Do Experts Know More? A Childish Counter-Example
I usually think that experts are more likely to be right than laymen. But Tyler’s blog on “expert advice” on how to make kids eat vegetables gives experts a bad name:
1. Try many times — fifteen or more — to get your kids to eat their vegetables. Most parents give up too soon.
Talk about a cure worse than the disease! Few parents have the surplus energy to nag 5 times, much less 15.
2. Bribing, punishing, and celebrating when the kid eats the vegetables are all counterproductive.
Arrant nonsense. (And isn’t nagging 15+ times per meal a truly inhuman punishment?) All my experience as a parent shows that the promise of dessert – and the threat of non-dessert – works wonders.
3. “Use tasty toppings.”
Duh. Like dessert?
4. If the kid doesn’t eat the vegetables, grab them from his plate and gobble them up yourself.
This works about 1% of the time.
5. Eat your own vegetables in great quantity and with great delight.
Again, talk about a cure worse than the disease.
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