How far out of your way would you / have you gone to satisfy your picky eater?

Seems like they were doing a little much.

I am a vegetarian, so are a few of my close friends, one of my cousins has celiac disease, and another very close friend has a lot of very serious food allergies, my neighbor’s little girl has a severe peanut allergy. Finding things for people to eat, when they can’t eat certain things is pretty simple and a daily part of my life. It just depends upon if you’re willing to ask a few questions and make a conscious decision to make these people’s lives a little easier. Most people with these situations are more than willing to bring a dish to your house that they can eat. With the little ones, ask their parents. It’s that simple.

In the long run, it doesn’t matter whether they are “just picky” or whether they have dietary restrictions. If you don’t like the people well enough, you can also not invite them to your home or events.

If the people at Subway have all of those things anyway, what’s the big deal? Each sandwich is prepared individually, you point and they put it on your sandwich.

I’m talking about your own, every day kids @Kardamom. Not neighbors or strangers or friends that you may invite over.

My kids were picky when they were young, but not as picky as described. But we didn’t eat as a family when the kids were little, (my ex is a picky eater too), so they had there limited dinner choices.

When they went to school, they took the same thing everyday until Junior High. From Junior High on, they had to eat whatever was available in the cafeteria.

And, they did not get anything special when they were guests at someone’s house. They ate what was served and they had best be polite..

Grand kids that will not eat certain foods at home, always eat what Grandma puts on the table or else they will go hungry ! !
At least they think so.
Besides we make the food fun (when they visit) or make it into something that doesn’t look like the way their mom cooks it.

My son is picky about food.
When he was little if we had an issue I could always give him a time out or take away a toy or talk with him and we could work through it, but when it came to food he would always win the battle.
There’s only so much crying I can take before I just make him something different.
He just doesn’t like a lot of foods, but now that he’s a little older I can convince him to try things.
It still isn’t easy, but other than the food issue he’s a very well behaved, easy going kid so I deal with it.

My middle daughter was picky, so I made concessions. For example, when I made spaghetti, she didn’t want the sauce, only the hamburger so I’d set some plain hamburger aside.

Overall, I just didn’t cook stuff they didn’t like, and if I did cook something new, and a kid balked (my middle one was the only one who did,) I just let it slide. I didn’t care.
There were no battles, ever, so no one won and no one lost.

@Tropical_Willie Ha ha! That reminds me, my daughter has a son who is really picky. She had a boyfriend at lunch once, and her son didn’t want to eat whatever. Her boyfriend made a big deal out of it and commanded “You better eat that or your Mom will make you!”
Her son said, “Nuhuh! She says I can just starve!”
End of that battle.

@Dutchess_III with this and other questions about children problems, it just enforces that Mrs Squeeky and I made the super right choice about skipping parenthood.
I guess I would be super strict and just tell the kid oh well you will eat it once you get hungry enough and just put it in the fridge till later.

Ok, Sweetie. You don’t need to bring it up every time there is a kid discussion.

That would work too @SQUEEKY2.

Yeah, apparently he does…~

I tried to work with general family likes and dislikes. Fortunately it was never much of an issue in my house. In the teen years, vegetarianism was declared, I was fine with that. I realized after the fact that my experience was really pretty easy compared to some.
As to how far I would have gone, I guess I don’t know as it never really came up. There are often so many factors that feed into this that there are rarely absolutes, in spite of @SQUEEKY2‘s assertion that they would have done whatever strict thing.
I assume that’s what your “or something” in the details referred to.

Sure glad you’re here to be my hall monitor @canidmajor .
You feel the need to chastise me for everything don’t you?
And if we were parents and Mrs Squeeky made a nice dinner and the kid snuffed at it,I would tell the kid they will eat it when they become hungry enough sorry if that offends you.

But you really have to take the child into consideration, within reason. If she made a “nice” (“nice” for whom?) dinner, and it’s something the child has never eaten before, and wasn’t sure about, just let it slide. I mean how would you like it if you went to a friend’s for dinner, and they served you a nice (For them) dinner of deep fried brains, how would you feel?

