Whose house rules for eating should apply?

I think the mother should always have the ultimate say over what the kid eats or doesn’t eat, but I also think that it may be a bit “much” to expect a little kid to eat all the food on their plate. I can see insisting they eat a certain amount of meat or their veggies, but “all the food” may be tough, almost like torture.

I have a cousin who is turning 60 in two weeks, and to this day she hates peas because her father used to make her eat every pea on her plate. She hated them then and she hates them now, many decades later.

The parent’s rules for kids on when they can have dessert should apply, even at Grandma’s or at a restaurant or at a wedding or other big family gathering.

The grandparent can make things more strict, but never more liberal. Otherwise, it undermines the authority of the parent.

Example: when my son was at my sister in law’s, she said “in my house boys have to take two bites of vegetables”. That was fine.

But I would have been upset if she had said, “you don’t have to eat the meat or vegetables, just have some cake and ice cream.”

Same thing for behavior. Kids don’t get to jump on furniture at Grandma’s if they can’t at home, but if they do at home, Grandma gets to say, “not at my house.”

The mom gets the final say but it was still dickish to not relax because she was at grandmas house.
My kids know I will honor their wishes, but for the most part they don’t mind that the rules are different at my house. We always have ice cream instead of milk in the cereal for breakfast and often eat dessert first for dinner. That’s what makes going to Gigi’s house special.

I also think it was sucky for the parent to give the kid punishment at @Dutchess_III house. That, to me, just ruined all the fun and good feeling that the whole evening was about.

The thing is, I would not have put the foods she specifically said she didn’t want, the hamburger, the beans and the tomato on her plate, if I’d realized that was going to happen. I would not have put so much food on her plate. There was no way she could eat it all! And I won’t next time. I just felt so bad for her and I felt it was my fault.

@zenvelo “two bites” of something is no big deal. This was different. She had to eat it all.

Both the girls had had at least one strawberry and a banana in the hours leading up to the dinner, so it’s not like I was pushing junk food on them. I really don’t do junk food anyway. Rick buys chips and shit sometimes, but I usually hide them when the kids come over. These were left over from camping and we needed to get rid of them so I provided them for the dinner. Two chips each.
The cake was a rare, special treat I provided.

What @Judi said, @zenvelo.

@jca It really did. And she wasn’t doing anything wrong, really. Just had a sad face and her arms folded. Mom said she was throwing a “fit.”

It sounds as if it was a lesson for you when it comes to having them over. If/when they are invited back, what would you do differently the next time?

@Dutchess_III: Does the mother always get into power plays with the children?

Yes @jca.

@Pied_Pfeffer, yes. I said that at least twice!

Your house: you control the food.
Her kids: She controls them.

If you don’t agree, it doesn’t happen.

So how would we have incorporated both in this case, @filmfann? I mean I know for the future, but how would we have reconciled this issue?

Also, some seem to be sort of suggesting I was doing the “I’m going to spoil the kids with foods they can’t have,” Gramma thing. It wasn’t that at all.
They have to eat their vegetables? She ate an entire ear of corn.
They have to eat the meat? She ate the hot dog (I’ve been to a couple of cook outs at their house, and they don’t even offer the kids hamburgers, which they make for themselves, only hot dogs.)
She’d had plenty of fruits earlier, given by me.

So this wasn’t about eating something nutritional. It was something else.

@Dutchess_III Do you think there’s any possibility that her mom was trying to teach her not to be wasteful? Or that they might have problems with the little one being wasteful at home?

1) If “waste” is a valid concern, as it has been of mine in the past, when I didn’t have enough money to buy much food—before I knew about food stamps—I only cooked foods I knew they would eat, and only enough portions so that it would all get eaten, if not then, then in the next day or two as part of a different meal. I never forced my kids to eat anything. I made sure it was all eaten, and not by playing head games or power trips, which lead to eating issues.

2) When you give a kid more than they can possibly eat, and try to make them eat it all, how is that teaching them anything?

3) If I hadn’t put the hamburger or the beans or the tomato on her plate, there would not have been a problem. That was my fault and I feel like shit.

