What’s the Deal With Using Rewards?

The use of rewards or incentives (also known as reinforcement) is widely researched as one of the most effective strategies for treating food selectivity. In fact, comparison studies have shown that without reinforcement, children eat less foods.

You may ask yourself, “Why would I need to reward my child for eating a new food?” or “Aren’t we devaluing the food by offering a treat?”

Children who are very picky eaters are extremely unmotivated to try new foods most often because of a fear of how it tastes or a sensitivity to the texture.

Offering a reward helps to compete with this desire to avoid trying a bite by motivating the child to taste the food instead.

Consuming small tastes is the entry point to incorporating that food into your child’s diet.

If used appropriately, reinforcement is an excellent strategy for motivating your child to do something that is very challenging for them. Once the food becomes easy, we can fade out the rewards and let the taste and texture of the food and the comforting feelings of being satiated become what’s reinforcing.

How do i use a reward when teaching my child to try a new food?

Each time your child responds appropriately (e.g., licks the food, eats a very small bite) deliver reinforcement.

Reinforcement can be 30 seconds of a video, a small bite of a special treat, turn of game or toy, or time with a toy.

See below two video examples of using rewards to teach a child about a new food.

Below are 4 tips to ensure you are using reinforcement effectively.

Tip 1: Choose appropriate rewards/incentives - not foods already part of your child’s meal!

When deciding on rewards, choose items that are actually motivating for your child! In other words, choose items your child really wants, not items they find interesting once in a while or foods they like but eat regularly as part of meals.

In our work, we understand that each child is unique, so what's motivating for one child might not be for another child. Because of this, the reward systems we develop are highly individualized as we want each child to succeed with trying new foods.

Do you need help determining what is motivating for your child? Download this questionnaire to determine the best rewards for your child.

Tip 2: Rewards should be delivered AFTER a desired behaviour

The items that your child is working for MUST be delivered only after a desired behaviour (e.g., putting the food to lips, eating a bite).

If you give your child free access to the item that they want without having to take a bite of difficult food, they will not be motivated to follow through with your request.

Tip 3: Use an array of rewards and vary them often:

To keep your child motivated while trying a new food, offer a choice of a variety of items. For good measure, have two to three items available. Here's a great video of our therapist offering a few choices,

It is also important to vary the items offered so that your child doesn’t become habituated, or bored, with those items. We recommend every three days, changing up the rewards.

Tip 4: Limit your child’s access to rewards to only mealtimes!

To ensure rewards stay potent or motivating, limit them to only mealtimes or tastings of a new food. This means removing all highly preferred items from your child’s snack drawer/cupboard and only offering these snacks after tasting a new food.

Same with iPad, instead of allowing your child three hours of iPad a day, limit to only an hour and a half and save the remaining time to be offered after your child practices a new food.

And finally, if you struggle to limit iPad during the day, try tastings of a new food immediately after school when your child is likely to be hungry AND has been away from their iPad all day so it's likely to be extra motivating.

Will my child always rely on rewards to eat new healthy foods?

No, in time, as the foods become more familiar and preferred, your child won’t need the motivation of rewards to continue eating new foods. Eventually the taste and texture of
the food, the comforting feelings of being satiated, and less direct but equally important the positive contact they receive from you, will be what maintains these foods in your
child’s diet.

Rewards are a temporary strategy that helps to initiate the change in your child’s acceptance of new foods. How quickly you can fade out rewards with your child is dependent on the severity of your child’s food selectivity. Children that are extremely fearful or highly sensitive to certain tastes or textures will require rewards for longer and perhaps always when trying a new food for the first few times. This is ok, for without rewards, a positive interaction can turn into a power struggle between you and your child.

What if I’ve tried rewards but my child still won’t take a bite?”

If you’re running into this situation it’s likely that the food is too challenging for your child OR the food is appropriate but your expectation is too high, meaning you're asking your child to try too big a bite or too many bites at once.

If the food is too difficult, opt for a food that is closer to a food already in your child’s diet. (Next month's newsletter is all about choosing the right foods for success, and it’s probably not broccoli)

If the bite is too big - make it smaller! We recommend offering bites as small as a crumb to start and no bigger than a blueberry to finish. See our size of bite guide below!

Remember presentation can be a trigger for your child. Instead of asking your child to try a bite of food from a full plate of food - take that one bite and put it on a separate plate all on its own.
Your child can then see that the expectation is only that one bite and nothing more.