Did You Know That Vegetables Are Magic? Meet the BreezyPals!
It’s hard to think about a parent that has managed to get his kids to love vegetables – let alone eat them!
TinyTap is proud to present its first video app – The BreezyPals Magical Vegetables!
BreezyPals is an educational program that strives to reach children in an original way. Instead of using conventional methods, BreezyPals creates new concepts and imaginary worlds that kids actually want to be a part of – like eating vegetables.
I dont know about you, but if someone would’ve told me that carrots fly when I was a child, I would’ve eaten them every day!
This is what BreezyPals is all about, approaching kids in a new light – talking in their language, instead of forcing them to listen to ours.
How does breezypals do it? and how did it start?
Read below…
How to get your kid to eat vegetables?
¨Mom, I don´t want any. Ew, Mom. Mom, no, no, no. Never. I will not eat this, ever!¨
Every day it is the same thing. Every day it is the same arguments. What is going on here? Does he not understand how important it is for him to eat his vegetables? That vegetables in all five colors is imperative for his health and growth?
John is five years old. He sits at the table and stares at the plate in front of him. With tears in his eyes and a pounding heart, he tells me the same thing that he tells me every day: ¨´Mom, I don´t want to eat any of this. Mom,ew, I will not eat this, ever!´”And me, his mother, who loves him so much, who knows how impòrtant it is for him to eat his vegetables, can´t understand how to convince him to eat.
For a few years now I have been trying to find a solution to this problem. I have explained to my young son that vegetables strengthen his bones, protect him from disease and help him grow big and strong. Each time John looks at me with tear-filled eyes and says, no, I don´t like them, I won´t eat them!´
I continued to speak about the benefits of vegetables. John would look at me with a bored expression, unconvinced. I would prepare his vegetables in any and every way possible: sliced, diced, baked, cooked, minced, anything. Yet John remained steadfast in his refusal.
After an extended battle, it finally hit me that I had failed in my attempts. I was angry with myself for failing to provide the necessary health requirements for my son´s diet. I thought for a moment and told my son “let’s see what the BreezyPals do when they don’t like their veggies”’. We watch the following video: then I whispered to my son:“Magical Vegetables taste tastier”
I opened the fridge, took out the five colored vegetables I had, and placed them all on a plate. I called John into the kitchen and braced myself for the argument that would inevitably come.
To my surprise, John looked at the vegetables, picked up a carrot, stared at it, and began playing with it as a toy – the carrot became a rocket, a spaceship, in the meantime he took bites from the basis of the rocket. At first I was upset with John for playing with his food at the table, but I remained patient and watched what he was doing. After a while he became tired of the carrot, switching to the yellow pepper. He asked me to cut the top off the pepper, which I did. John then proceeded to take his glass of water and pour it into the now cup-like pepper. He then used the cap off a bottle as the boat in his newly acquired lake. While he was playing, John kept talking to the imaginary captain of his yellow pepper ship, saying watch out for the missiles! while taking bites from the top of the vegetable, until he had finished the entire thing.
John turned the tomato into a ball and the cucumber into a seesaw, dipping periodically into the soft cheese dip, each time disappearing into the cave of John´s mouth.
I watched amused at my youngest son´s imagination and creativity. From then on, I served him his vegetables whole or cut, and let him turn them into houses and diving boards. I would place slices of carrots for the oars of boats, whole olives for bowls of dip for the sea. John would make up stories and eat his props as he went along.
John, as the BreezyPals, used his imagination to turn his vegetables into a prop in games and stories. Eating vegetables became an integral part of his game playing, and when I would join in the game, I would also expand the opportunities for veggie eating storylines.
I understood that I should always try to persuade my kids to eat healthy, but sometimes I need to use methods that are more subtle, and that emerge from their own imaginary world. “Lectures” and arguments are not always productive. Instead, try to connect with kids on their level, using terms and phrases from their own vocabulary.
Want to learn more about BreezyPals? Visit them on the links below!
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