The kitchen is a battleground: a greet of steam and tantrums, the screams and condiments. Each day is a tribute to the tedium of campaigns. Ingredients are refused; meals are ruined; and your child balks at every single vegetable you offer him. He has no need for them and will not submit to your coaxing. He simply dismisses each attempt, willing to toss his plate aside and implement a tactical retreat when necessary (his strategy involves hiding beneath his bed; yours calls for an aspirin).

Ensuring children receive the best nutrition possible is not an easy task. Parents too often discover that their sons and daughters are unwilling to sample foods that aren’t soaked in chocolate, filled with sugar. The essential greens and fruits are ignored — thought to be wicked.

Such thoughts must be changed.

Parents must teach the value of nutrition by allowing children to become involved with it. All fear spawns from the unknown — when ingredients aren’t recognized they are assumed to be unworthy. Allowing youths to master them therefore is the best way to counter this worry.

Let your child help with the cooking. Assign him easy responsibilities (such as fetching utensils, retrieving supplies or reading off instructions, even if you already know them). Explain each step of the process, encouraging him to identify items and how to prepare them. Allow him to watch the timer for you, counting off the minutes and alerting you to when the food must be removed from the oven. While you wait you can even ask for his suggestions for the week’s meals, enabling him to feel as though his decisions matter.

This involvement is essential in gaining the acceptance of nutrition. Once your child understands food he will be more willing to try it — especially when he feels he helped to cook it himself. Pride will overwhelm any doubt, allowing him to simply eat.

Embrace participation to provide good health and success.

It’s a system developed long ago (by parents just as desperate as you but far more clever). It’s an exchange of rewards and values. Children are notoriously fickle, unwilling to even consider foods they deem strange — and so they must be offered incentives, with gifts traded for nutrition. This is the code you follow. All meals become promises of toys. A clean plate is compensated with trinkets. And your son has learned to eat what you offer because he can then gain what he wants.

This process… works, you think. All are made happy by it. Nutritional needs are secured and you’re spared the tedious arguments, the shrieks and screams. The dining room is shaped to pleasant experiences; and you see no reason to change.

There is such a reason, however, and it’s imperative to understand: a balanced diet (and all of the benefits it brings) is not to be bartered. It’s instead to be expected. Your child is not to refuse good health. He’s simply to seek it, wishing to develop as he must and maintain strong bones. When you offer him rewards for what is such a basic need, though, you undermine this notion — shifting it into an excuse for indulgences.

This is potentially dangerous. As children age they become more resilient. They are willing to battle with you, demanding more dynamic gifts for their agreements and able to wait for your submission. They are stubborn; they are greedy; and they know you will eventually yield, if only to make sure they remain healthy. You create a precedent that cannot be undone. It will instead merely expand, with the years becoming tributes to bribery.

You cannot allow this to happen. Nutrition is not to be fought about. It’s to be accepted. You must expect your child to eat as you tell him to. There are to be no negotiations, no compromises. This is a necessity — and it can’t be bargained.