No, @SQUEEKY2, just pointing out that your absolute is inappropriate. Unless your hypothetical child is extremely unusual, they won’t like, or even necessarily be able to tolerate, everything that is offered. This is an area of which you have no experience. It is not cut and dried.
ETA, basically what @Dutchess_III just said. (Sorry, I posted before I read your response)

Ok so you have to give in to the child, run the menu by them to see if it satisfactory meets they wishes type thing?
And you say I don’t have to bring up the fact that the mrs and I are glad we chose not to go this path overtime some kind of kid problem question comes up.
Sorry I think I do.

I wouldn’t deal with a picky eater at all. You either eat it the way it’s made or don’t eat it.
If you have special tastes, make your own sandwich instead of being a dick to the clerks.

Tough room. If your child has sensory issues, starve them. If they’re on the autism spectrum (not always evident, in fact often subtle enough that the clues take years to decipher) let them be hungry.
And by the way, do you childless ones understand that parents probably actually care about their children and don’t want to make them gag? Discussing these things with our kids, and respecting their feelings about some of this stuff is part of communicating as a loving family. The extremes that you guys think are the norm, are, in fact, rarely evident.

I know this is going to send you into a rage, but what you just described is indeed just another reason I am glad we chose not to go down that path.
And @Dutchess_III I am sorry for highjacking your question, @canidmajor I have a 51year old brother that still lives with mom, and so does my 33 year old sister they help out but wow.
I have a niece that has a beautiful five year old daughter that has a total melt down if her bed has as much as one wrinkle in it or if one of her stuffed animals is out of place in the least OMG.
I guess you are right you would try and accommodate the childs food tastes to a point but to a point, still as a parent I don’t think you are going to let the child have solid diet of hot dogs and chocolate ice cream right?

@SQUEEKY2 I’m glad that you chose not to go down that path too.

THANK YOU^^^

@Sneki95 we aren’t talking about grown ups eating out. We’re talking about kids you feed daily.

Which leads to @SQUEEKY2‘s comment: “Ok so you have to give in to the child, run the menu by them to see if it satisfactory meets they wishes type thing?” Well, if you’re out to eat, yes.

If it’s dinner in your own home then you already know what they like. I never asked what any one would like for dinner. I already knew, and I just cooked whatever, and if they ate it, fine. If they didn’t, fine. (My ex would NOT eat peas! He said they’re rabbit poop painted green! The kids won’t eat them to this day. I like them, but never served them.)
As to letting them literally eat what ever they want, well, I didn’t serve hot dogs, and I never had junk, like ice cream or chips in the house. If they wanted to forage instead, go for it. They wouldn’t find any junk.

Oh, don’t worry, @SQUEEKY2, no rage here, I agree with @janbb whole heartedly. Your insistence on citing extremes proves my point. And your niece’s daughter sounds like she has some of those sensory issues I mentioned.

I’m just saying that the woman who runs to Subway every day to get a special order for her teen-aged son…no way in hell would I do that!

Picky eating is one thing, some people have certain things they simply cannot or will not eat.
The food described above is glopped full of all sorts of things which could be eaten in other ways. That kid was just being a selfish jerk. I would have told him to get a job and buy his own gosh darned sandwich.

That’s what I would have said! And ride your bike to Subway every day!

@Dutchess_III I know, who said I was referring to adults?

Well, you said, “If you have special tastes, make your own sandwich instead of being a dick to the clerks.” Who are the “clerks” you referred to?

@Dutchess_III Those people that work in the sandwich-making stores. You called it Subway employee, but I didn’t bother looking up how is a sandwich-making person called. It’s all clerks to me.
I just looked up the word. I was convinced the clerk is the person that works at the store, like a cashier or the sandwich-maker. Y’know, anyone that works at a certain store that you buy things from, like sandwiches.

In this case I am the picky eater. In the last six months I have had dinner at my sisters twice. One was spaghetti and the other was burritos.

I hate mushrooms and onions so my sister when making sauce breaks me off a small pan of sauce before adding the things I don’t like to the big pot. And she is very good about each pot getting stirred with separate utensils. I am that picky.

And with burritos she will make me my own little burrito station separate from everyone else so there is no bean spoon getting dipped in my sour cream or meat. I fucking hate beans.

And if she is making something I just won’t eat she will have a grilled cheese and tater tots ready.

You might think that sounds really bad. But I always do all the dishes after someone else cooks.

@johnpowell I’ll cook for you!