@Dutchess_III I’m not saying that her mom was in the right, I’m just asking to get an idea if that’s how she might have been thinking about it.

I really don’t know. I know that parents who came out of the depression tend to have those kind of issues to pass on to their kids, and those kids may pass those on to theirs, and those kids do it because that’s just the way it’s done. I think it may be that more than anything. Just a generational thing with no real thought.

If it was about the waste, two baskets of strawberries and a lemon pudding cake went to “waste” because I wasn’t about to let everyone but that kid have some. Not a chance.

So I don’t know.

I get the feeling mom and daughter have this battle every day. IMO it was best you took a step back and let the mom direct her child. Perhaps you could have whispered in the child’s ear that you would be so proud of her if she ate her dinner and you would make sure she got a bigger slice of the cake she worked so hard on.

Well, that would be subversive, I think. It would also be a form of undermining the parent, and I don’t think it would send a good message all the way around. The kid was full! I forget to mention the two (halves) of deviled eggs she ate too.

I mean, I’m trying. Mom has determined that the four year old is “too old” to use sippy cups. The result is, the two year old gets to walk around with her water or orange juice, but the four year old doesn’t, for obvious reasons. My solution, tonight anyway, was to make sure they both stayed in the kitchen to drink their juice, then took the cups away. Kind of a hassle for me but I’m trying.

I’m really trying. So much is exactly the opposite of how I raised my kids. It’s hard.

@Dutchess_III @Judi agreed with me on who has the say. I am not saying your DIL was right, it was a dickish move for her to assert her authority and get mad at the kids. Do you get along with her normally? I can’t keep track of the various characters in your family.

And I wonder if your DIL was really not liking being there and taking it out on the kids.

Gee @Dutchess_III Then I do not see why you asked this question if you are so aware of how complicated it is for you to not “be subversive” to interfere with the rules of the parents of this child?

My son is in the middle of a divorce and he has custody of the kids (for now.) The big question for me is, Do I still have to worry about his ex’s feelings in these matters (she couldn’t stand me) or can I just make sure I abide by my son’s wishes when I watch the kids? I would never go out of my way to deliberately piss her off but she was always attaching motive to anything I did and changing the rules just to make me look like I was not respecting her, or a bad person.

I think that the occasional dinner at grandmas should not have to adhere to the strict rules of the parents. Screw it, the kiddies won’t die if they eat corn on the cob and cake for dinner one night out of 100. Grandmas are supposed to be indulgent, not disrespectful of the parents wishes, but come on….lighten up for a day.

My question @Cruiser, is…..in what situations do you change or bend your (minor) rules? Never?
I didn’t think she was going to do the whole, “Eat everything on your plate!” thing, like she does at home, since it was my house, my food, and I dished their plates up, and she heard me say that the kid didn’t have to eat whatever if she didn’t want to.
If I had known, I would have gone a different route.

@zenvelo, no, we had a nice time, other than that. We chatted and laughed, shared stories. She wasn’t like that the whole time, just at dinner. And she didn’t do anything like that to the younger kid. She didn’t finish her plate either, but nothing was said. Of course, the little one wasn’t even thinking about the dessert thing. She wasn’t envisioning it, like the older was.

Maybe a better question would have been, “Were there, or are there times, that you bend or temporarily change the rules for your kids?”

@Judi…oh man. What a fix. That could be a whole new question, with more details. Are you going to have a lot of interaction with the ex? How would she know what you did, or didn’t do? Also, how old are the kids? Old enough to say, “But Gramma lets us….”

@Judi I think your sons wishes take precedent when the kids are with you. Obviously you’re not going to do anything ridiculous like let the kids not brush teeth for 3 days or eat candy bars for breakfast. Sheesh, somehow you managed to raise YOUR children to adulthood, your DIL should just trust you to make good decisions.

@Dutchess_III , yes it could be, but I’m to lazy for a whole new Question. lol. 2 and 4, and I probably won’t interact much with her. I don’t want to make life difficult for my son though.

Did you explain that you put items on the plate which the girl immediately recognized as something she didn’t want to eat? Would that have helped? I can see how getting involved may have made things worse, too.

Teaching children to eat past the point of feeling full is just asking for obese teens. Way to go, mom.

