Quote Originally Posted by playfelt View Post
I stopped stressing about the non-eaters and realize it isn't my job to make them eat and it isn't my job to be a magician and make things like veggies disappear into other foods. My job is to serve a balanced meal and the parents to pick up the slack since I agree that in many cases they made the problem in the first place.
I realized this after the first year of having this daycare. I used to hide veggies in meals. I am not doing that anymore. They get to see the broccoli, cucumber, cauliflower, carrots, etc. and they eat them most of the time. A favorite with my current group is cheesy cauliflower. It took me about 4 times of serving it and we went from nobody touching it to everybody asking for more now. I don't know how they eat at home and I don't ask parents. I serve foods and if they don't eat what I serve they go hungry so they learn very fast to eat when meals are served. I think it also helps in my particular case that I always start with infants. So they get to learn our daycare eating habits since the beginning.