I know what a clerk is @Sneki95, but when I said I was talking about your own kids, that you serve at home, you said, “I know.” So I didn’t understand the statement from that context.
When I order a sandwich,like at Subway, out you’re supposed to tell them what you want on it.

@janbb :: I actually really enjoy washing dishes. I also like cleaning the bathroom and mopping.

I like things where you have a end. Dishes are done, have a martini.

I think this is why I pretty much refuse to clean when people are around since it feels never-ending. Washing dishes when people keep adding shit to the sink as I am washing is infuriating. Get everyone out of the fucking house for a few hours and I will fire up the iPod and it will be spotless when you get home.

LOL! Welcome to mom-hood @johnpowell!

@Dutchess_III I get that as well.
The thing is, the woman supposedly claimed that “sandwich” was the only thing the kid would eat. If you’re that specific, make your own food. Doing stuff like that is being a kind of a dick to the clerk. At the very least, it makes you come out as a greedy bastard. It’s also unhealthy af. I just wouldn’t buy my kid that.

“She said it was one of the only things she could get her teen son to eat.” Really? Kudos to her. My teen would be left without a meal, if s/he is gonna be that much of a princess.

@SQUEEKY2‘s “no children” decision with his wife not to have kids; takes him out of the Actual and moves his answers to Hypothetical.

@Sneki95 I’ve always found it’s very easy to be an expert on situations you know nothing about. If my kid were anorexic or schizophrenic and that was the only thing they would eat, I would get the damned sandwich. There are a lot worse things to eat than tuna, feta cheese and bread. I’ve known kids who’ve thrived on buttered pasta twice a day. And as has been said, the Subway employee is paid to make the sandwich fresh so it’s no big deal for them to make it that way.

Step mother to a very autistic child here. He’s much better now, but when he was pre-teen it was really, really difficult. We were in Paris and had to find a restaurant that would serve a simple pizza with just cheese and pepperoni. It was a nightmare.

I agree @Sneki95. I would not go out of my way to do that for my teenage kid, even if they ordered the healthiest thing on the menu. But hey…if they go in there on their own, Subway simply puts whatever shit they ask for on it. It’s not their job to judge. You should go look at some of the gross things customers ordered, in my link in the details. The clerks just have to shut up and make it. I couldn’t do it. My stomach turns just seeing what people in front of me at every visit order.

And here I thought that only my relatives were judgmental! So nice to see that there are so many judgmental people out there!

I don’t have kids, but I know I would entertain a food jag to some extent and “go out of my way.” When I was a kid my mom let me eat the same thing every day for lunch for weeks if I wanted to, and I remember my sister eating noodles practically morning noon and night for a few weeks when we first moved to Maryland. I’m very glad my mom let us do it. I don’t know if she went out of her way, but she had to prepare the food when the adults were eating something else. She didn’t make food an argument or a power struggle, and I think it served me well.

We eventually would move on to other foods. She would make us take a Flintstone’s vitamin when we ate the same thing over and over again. She would eventually have us eat other things, but it wasn’t a struggle.

Especially, if my child had a specific problem, I’d probably do almost anything to keep the house as close to normal and calm as I could. If that meant having to deal with a slightly more difficult food situation I would opt for that over an unhappy child or a difficult interaction every night.

Picking up a sub might be easier than messing up the kitchen for some people. It would be for me.

My SIL used to go to a specific store for meat, another grocery store for pasta, another for the rest of the groceries. Her husband was very particular. She did it for years. She hated doing it, but she did it.

When I first read the Q I thought it was asking how far have I traveled for a favorite restaurant or food. When we do travel to cities we know well, we almost always have a must go to restaurant when there. We go out of our way sometimes to make sure we get our fix.

@janbb You name illnesses and disorders. Didn’t know those classify as being spoiled, aka a picky eater.

@Sneki95 clueless as always.

I agree @Sneki95. To me, a “picky eater” is someone who, for whatever reason, doesn’t like a lot of different foods just because they don’t like them and are not willing to try them, not because they’re allergic or have any other disorder.
I would hate it if someone invited me to dinner and served a main dish of brains. They might be perfectly good, but I don’t think I would even try them. That’s kind of how I see picky eaters. They really, really don’t want to eat “that,” and I don’t think it’s right to try and force them, in any way, to eat it, whether it’s by threats, or spankings, or time out, whatever. Why would I even want to? If you know a kid doesn’t like a particular food you’re serving, don’t make as much, and let them go watch TV, instead of eating with the family, or whatever. It’s not like they’re going to die from missing a meal.