@Dutchess_III I do agree that when being at someone else’s house I myself as a parent would not choose to make a scene over what my child eats or doesn’t eat. Especially after all that excitement of making a great desert with you. That child is amped up and as you said already had her fill before even sitting down for dinner. I empathize with your frustration over the way your daughter-in-law forced that situation and spoiled a great moment you had with your granddaughter.

I empathize with you. All you can do now is talk to your daughter-in-law before the next event and agree mutually on the ground rules for eating at your house.

@longgone Mom was right there, sitting in a chair at the table a few feet away. She heard the kid say she didn’t want “that.” She heard me say, “Well then, don’t eat it!” So, yeah. It’s tricky. It’s just one of those damn things where you have to do end runs all the time so you don’t trip triggers.
Maybe I was thinking I was setting some sort of example about how to not freak out over what the kid does, and doesn’t, eat. At their house, someone is always in trouble at dinner time. And my “example” really backfired, didn’t it. :(

@Cruiser No, the kids were hungry when they sat down. It was after she’d eaten her fill of dinner that the battle started. And I agree. I would never start a battle of any kind with a kid at someone else’s house. I tried not to start battles at my house, period.

@jca, I wish I could talk to her calmly and reasonably. As @longgone said, it would just probably make things worse.

Thanks for the answers, guys. I was just wondering if you’ve had any experiences like this and how you handled it.
Was there a time when you had to just shut your mouth while at someone else’s house, when they didn’t do things the way you did? Did you ever have to just shut your mouth, at your house for the same reasons?

@Dutchess_III: That’s a GQ and I suggest you start a new thread with it. It will get a lot of diverse answers and from people who may not have responded on this thread.

Forgot to give you the GQ. I just did LOL.

OK! I will, @jca.

Oh, get this, guys. Today is the baby’s 2nd birthday. Mom texted me, said she was thinking of making Pizza Pancakes for her for dinner. I asked what it was.
She said “Pancakes with strawberry puree for the sauce, coconut for the cheese, and some sort of meat.”
I asked if she’d made it up, that is sounded good (but I’m also thinking, ‘meat?’) Anyway, I also said, “Maybe sliced banana’s for pepperoni? Chocolate chips? Oh, I and I have half a blender full of strawberry puree. We’ll never eat it all. You can have it if you want.”..............................................................................

If she made this up, I really have to SMH. When I showed her the lemon pudding cake, and the strawberry & sugar puree in the blender to pour on it, she was a little incredulous. (She worked in food services at a retirement home for several years. It’s where she met my son.) She said, “Do you really think that’s how you make strawberry shortcake???”
I said, “Well, I know it’s not technically “shortcake,” but I thought the lemon cake would add a nice twist.” (And it did. I’ve had some and it was really good, although perhaps a lemon pound cake might be even better.)
She just shook her head and exhaled in disbelief.

Going to ask question now @jca.

@Dutchess_III: You know what else is really good? Banana cake with whipped cream and strawberries.

Mmmmm. I have bananas in the freezer too. I use them for banana bread. We may be able to get rid of that puree after all!

Generally, I would agree with @zenvelo. Final say should be up to the parent.

As for this particular situation, my opinion would depend on what exactly is entailed by:
a little baked beans…a bit of tomato and a few bites of hamburger from the grill.

If we’re talking one or two bites of each, I might side with your DIL. I remember my kid at that age would only want stuff that she knew she liked. It was a challenge to get her to try new stuff. The compromise was that she had to take one or two “hello” bites of everything. Then she could decide whether she wanted to eat it or not.

If we’re talking more than a few bites of each, I totally sympathize with you (and your granddaughter).

Why should she be expected to eat anything after she had had enough, @fluthernutter? That’s ridiculous. Would you be in the mood to determine if you liked, or didn’t like, a new food if someone forced you to eat it, especially if you weren’t even hungry any more?

I dished up her plate and put just a very small amount, one or two bites, of the things she said she didn’t want. It’s the way I introduced new foods to my kids, with no pressure or coercion to eat, whatsoever. In my granddaughter’s case I wish I hadn’t done that.

