over honest feedback. I know firsthand that it’s not easy to tell your child that he screwed up, knowing it will cause him anxiety, disappointment, or embarrassment.  But when we protect feelings at the expense of the truth, when we say  “you tried your best” when in fact they did nothing of the sort, we rob them of a sense of personal control over their own achievements.  Nothing is more de-motivating than feeling powerless to improve.

Calling your child “garbage,” or “fatty” (two examples given by Ms Chua),  on the other hand, is really not a great idea – nor is it even remotely necessary.   Guilt and shame can be motivating, but they can also be highly disruptive to the learning process. The most motivating and effective feedback focuses not on what your child is, but what he does, and what he can do differently in the future.

Where I part ways completely with Ms. Chua (and here the science is clearly on my side) is in her insistence that enjoyment, interest, and freedom of choice are somehow incompatible with hard work, persistence, and success. She writes:

“What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences.”

This is factually false, on all counts.  Again and again, research has shown that when children feel they have choices, it creates intrinsic motivation – the desire to do something for it’s own sake.   With choice, they enjoy what they are doing more.  They are more creative, process information more deeply, persist longer and achieve more.  Intrinsic motivation is in fact awesome in its power to get and keep us going.   Your kids will work hard of their own free will, and even have fun doing it, when you don’t completely override their preferences.

In the end, we would be wise to take what is beneficial about the “Chinese mother” approach – the dogged emphasis on effort, the encouragement to not give up too soon, the willingness to be critical when necessary – without the aspects that have given Western readers of Ms. Chua’s essay so much pause: the total absence of autonomy and choice, the lack of play, and the borderline-abusive insults.   There is very little evidence that these provide children any benefit, and clear evidence that they can undermine not only intrinsic motivation, but self-confidence and well-being.

Parents really don’t need to choose between having motivated, hard-working children, and happy, autonomous children who have lots of fun.   Combine the best of what Ms. Chua’s “Chinese” and “Western” mothers do, and you can help your children to be successful in every sense of the word.

The Art (and Science) of Giving Your Kids Feedback: 3 Rules to Remember

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From my Psychology Today blog:

Giving your child feedback – both criticism and praise – is more than just useful, it’s essential. It’s hard for kids to get motivated, and impossible for them to stay motivated, when they aren’t sure if they are on the right track.  So giving well-crafted, frequent feedback is one of our most important jobs as parents.

But as every parent knows, sometimes the feedback we give doesn’t seem to be all that motivating.  Even with the best intentions, our words of encouragement or disapproval can easily backfire or seem to fall on deaf ears, and many of us have a hard time understanding why.

Luckily, scientific studies of motivation have shed light on why some types of feedback work, and others don’t.  If you’ve gotten it wrong in the past (and who hasn’t?), then you can do a better job giving your child feedback from now on by sticking to a few simple rules:

Rule #1: When things go wrong, keep it real.    It’s not easy to tell your beloved son or daughter that they screwed up, knowing it may cause anxiety, disappointment, or embarrassment.  But don’t make the mistake of protecting your child’s feelings at the expense of telling them what they truly need to hear.  Remember that without honest feedback, they can’t possibly figure out what to do differently next time.

Also, don’t take away your child’s sense of responsibility for what went wrong (assuming he is in fact to blame), just because you don’t want to be “hard” on him.  Letting him off the hook for his own mistake, telling him that he “tried his best” when it’s clear that he didn’t, may leave him feeling powerless to improve.

Rule #2: When things go wrong, fight self-doubt.  You child needs to believe that success is within reach, no matter what mistakes he has made in the past.  To do this,

– Be specific.   What needs improvement, and what exactly can be done to improve?

– Emphasize actions that he has the power to change. Talk about aspects of his performance that are under his control, like the time and effort he put into a practicing, or the study method he used.

– Avoid praising effort when it didn’t pay off. Many parents try to console their child by saying things like “Well honey, you didn’t do very well, but you worked hard and really tried your best.”  Why does anyone think that this is comforting?  For the record – it’s not.  (Unless, of course, it was a no-win situation from the start).

Studies show that being complimented for “effort” after a failure not only makes kids feel stupid, but also leaves them feeling like they can’t improve.  In these instances, it’s really best to stick to purely informational feedback – if effort isn’t the problem, help them figure out what is.

Rule #3: When things go right, avoid praising ability.  I know we all like to hear how smart and talented we are, and so naturally we assume that it’s what our kids want to hear too.  Of course they do.  But it’s not what they need to hear to stay motivated.

Studies show that when children are praised for having high ability, it leaves them more vulnerable to self-doubt when they are faced with a challenge later.  If being successful means that he is ”smart,” then he’s likely to conclude that he isn’t smart when he’s having harder time.

Make sure that you also praise aspects of your child’s performance that were under his control.  Talk about his creative approach, his careful planning, his persistence and effort, his positive attitude.  Praise his actions, not just his abilities. That way, when he runs into trouble later on, he’ll remember what helped him to succeed in the past and put that knowledge to good use.