I don’t have little ones but I’ll never go very far just to satisfy some ingrateful child’s pallate. There are many kids with hungry stomach that will eat whatever you give them in other parts of the world and that kid is complaining about his food?. A child’s pickiness comes from the lack of parents’ discipline, just like other bad habits. Unless it’s for allergic issues I’ll consider them over-spoiling their child.

I’ll be like “here are your cheese sandwiches for lunch. What you don’t like them? I’ll leave them on table if you want them” and do my other business. I have learned throughout my experience that the feeling of hungriness always win in the end and those sandwiches will soon disappear.

It’s not always due to lack of discipline. I only had 1 kid, out of 3, who was picky, and it had nothing to do with me.
I remember when that one was little less than a year, and in her high chair, I was feeding her homemade chicken pot pie. I put the little spoon in her mouth and when I went to pull it back out she had clamped down, so I couldn’t. I waited patiently, looking at her curiously. When she releasee it I pulled it out…and saw that she had eaten all of the chicken and the potatoes and all gravy, and had licked the rest of the veggies (peas and carrots) clean of gravy! I was amazed!
^^^^ Do you think she did that because I didn’t discipline her? What “discipline” even mean when it comes to food, @Unofficial_Member? My other two would eat fried worms if I served them. They didn’t care. Is that because I disciplined them in some way?

(And why would you serve your kid a cheese sandwich if you knew they didn’t like them? That’s mean!)

@Dutchess_III We had a similar experience with our younger son. Shepherd’s pie would come back on the spoon with the meat and potatoes eaten and the veggies still there. We called him the baleen whale!

It’s amazing, isn’t it! How the hell do they DO that?!

@Dutchess_III I don’t see how your experience with the toddler could be related to my argument of discipline toward a picky eater. She ate your food and that’s a good thing, what’s bad is when she refused to eat it, refusing to eat a healthy food is the lack of discipline and that particular behaviour is what I meant. Food is precious and refusing to eat healthy food just because of one’s pallate is ridiculous. That’s how they’ll grow up to be, a person that will only eat what he/she want regardless of the value of the food. Just look at all those African kids. Your other kids would eat fried worms? Do you know that worms are also nutririous and some culture considered them as delicacy? So I don’t see there’s anything wrong with that except your prejudice.

And why would I do I serve them cheese sandwiches? The same reason why parents serve veggies to their children. You give your kids healthy, nutritious food. And believe it or not the feeling of hunger always win in the end so whether they like it or not their hunger will make them appreciate the food you’ve prepared for them. Kids need to learn a lesson to always feel grateful for food.

So why bother buying and serving food that you know she wouldn’t like, if it’s that precious? You still haven’t told me your idea of “discipline” when it comes to food. Make them sit at the table for hours? Spank them? Yell at them? Force feed them? Yes, all of those things are a sure fired way to get a kid to feel “grateful” for food.

My point about the worms is my other two kids were not picky. What discipline do you imagine I used on them that I didn’t use on the middle kid?

If all they wanted to eat was ice cream and chips and candy they’d be SOL because you wouldn’t find that stuff in my house.

You didn’t see my point.
“I have learned throughout my experience that the feeling of hungriness always win in the end and those sandwiches will soon disappear”

That is my idea of discipline. Leave the food accessible to them and let them decide when to eat when they’re hungry, and believe me they will, soon or later, rather than spoiling them by giving them food that they like all the time. I must admit, though, that every once in a while spoiling your kids by giving them their favourite food is perfectly fine but it’s certainly not wise to do it every day and every time they whine for different food.

What I mean food is precious is that you shouldn’t accustom your kids to waste food given to them. Let them know that many others kids our there will envy what they have in front of them. Just because your kids have choices doesn’t mean they can be disrespectful toward the food and your effort in preparing the food. Food needs to be bought one way or another so I don’t see any relation to the argument.

I agree with @Unofficial_Member. Food is expensive, and takes time to prepare. You can’t waste money on whatever just because your kid doesn’t feel like eating it and wants something else.