People don’t realize how very small a kid’s stomach, or even our own, is, unless we start to overeat on a regular basis. Sometimes I’m just aghast at the sheer volume of food people pile on a small child’s plate and expect them to eat it all.

@Dutchess_III “People don’t realize how very small a kid’s stomach, or even our own, is, unless we start to overeat on a regular basis. Sometimes I’m just aghast at the sheer volume of food people pile on a small child’s plate and expect them to eat it all.”

GA. I recently read an article which stated that a child’s stomach is as large as its fist. That’s tiny, for young children.

There is so very little reason behind forcing a child to eat up. Teaching children to like new kinds of food is best done when they are hungry, definitely not when they feel full. I’ve heard parents argue that they are teaching the kids not to be wasteful, but that’s entirely illogical. If we all stopped eating the minute we feel full, our attitude towards food would be much healthier: The wasteful mentality would be replaced by the very sane goal of eating what you need – no more, no less.

@Dutchess_III and @longgone Kids are conveniently “full” when all of the food they like to eat is done. As I tell my kids, it’s okay to stop eating when they’re full. But if they were really full, that means they also don’t have room for dessert either. ;)

All of our stomachs are only the size of our fist.

@fluthernutter If a kid is hungry, they’ll eat. If they aren’t, they won’t. It doesn’t mean they can’t, means they just don’t want to because the hungry feeling is gone. Putting all kinds of emotional overtones on food, like they are “conveniently full,” creates problems.

If you eat until you literally can’t eat any more, if you feel “stuffed,” you have over eaten, and that is bad. We have all gotten our fill of a good meal, but managed to have enough room for a piece of cheesecake or something.

@Dutchess_III I think if you’re too full to take a bite of your vegetables, you probably shouldn’t be eating dessert.

We usually ask her to take her hello bites first before chowing down on the stuff she knows that she likes.

Only one of my kids was a picky eater. Geez. I remember when she was about 15 months old I was feeding her chicken pot pie. I put the spoon in her mouth, but when I tried to pull it back out she clamped her teeth down so I couldn’t. A few seconds later she released the spoon. When I pulled it out she had eaten only the chicken and had licked the gravy off of the vegetables! They were all shiny!

I remember when I first introduced cottage cheese to her. To my shock, she dove right in and ate every bit. Then I realized she was really, REALLY hungry, and that was the first thing that hit her plate. Learned something interesting there.

My other two ate whatever. They didn’t care. Except for one time my son suddenly started refusing green beans. I was curious because he’s always liked them in the past. Well, he had gone to a babysitter during the day for a week, while I was out of town. This babysitter had served green beans for lunch, but by the time he got to them he wasn’t hungry and didn’t want them. She made him sit at the table until he ate them. So he sat at that table for several hours, until his dad came to pick him up. It was quite a while before he would eat green beans again. He still remembers it, and the sitter’s name.

@fluthernutter quit stressing about it. Kids are born knowing how to eat. They are born wanting to eat. That’s the first thing they do.

And think about it….what’s going to happen if they don’t eat their green beans this time? What’s going to happen if they don’t eat their carrots this time? What is really going to happen? Absolutely nothing. All of the nutrients we need, and crave, can be found in a plethora of different foods. In this first world country, there is no risk of not getting them.

On the other hand, what’s going to happen if you force them to eat? Lots of bad stuff.

Only in this first world country would we turn eating into a power struggle, a competition, a game. And wonder why everyone is so damn fat any more.

@Dutchess_III Your story about the chicken pot pie reminds me of my picky eater and shepherd’s pie. We used to call him the baleen whale. Even the mashed potatoes came back out!

LOL! That would be a trick!

@Dutchess_III Yep, I know.

@fluthernutter “Kids are conveniently ‘full’ when all of the food they like to eat is done.”

What’s wrong with that? I don’t eat food I dislike, either.

It’s fairly easy to control what young children eat – if you serve healthy food, that is what they get to choose from. Yes, they might go for broccoli today and leave all the chicken. That’s okay – in the long run, it makes a lot of sense to offer a wide array of options and trust your child’s body to pick and choose.

