Start with a food they already eat
Dinner is easier when one food on the plate is already a yes. Rice, banana, bread, or potato is enough.
Keep one yes on the plate
Put the new food beside the one they already eat. They can finish the familiar food and leave the rest. The meal still counts.
A plate that is all new asks them to be brave before they have eaten anything. The familiar food is what lets them sit down.
What a tired evening can look like
The rice is already cooked. Add a few soft peas, or a little of what you are eating, and leave the rice where their hand can find it.
You do not have to announce the new food. Set the plate down, sit, and eat some of yours. If they only eat the rice, dinner happened.
Leave these moves out
Skip the speech about being a good eater. Skip hiding the new food under a sauce they have never tasted. Skip taking the familiar food away to force a try.
If milk is an allergy, yogurt and cheese stay off this plate. Use a food they already accept that is free of milk.
A sentence you can say
“Your rice is here.”