So it’s official. The childless ones have all the all the parenting answers! I was the perfect parent also, before I raised children.
In the real world, “picky eater” is not necessarily defined as “perfectly physically and mentally healthy child who is simply manipulating a parent too stupid to see it.”
In the real world, “picky eater” tends to be simply someone who has very specific and/or limited food preferences (necessities?) for whatever reason.

@JLeslie, the above doesn’t include your considered response.

Thanks for being our hall monitor @canidmajor, you are probably right we horrible childless people were not considering a picky eating child to be riddled with health issues thus making the child a picky eater, thank you for showing us the error of our ways.

Your adherence to the idea that you know what you’re talking about here, @SQUEEKY2, really raises the the question of just how qualified you are to address your other rant subjects. Gotta wonder if you really drive… ;-)

Well you would know you’re the expert at everything,now don’t you have a carpet in your vehicle to clean?

Meow, folks. Draw back in the claws!

I have a picture of my step son from when he got back from visiting his mother’s family in a different country. He was skin and bones. He wouldn’t eat much of what he was given because it wasn’t his ‘normal’ food. He had lost so much weight, his clothes just hung off of him. A few years later, we went thought a similar problem with him where he was positive there was something stuck in his throat. He wouldn’t even swallow his spit, it was so bad. Again, he lost so much weight. He wouldn’t eat or sleep and ended up on anti-psychotics. When you have a child with autism who refuses to eat, people who have no kids get punched when they suggest something.

I agree, people who do not have experience with an issue can give frustrating advice. However, unless there is malice in what they say, I assume that their true intent is to be helpful. On occasion I have received a useful idea. No punching necessary, but I certainly don’t need to follow anything they suggest.

Fluther discussions on all subjects might come to a halt if experience was required to express an idea or possible solution.

^^ True dat.

The punch isn’t for the advice. It’s for being blatantly useless and ignorant. And of course, I never really punched anyone… just in my imagination because I would have spent yet another sleepless night listen to him pace and cough and spit into a rag for hours before I could get him to go to his bed, but only if I sat next to him and held his hand and listened to him ask a bunch of questions about death and try REALLY hard not to cry.

@canidmajor and @Unofficial_Member, your arguments are sound depending on the circumstances. If they just aren’t hungry at the moment, and that’s their reason for not eating, then sure. Save it.
OTOH, if they aren’t hungry at the times you regularly serve meals, whose fault is that? The parents are totally responsible for what and when any kid <8 eats.

If it is really because food is so expensive, and you’re going to fix something you know the child doesn’t like then don’t spend the damn money on them, and don’t fix them a portion. If I bought peas, which I know my whole family, beginning with my husband, hated, and insisted they all eat them, including my husband, is that fair? Especially when the kids already have plenty of other food to eat. What is the big deal about peas? Feed them green beans or some other veggie that they DO like.

If they didn’t have enough food, I agree. They wouldn’t be picky. The only way I can see that working for a family who other wise is drowning in food is to see to it that the kid only eats small meals with no snacking inbetween so they are hungry come dinner time. My kids would start hounding me an hour before dinner. They got used to hearing, “It’ll be ready when it’s ready. Go play.” How many other parents would give them a “snack” to make them be quiet? A “snack” is just about enough to fill a kid up, if you consider that their stomach is only the size of their fist.

I used to have a girl friend who had preschool kids the same age as mine. I was at her house once and she was cooking dinner. Her 3 year old was walking around with an entire box of Cheetos, munching on them. I knew this friend made a big deal out out of it if the kids didn’t want to eat, and I asked how she expected her daughter to be hungry for dinner when she’d finished off a box of crackers not 30 minutes earlier.
She said she’d never thought of that.

The parents are not responsible for a child’s personal likes and dislikes but they are responsible for any eating issues that they create because a kid doesn’t like certain foods.

@Dutchess_III “you’re going to fix something you know the child doesn’t like then don’t spend the damn money on them, and don’t fix them a portion”

Like I said, I understand if the child has allergic issue or if you want to spoil them once in a while but catering to their personal preference is not my obligation nor do I think it’s appropriate. One way or another you have to feed your kids and that’s a parent’s reponsibility so regardless of their personal preference they still need nourishment.
I didn’t mention anything about timing here, that’s the argument created by someone else. I will assume (and I believe that most parents will too) that by dinner/lunch/breakfast time family members will be hungry. You mentioned a specific issue about when a child has eaten something else prior to meal time that inhibit his/her appetite, that’s a specific issue and any parent may make exception due to that.

