After nearly four years of mealtime meltdowns, we?ve finally cracked the code to getting my picky preschooler to eat, and I want to shout this revelation from the rooftops.
(Mostly) gone are the days of coercing, begging, bribing and threatening. (Virtually) eliminated are the perpetual power struggles between a stubborn kid and equally stubborn parents.
It was a head-slapper, in retrospect. All it took was putting the entirety of our meal on the dining room table and announcing: ?You serve yourself,? thus giving my oldest daughter (the younger one will eat anything) control over what and how much she was going to eat.

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   Age-by-age guide to teaching your child table manners

 Pre-epiphany, I plated my family?s food in the kitchen, giving my children zero say in the quantity and quality of their meals. So one day, as an experiment, and perhaps out of desperation, I decided to stop plating my kids? food, and instead put our meals on large plates in the middle of the table. From there, my four-year-old served herself. I decide what dinner will be, offering one main course, healthy sides, and a smattering of tried-and-true kid favourites. But the rest was up to the kids.
This should have been a failure, right" Giving mealtime...