In my opinion, it is much healthier to never get into the ritual of dessert. There is no reason to always serve something sweet along with a meal. If you do, though, making vegetables the “chore” and sweet stuff the “reward” is dangerous.

@Dutchess_III We don’t force our kids to eat what they don’t like. Or force them to eat when they’re full. Our other kid has a peculiar habit of eating all carbs one meal and all protein the next. No big deal. We’re not looming in the back with a checklist of the five food groups. We just want them to try different foods.

@longgone It’s not about forcing kids to finish foods that they know they don’t like. It’s about getting them to try foods that are different than the ones they know that they like.

We don’t force them to finish what’s on their plate. Or finish all of their vegetables. We just want them to try everything and then decide if they like it or not.

We don’t separate vegetables and dessert into chores and rewards. But our five-year-old responds to logic. If she’s really too full for vegetables, that means she’s too full for dessert too. When we point this out, she usually cracks a you-got-me smile and takes her “hello” bites. (Sometimes it ends with a “goodbye” and that’s okay.) And other times, she admits she’s too full for dessert. (Yes, really!)

I agree that it’s not terribly healthy to end on a sweet note. But I have a major sweet tooth. And I think it’s contagious!

I agree @longgone. We never had a ritual of dessert growing up, and neither did my kids. I also strongly agree with having only healthy options to choose from. One my DIL was complaining that all her two year old would eat were some sort of corn puff snack. In fact, he was walking around with a bag of them as we spoke.
I said, “Well, if you don’t have them in the house, he can’t eat them.”
She actually listened, and the next time I saw her she said, “You were right. He’s eating other things now.”
If they have the options, no kid is going to starve themselves to death, or even into malnourishment, either.

@fluthernutter why is it so important that they try new foods?

@Dutchess_III We used to just let her eat whatever she chose. But her choices became increasingly narrow. Left to her own devices, she’d probably just eat mac ‘n’ cheese for every meal.

We adopted the idea of taking “hello” bites from her preschool after she came home declaring a newfound love for food that she had previously rejected at home. (peas, hummus, curry, soy milk, etc) It’s worked well for her. As she’s discovered tons of new favorites.

But it’s really a personality thing. Our other kid will try anything at least once—without any prodding from us.

Well, if you never bought and served mac n cheese, she’d have to eat something else, and she would. Just serve food. If they’re truly hungry, like didn’t eat anything the day before, they’ll eat it, whatever it is. If they don’t, then they aren’t truly hungry. Americans really don’t have any idea what it’s like to be truly hungry.

I once told my pediatrician that all my daughter really wanted to eat was bean and cheese burritos. She said that really wasn’t bad. It’s got protein,dairy, and carbs.
It was funny, my picky eater was with me. I said, “She won’t eat anything but burritos!”
Picky Eater says, “Uh uh! Remember that one time I ate corn on the cob?!”
We cracked up! And she had eaten corn on the cob, several months earlier. Surprised the hell out of me! But she never ate it again, at least not as a kid. She eats it now, though.

@fluthernutter Thanks for clarifying, looks like our positions are not that different, then.
Like @Dutchess_III, I don’t agree with making kids try new food. They will try them in their own time. I was a picky eater, despite being forced to try new things in daycare – by and by, I re-discovered the inquisitiveness I had lost during that time. I now eat all sorts of things I never would have tried at that age.

“Because left to her own devices, my kid would probably just eat mac ‘n’ cheese indefinitely.”

In my scenario, she would not be able to do that, because I wouldn’t be serving mac ‘n’ cheese on a regular basis in the first place. It’s impossible to pick the unhealthy option if there is no unhealthy option.

If you don’t mind me asking, what happens when your kids don’t take the “hello bites” you mentioned?

FYI for those with specific guidelines for what kids eat: My sister, when she was little, only ate from three food groups: pizza, mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. I say that somewhat sarcastically, but she was very big on eating that stuff. Now, as an adult, she runs marathons all over the country (It was only because of this that I found out that Epcot has half marathons with special deals for guests), works out constantly, and is in beautiful physical condition (FB friends may have seen her photos). So just because a kid gets into bad habits doesn’t mean they’re doomed forever.