“OTOH, if they aren’t hungry at the times you regularly serve meals, whose fault is that? The parents are totally responsible for what and when any kid <8 eats”

Nobody mentioned that the child will be force-fed with the prepared meal. You serve the meal, they can decide or signal when to eat when they’re hungry. You also put the age limit so I must say that different kids may need different treatment based on their independence. A 12 years old kid can cook his/her own if they don’t like the food served in the family. A less than 8 years old most likely can’t, but regardless of that, like I said (I guess you keep avoid this fact that) the feeling of hunger always win in the end and in tramples any shape of pickiness. That’s the lesson I learned from my grandma and mother, and I was (and probably still am) a very picky eater. When I left the family I can eat whatever I want but when I stay with my family I have the option to eat the available food or make my own food. The lesson that I learned from my family is that I would never have learned to eat healthy if not because of them conditioning me to eat healthy green diet, I would have had eaten junk food had they given me whatever food I think I will only eat. I disliked veggies as a child but have come to love them due to parents and grandparents’ effort in conditioning me to eat veggies. I won’t call it acquired taste, though, I really love vegetables.

“The parents are not responsible for a child’s personal likes and dislikes but they are responsible for any eating issues that they create because a kid doesn’t like certain foods”

Of course you’re not considering inedible or rotten food to feed your kids which will contribute to their eating disorder. You give them nutritious food and that is done, the rest is up to their hunger to settle it for themselves. You can create more problems by catering to a child’s every desire for their personal food. Can you imagine a child that only like to eat junk food or will only chocolate? That behavior of parents is the one that create worse eating disorder. Or perhaps you trust that your little kid know what is healthy or not healthy for him/herself? I will blame the parents if their kids have non-inheritable eating disorder, it’s not the child’s fault for being picky, it’s the parents’ fault for being negligent and submissive. Other people may flaunt that they have been parents to make argument about this issue but that can’t undermine the validity of other people’ experiences as children and how they have grown up to be in the said environment.

My young guy is the total opposite of the older step son. I could feed him anything as a baby and he would literally take breaks from eating to give me a hug in between bites. My Rockso eats pumpkin, sweet potato, ANY veg I put in front of him, but he has some reservations about mushrooms and asparagus. He’ll eat brussel sprouts like candy. He’s not a big fan of big chunks of meat, and went though a stage of wanting to be semi-veg. We have more vegetarian nights, but he’s going to be over 6’ and so I’m still feeding him a few nights of roasted or stir fry chicken and ground beef in spaghetti or meatballs. When I have my step son over for meals, between the two of them, they finish the food and no left overs needs dealing with. They eat the opposite of each other. So, not picky, I like to think, but ‘complimentary’. They are both incredibly healthy now and don’t suffer from the anxiety or eating problems that was happening before. The thing parents need to remember about picky eaters is… they do grow out of it. In fact, my step son’s older brother (no blood relation to me or my son) was the most picky eater of the three of them and he is not on the spectrum at all, and nor does he suffer from any anxiety, depression or ADHD problems. His mother was on her own raising him. She had little idea how to cook or care for a child, having been orphaned from the age of 3. All this boy would eat was spaghetti. There was much worry and hand wringing. He’s now a successful artist, has a partner and they own their apartment and he never starved. He eats as normally as any person I’ve known, is not over weight or underweight and, as far as my eye goes, he’s very attractive and has an incredibly attractive partner. Kids who are picky eaters…. very normal. Adults who obsess about their food…. Should look into this: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/orthorexia-nervosa
I met a woman who looks skeletal and it is because she has gone through invention after invention of her self inflicted ‘dietary requirements’. She has self diagnosed health problems and then imposed strict rules on what she eats. So…. Don’t worry so much about the kids. It’s the adults that have no idea what GM is the science behind food and nutrition that should be more worrying.

