When I was younger and babysat for a living, a little boy named Jason came into my life. It started when I put up an ad to baby-sit during the day. Before long my phone rang. It was a man who needed someone to care for his nephew after school until he came home from work. We set up a time and I met him and his nephew. He told me about the special circumstances that surrounded his nephew and what I needed to know in order to take care of him. According to his Uncle, Jason had been abused and neglected by his mother. Among many other problems he had an unhealthy diet. After much more discussion and thought I accepted the job. As days passed I began learning about Jason and all his needs. No matter what this child went threw before I met him, he was still very outgoing and special.
What we concentrated on was getting him to eat more vegetables then he was eating. And for that I had to come up with something creative and something unique. One evening we had green beans, chicken fingers with barbecue sauce and fries. Jason, had no problem digging into the chicken fingers and fries, but the green beans were a little harder to persuade him to try. So I took my fork divided his green beans into two groups. One group only had five beans, the other the remainder of them.
The conversation went something like this:
"You need to eat your veggies they were good for you.", he just looked at me and said.
"I don't like them." He said just looking at the plate.
"But they are good for you."
"I've never eaten them.
"Oh your Uncle doesn't make you eat them."
"Na huh" He said just shaking his head no.
Knowing full well his Uncle had at least tried to get him to eat them I took his words with a grain of salt.
"But they will make you strong. And you want to be strong right?"
"Like superman?"
"Yep, like him."
"But I don't like them."
"OK.." I said knowing I would have to try something else. Then it came to me. "There are five beans there. see one, two three, four five. " I said counting the beans as I pointed to the beans that were separated from the rest. " What if I asked you to eat just those five?" He just looked at me.
"You eat some too."
"OK, deal." I said and starting to put a spoonful onto my plate.
"No from those," he said pointing to the remainder on his plate.
"OK. And took my fork and stabbing a green bean tasting it. He watched as I chewed and swallowed. When I swallowed, I opened my mouth so he could see I actually ate them.
"Now your turn." I said putting my fork on my plate and picking his up.
I put just one on his fork and up to his lips. He opened his mouth and ate it. Then another and another. Finally all five were gone as well as one more from the original group. After six, he said that's enough and I stopped .
When he finished dinner he had finished all that was on his plate plus six green beans. He was given his ice cream with the rest of us and when his Uncle came to get him, he gleefully told his Uncle what he had done. Upon hearing that his Uncle picked him up and gave him a great big hug congratulating him and telling him how proud he was of him. And from that day on there were a series of firsts as both Jason's Uncle and I both worked together to help get this young boys life back on track.
*Authors note- There are times I wonder if he just didn't eat them to get the ice cream.