When I had a daycare I actually had some rules the all of kids, including my own, had to follow, so some of my daycare kids were introduced to new foods. Some of them also discovered a liking for new food.
Some kids, when they were new, first they tried playing head games with me like they did with their parents. It backfired on them, big time! The experienced day care kids loved it when that happened! :D they’d perk up like a bunch of hungry jackles!

Haha…no. Let me clarify that she would have liked to eat mac ‘n’ cheese indefinitely. I didn’t mean to imply that was all she ate before we adopted “hello” bites.

We’d make a healthy delicious meal and she would just pick out the pasta.

My other kid does the same. But we don’t worry about him in the same way because he will self-regulate with an all-protein meal.

The way it works in our house is that the kids get a small plate. 80% something we know they’ll eat and 20% something new (or prepared in a different way). They can eat as much or as little as they want of this initial serving. But if they want seconds of something or dessert, they have to take their “hello” bites.

I think the key is how you frame the experience. The kids actually think it’s really funny to say “hello” and “goodbye” to their food.

@fluthernutter, I know you well enough to know you are a good mom. I’d also bet you’d never throw a fit if your kid didn’t try a new food, especially at someone else’s house. (But I am curious to know what happens if they don’t do “hello” and “goodby” as @longgone asked…are they denied something) We just have different priorities. It just wasn’t important to me that the kids try new foods. As far as “how will they know whether they like it or not,” well, have you ever served squid so they can see if they like it? I mean, they just might! It might be their favorite food! Yours too! But you probably haven’t tried it. I’m sure you only serve them foods that you like.
How would you feel if you went to dinner at a friend’s house and they insisted you just take a bite of the animal brains dish they had prepared?

For me, food is a total non issue. Eat, don’t eat, don’t care.

I also feel like no matter what the rules are normally (i.e. 80 percent of this, hello bites, etc.), at someone’s house an exception should be made so the occasion can be fun. Rules can be for the 99% of the rest of the meals.

I thought so too @jca.

I agree with @Judi. I sympathize with the mother in wanting to be consistent with her kids, and she might have felt frustrated that you were trying to change the rules she had set down. But given that it was your house, and that you’d made a special dessert with the kids, she could have let up and made an exception.

I think what she should have done is make it clear that this was an exception, and discuss it with you privately afterwards so you could ensure you’re on the same page in future. Basically, she wasted your dessert for her own pride.

It kind of reminds me of when there’s a guest and the parent tells the kid that they can stay up a little later because the guest is there and it’s a special occasion. The parent doesn’t have to be a hardass all the time. It can be like “so and so is here so you can stay up a little later.” That’s what makes it special, and to me, that’s an example of a good parent: flexible and adaptable.

@fluthernutter “The kids actually think it’s really funny to say “hello” and “goodbye” to their food.”

If that’s the atmosphere you’ve created, good for you. I’m not worried about “hello bites” in general, I’m worried about the unhealthy attitude towards food all these rules can create.

When kids cry about their dinner, something is wrong.

The two year old didn’t finish her plate. Mom didn’t say anything about it.

I agree with @longgone. When food is used in any way as a reward or punishment, I think that is a problem. There should be nothing surrounding food other than satiation of hunger.

I think the next time we have a dinner I’ll pull them both aside and ask “Pretty please, don’t…”

Many years ago I was at a friend’s house. She had another friend over. That friend had a 4 year old daughter. Cake was served for some reason. The 4 year old didn’t want any. Mom lost her shit. I could not believe the way she was screaming at the child because the kid didn’t want a piece of cake.

When I was about 12, I went to spend a week or two with my great-Aunt in Florida. She had no children of her own, and she had some rigid rules and ideas about what should be. One of her rules is you had to eat eggs at least once a week. She would make me scrambled eggs for breakfast once a week. It was hot, as Florida is, and eggs were the last thing I felt like eating on a hot morning. I would give the eggs to her dog when she wasn’t in the room. Dog was happy, I was happy.

And what lasting ill effects has that had on you @jca? Do you NEVER eat eggs any more? Are you in poor health now, because of it? :)~

I think the fact that my son quit eating green beans for a time, a food that he actually liked, because someone FORCED him to eat green beans, is very telling.

