Dinner with a Picky Eater

I'm tired of having a picky eater. I've heard all the stuff about serving it 10 times and then they will eat it. And sometimes (but very rarely) it works. But so far with M, it works on maybe 1 food per year. At this rate, he will be 439 before he is eating normally!

Tonight's dinner was salmon, cheese grits, broccoli slaw and spinach/mandarin orange salad. I fixed salmon both with and without seasoning (Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning). A tried the seasoned salmon and said it was a bit too spicy, so both kids had it plain. A had a good helping of everything and enjoyed it all.

M, well, that's another story. He ate his salad - served separately - but he does eat raw spinach leaves without complaining. I gave him carrots rather than slaw (enough things he didn't like else in dinner and we had slaw Monday night to great complaints). He complained about the salmon, but finally ate it. He sat there and stared at the one tiny bite of cheese grits (that he insisted were mashed potatoes) for a long time before choking them down. Why?

I don't think I did anything particularly different between the 2 kids. I'm finally accepting (slowly) it is just who they are. Helped by knowing a family with twins where one is picky and the other an adventurous eater. That doesn't mean I have to like it, though. Or that I won't keep trying to broaden M's food horizons.