Picky Children-How To Reducate then to OS eating?

full-time-mum

One thing that I have done is be a bit sneaky.

My OH wouldn't eat veggie food so I started with a homemade pizza with bacon, mushrooms, peppers etc. He loved it. Next time I did it without the bacon and he didn't notice. Ditto with a pasta sauce.

I'm not above, saying you ate it OK last time we had it.

Bolognese sauce can be used to hide a multitude of things - pureed veg for instance.

I agree with what has been said by Paige, it is very important that it doesn't become a battlefield. Praise the good behaviour and ignore the bad.

We also have a rule in our house. Everyone tries, if they really don't like it, we don't force it but you still have to try next time. Nearly had a blazing row with OH when he refused to try some prunes in a Venison dish. After he said "What are these, I don't like prunes", he was b!**!y well going to have a taste to set an example - if looks could have killed, he'd have been agoner!

It might also be worth illustrating the cost of the other food and showing what it equates to. Maybe, we could go swimming 3 times or to the cinema on the savings we make this week by not eating takeaways this week.

Also look for the healthy eating info posters. I showed my eldest the heart foundation one with the child drinking from a bottle of oil and I no longer have arguments when I only give her half a packet of crisps in her lunch box.
Look here and here

Good Luck - battles at mealtimes are always so depressing.

thriftmonster

We have a 2 out of 3 rule here - if there are 3 veg cooked you are allowed to choose not to eat one of them. Also everyone is allowed 1 veg they loathe - principally because dh hates cucumber and courgettes - so the kids also are allowed to have one that I won't even try.

Apparently it takes about 15 tries to get a kid to accept something new - so as other posters have mentioned - we do the "one bite and you can leave the rest" and we have had success with quite a lot of veggies this way.

When the kids were little, if they wouldn't eat I would put the meal in the fridge and offer to heat it up if they were hungry before the next meal. Then at the next meal, the rejected food went to the dog and we started afresh with a new meal.

Good luck and do persevere - they do come round in the end - well kids do - as far as I can tell on here, picky dh's are more of a problem!!!!

IWannabedebtfree

Thanks so much for all your posts and for that great link, thriftlady.I always think I'm the only one with a particular problem,I should know better by now!
My kids are 7 and 13 and the oldest one is worst- but getting better. We used to have major battles over food, but I just backed off as it was so awful. Now they are braver, but still in the early stages of being converted to OS. I have shown them how much food costs and how 'better' food can be cheaper. Result was that my DD said at school:"We eat healthily now, because we're poor." The teacher said it made her giggle.
Def going to try:
Getting them to choose a menu with me.
Making stuff that's close to their old takeaway favourites-pizza in BM.
Making sure there's part of the meal that they like and can fill up on, to make up for anything they don't like.
Keeping at it.

All the best, thanks again!

Fivenations

Difficult one. When mine were younger they ate like birds - would eat almost everything but not a lot at one time so perhaps this is what is going on. Not much you can do here except give in to nature. Then again, if you think they are just being picky then the simple answer is not to let them snack later on. It will be hard but worth it in the long run.

Addiscomber

Really sensible advice in the previous posts. Oh. how I wish the Internet and this board had been available when my boys were small. I wouldn't have had half the trouble that I had, and still have on occasions, over food.

I love the 2 out of 3 rule, and it isn't too late to start that, even at 21 and 17 . They already have the one each that they don't like (although would probably be a sick as pigs if they had any idea how often they eat them in disguise :rotfl: :rotfl: )

stefejb

I agree with everyone's comments - love the two out of three rule and am going to implement it from now on. My dds eat ok now but were bloody awful. I had to ban the word "disgusting" from the dinner table. youngest dd has a little veggie patch in the garden which has encouraged her to eat more green stuff. Also some time ago she decided to go veggie and was warned that she would have to eat more pulses abd veggies or the "experiment" would be over - so far so good.
I don't force the issue and there is always bread and cheese available for anyone that really can't eat something. the other day i asked if anyone wanted salad and dd asked why i'd bothered asking as i was going to give it to her anyway dd doesn't do mushrooms but is prepared to pick them out of a casserole. she also doesn't like fish so i have to save that for Daddy weekends. I don't really have much in the way of snacky altenatives available in the house so they have to like it or lump it.
stef

full-time-mum

My DD (5) is going through an "I'm hungry and I want it now" stage. We have tantrums even if dinner is only 5 minutes away.

She shut up yesterday when I said "Imagine what it would be like if you felt like this but there wasn't any food and there wasn't going to be breakfast or lunch or dinner tomorrow either because we were so poor that we couldn't buy any and the weather was so bad that we couldn't grow any - just be thankful that you are going to get a proper meal in 5 minutes time".

Perhaps showing some film or getting some books on famines, poverty and the like might help focus their minds.

jud!th

following on from the last post, I used to be very picky before I did a volunteering project in Mozambique as a student and realised that the people only ate maize-meal, beans and greens. That's _all_ they ate.

I eat everything now.

I think taking your picky family to Mozambique is a bit extreme though...

Judith
x

mcallister1

Hi- I'm new to the os board and have been lurking for a while.
I wonder if it would help to teach dd to make one meal which she can really master and then make once a week. I did that with my 2 girls and said it was so they can survive when they leave home etc.ALso it was good for me although the results are variable.
All went well- one made spag bol the other a similar kind of thing with mackerel ( She liked it and I was on a bit of a fish oil thing)- unfortunately one day the mackerel dd had a crisis of confidence and couldn't remember what to do. She asked the spag bol dd who told her ' Now is the time you add the mince.' which reminded her to add the mackerel too. It was really the most revolting dish ever- mince and mackerel bolognese.:rotfl:
However, I have added on another recipe each now- although one is keener than the other and its hard to remember to get them to do it- and I think its given them more awareness of issues around cooking and food. Also they realise that it is depressing when people are picky over your food.

DizzyMum_2

Hello,

We do a variety of things with my boys (10 and 11) and on the whole it seems to work - some days it doesn't but, that's kids:

* family competitions to see who can get their five portions of fruit and veg
* taking it in turns to let them cook tea of their choice - not junk food (although I have to pick my day here as patience is definitely required - how it takes so long to peel carrots i don't know and as for cubing chicken I have to look away and pray )
* their own patches at the allotment
* Offer no options - I don't do things I know they don't like so, if they're not eating what's served they're going hungry. This goes hand in hand with the catchphrase 'Do I look like I'm running a restaurant?'
* And to try new foods - apparently all the taste buds in your mouth change every ten days so, what you might not have like ten days ago might taste different today so, try it, if you don't like it fine but, at least try it ... not sure how long I'm going to get away with that :rotfl:
* we pretty much always sit at the table and eat
* don't buy stuff you don't want them to eat - if it's not in the house they can't eat it and there's not much you can do about it