No ill effects on me as far as eggs go. Now my cousin, on the other hand, with the pea issue, she still hates peas to this day and she’s turning 60 in a week.

It’s crazy. I don’t know what parents are thinking when they force kids to eat, but I’m sure they aren’t hoping that the kid will never eat certain foods again, when they’re in charge of their own life. And would probably never serve it to their kids.

My kids hate peas too. Growing up, their dad told them they were rabbit poop! The shitbird. No problem. I just never served peas. I think they have heart murmurs and MS as a result.

Just the other day my son said, “You know why they say ‘peas and carrots’ like it’s all one thing?”
I looked at him suspiciously and said…“No, why?”
He said, “Think about it. What do rabbits eat?”
SMH!

My daughter, the picky one, hated onions. When ever I made a dish that had onions in it, like a pot roast with veggies, I’d spend a moment to try to get the onion out of her dish before I served it to her. I put them in my bowl cause I love onions!
One day she started digging around in her bowl, and came up with the smallest, tiniest bit of onion you can imagine, on the tip of her finger.
“What is this!?” she demanded.
I glanced up and said, “It’s a molecule.”
“What’s a molecule?” she asked.
Before I could answer her little brother, who was about 5, said, “A molecule is a tiny, tiny, tiny piece of frog.”
I laughed!
What ever happened after that isn’t worth remembering, obviously, because I don’t remember. I don’t know if she went ahead and ate, or put her food back in the crock pot and found something else to eat.

She still hates onions. Oddly enough, she loves those Durkee Fried Onions that you put in green bean casseroles.

Well, giving it another go. We decided to eat at a buffet-style restaurant on Saturday for our Thanksgiving.

Yesterday I asked my son to please talk to his wife about easing up on the eating rules for the oldest girl this one time, especially since we’re (gladly) paying for it. I said I wanted it to be a fun time and have happy memories come out of it, not memories of anger, tears and frustration.

He nodded. I know he agrees with me all the way around, but, bless his heart, he tries to back his wife up, even when he thinks she’s wrong.

Maybe you could announce at the table, “new rules for today only! Dessert first!”

Why in the world would I ever suggest dessert fist?

Because you’re grandma silly!

I do hope you’re joking, Judi. Why would I want to start the happy family time by making the kids sick? I just don’t see dessert first as some sort of special treat. Seems nasty to me.

And I do hope you’re joking about making an announcement at the table, with no warning, that basically says, “I’m throwing your rules out the window parents and we’re gonna do it MY way!” with no discussion. As a parent that would seriously piss me off.

I guess the relationship does change things. My children are ok with me changing these kinds of rules up because it’s special Gigi time. We have had backwards meals more than once. Eating sugary food is just as bad if you have it before a meal or after. It all goes to the same place.

But you eat much less of a dessert after a meal, than before. By the same token, if you have dessert first, you eat much less of the more nutritious foods. We’ve all eaten too much junk when we’re actually hungry, and felt sick. Again, I just don’t see the “treat” in that.

You’d have to read this whole thread to see what I’m dealing with.

My son and his wife and kids are coming over today. We’re doing some yard work, then we’re barbecuing. I’ve been stressing over what to fix and what not to fix. I nixed the baked beans, although I love love love them, because I don’t want any kid to be forced to take a helping, and then be forced to eat it.

I nixed potato salad for the same reason.

I texted my son to ask if his oldest daughter, the one who usually seems to be the target, if she liked corn on the cob. He said, “I think so.” Since I don’t know for sure, I nixed that.

We are left with hotdogs, potato chips and deviled eggs, because I know the child likes deviled eggs.

No dessert will be offered.

HOWEVER!!! I did some experimenting last night and discovered the COOLEST thing! I boiled an egg, peeled it, and put a small drop of food coloring onto the soft, boiled egg white, and I put a second drop of another color to create 3 colors…IT WAS AWESOME!!!! . So, the kids and I are going to make psychedelic deviled eggs because tomorrow is Easter. I’ll make the yolk part orange, by adding some red food coloring.

Wait deviled eggs in honor of Easter?.... :/