I think forcing children to eat certain foods can result in a child having issues with that food or all food for the rest of their lives. My cousin’s abusive father forced her to eat every pea on her plate (this was in the early 1960’s). She could’n’t leave the table until all of her peas were eaten. To this day, she hates peas, Forcing her to eat the peas did nothing but make her feel disgusted and punished.

I don’t see any point in making kids eat foods they don’t like. Yes, it’s good to encourage them to try things because they just might like them, but to say “you can’t leave the table” or this is your dinner and you eat it or you go to bed hungry will just result in misery. Any parent knows that a child who is hungry is not going to act like themselves, not going to learn and behave if they’re sent to school that way, and may end up with some serious food issues or other issues.

@SQUEEKY2: You’re calling out @canidmajor for “acting like your hall monitor” but it was @Dutchess_III who did it first.. ”Ok, Sweetie. You don’t need to bring it up every time there is a kid discussion.” @Dutchess_III and @canidmajor both have good points. We get it, we get it.

I think there may be some cultural differences here as well as non-parental opinions. In America after the war, it was more common for children to be told to eat all their food because there were starving children in India (although my own parents were pretty good about not making eating an issue.) Now and even when I was raising my kids twenty years ago, food is plentiful and there is more of an emphasis on making kids happy and having them enjoy mealtime. I had one son who never ate fruits or vegetables, is now 6 feet tall and a swimmer and a lovely person all around. And he eats salad every night with cranberries and bleu cheese in it! I was shocked!

Perhaps in @Unofficial_Member and @Sneki95‘s countries food is scarcer or there is more of an emphasis on discipline in child rearing. In the States, I would say that in general, making a child sit at the table until they had eaten – or leaving unpalatable food on it – kind of went out the door a few generations ago.

What some disciplinarians seem to forget is that we love our kids and want them to be happy and enjoy what they eat. Also, if you live with your kids, you know what they will and won’t eat so it is not a surprise if you serve something they don’t like. At a certain age, if my kids didn’t like the supper they could make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or mac and cheese. Not a big deal.

^ Exactly. I had a similar thought. Food is not free here, and parenting is taken quite differently. Parents here are much sterner, and picky eater kids are not easily tolerated, mostly because no one has the money for that. You eat what you get, or not eat at all.

Well, only in first world countries do we have picky eaters. As @Unofficial_Member points out, hunger IS a great motivator. Especially if a child hasn’t eaten for 3 or 4 days. When my daughter decided to try the cottage cheese at lunch, out of the blue, I’m sure it was because she was super hungry, for whatever reason. But I’ll bet she wasn’t hungry enough to actually eat something that was repulsive because she’d had breakfast that morning.
So if you’re going to use hunger as a “motivator,” you need to decide what that means exactly. They don’t eat again until they eat this nasty (to them) whatever? So how long does that take? A day? Two days? Three days? Who breaks first? And does anyone really think that wouldn’t be so unbelievably frustrating for the child and the parent? Ridiculous to me.

I just can’t fathom being forced to eat squid and octopus and brains, even though as an adult, I know they’re perfectly healthy. After a week with no food though, I’d eat them. But to be forced to, one way or another? What kind of life is that to have to grow up in? Day after day, “beaten” into food subjugation. Horrible.

@Dutchess_III “Well, only in first world countries do we have picky eaters”

Now I see. First world problem…

“So how long does that take? A day? Two days? Three days? Who breaks first? And does anyone really think that wouldn’t be so unbelievably frustrating for the child and the parent? Ridiculous to me”

Seriously, no child can survive not eating for a single day. You’re hyperbolizing the fact. Just let skip a few hours longer than their regular meal time when they’re being picky, they’ll then get hungry enough to eat your food. The feeling of hunger will overwrite any sort of ‘repulsive’ feeling the child might have about the food, replaced by the satisfaction of having full stomach. Anyway, I’m not here to try to teach other parents how to raise their own kids. You and your kids seem to be privileged so feel free to spoil them as much as you want and blame other people that want to discipline their kids. One thing I make sure kids (whether or not they’re mine) to know is that a house is not a restaurant where you can eat whatever you want, and parents aren’t servants that cater to their kids’ personal pallate.

I used to tell my son to eat his food because there were starving children in the US.

My son’s little cousin in the Netherlands was fascinated by eating anything that was once alive. Someone made a seafood pizza at their house once and put little octopus on it from a tin. She took the little octopus between her little fingers and asked her daddy if it was alive once. He said yes, and she put it in her mouth, chewed and ate it. We were all speechless.

I don’t think it’s the kid’s problem, being picky eaters. I think it’s the parents worrying about it that is a 1st world problem.

I can’t imagine having the child sitting there crying and suffering because they’re hungry but I’m insisting they eat something that repulses them (like my example above where my cousin was forced to eat every pea on her plate). It sounds like a control freaky thing to me. No, this is not a restaurant but neither is it a torture chamber.

I get it barring any health issues, that the parent should be well aware of, you would work with the child to a point, BUT to a point only, the child will have to bend a little and not just refuse to eat every green yucky veggie put in front of them.
Or do you cater to the child and let them eat what they want when they want?
Because if you don’t you just torturing the poor little angel ?
And you guys get all pissy when I say THANK GOD we chose not to have kids,sounds like a huge amount of work for the return you get.
NOW quick call the hall monitor!

^^I really don’t understand you. I understand why you didn’t have children, but I don’t understand how you have so little understanding for parents.

I’m very curious, were you a picky eater? Were your parents very strict? Did you have a lot of misery growing up, or your memories are mostly very positive?

Good questions by @JLeslie. @SQUEEKY2: Were your parents very strict and rigid with you?

@SQUEEKY2: In my case, I know what my daughter likes (broccoli, cauliflower, string beans, spinach, asparagus) and so I cook those. She has to eat some of it, and she will. It’s a good variety of stuff she likes. She also likes corn, although I don’t consider corn a vegetable. It’s a starch.

@SQUEEKY2 No one here gets pissy at you for not having kids. I have never, not once, seen anyone here criticize you for not having kids. Please stop acting like we do.

Now, what does “eating whatever they want,” mean exactly? We’re usually talking about kids <5. They can’t eat anything that a parent doesn’t make available to them. So if left to themselves kids would just eat….what? Cookies? Not if there aren’t any. Candy? Not if there isn’t any. PB&J? So? As @Unofficial_Member keeps trying to point out, but thinks it has to be done by force or torture, eventually hunger OR nutritional cravings will take over. If all they eat is PB&J, and no one is making a big deal about it, their body will start craving other nutrition, and they’ll take it if it’s available and someone isn’t trying to cram it down their throat so that it has become a power struggle / eating issues.

@Unofficial_Member I ask you to reread this that you wrote. “Seriously, no child can survive not eating for a single day. ” What does that even mean? A kid can survive a month or more without eating. What’s a day or two? Why not deprive them of food for a week so they can appreciate how “precious” food is, and so they can relate to all the starving children in the world. It won’t hurt them.

^ What I meant is not the limit of their body to be able to survive without food. I meant is that after passing a few hours longer than their regular schedule for meal their stomach will take control as the feeling of hunger takes control. You don’t need to refuse eating for weeks to feel the hunger. Just skipping lunch alone will have the effect of you craving for food before dinner. Like I said, I did not promote torturing any child by leaving edible, nutritious food on the table for them to eat when they’re hungry (which they will, eventually, anyway). You’re the one who deemed this disciplinary method as torturing the kids. At the end of the day, the kid who eat the food will have full stomach in the end. You seem to keep on insisting that spoiling children is basically acceptable and part of their learning behavior to become a grateful adult.

Well sure it will @Unofficial_Member . But, IMO, in this country we feed our kids way too much and way too often. We hand them something the minute they say they’re hungry, instead of making them wait until a meal is ready. And yet we expect them see food as “precious” or to somehow understand that there are children in the world who are starving? No way a kid in our first world country can relate to that. Neither can we as adults, for that matter. I’ve gone days without eating, just for the hell of it. Hungry? Hell yes. Starving? Hell no.
_

You and I are the same page in many ways @Unofficial_Member. It’s a matter of intensity I guess. I have always said, “If you want your kid to eat dinner, make sure they’re hungry at dinner time!” If they aren’t hungry, whose fault is that? Oh, they snuck into a bag of chips 20 minutes before dinner? Whose fault is that? Kyped and ate a dozen cookies? Whose fault is that? My kids were hungry at dinner time. They hounded me for an a hour before it was time to eat! “It’ll be ready in an hour! Go outside!”