Fed Up With Picky Kids

meg72

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

If they'll eat 'freezer foods' make your own, cheat a bit. Make your own burgers with good lean minced steak, make your own fish fingers with skinless boneless fish fillets, make chicken dippers with fresh chicken breasts, even make up home made frozen 'ready meals' and if they see them come out of the freezer they won't immediately say I don't like it!!! Make food fun, little pizzas on half rolls made into faces, my girls loved eggy breads with ketchup faces on them for breakfast make rice pudding and pop some sultanas or chopped prunes in before it's cooked, make chocolate rice pud with cocoa in the milk. Make fruit smoothies and call them milkshakes, make the smoothies into ice lollies for healthy snacks in the summer. If they like pasta you can hide lots of extra veg in a homemade tomato sauce and blitz them out of sight. They will stop being so fussy as they get older if you don't make mealtimes into dramas and don't force them to see food as a negociating point. Would you let them help with the preparation of the food, that might encourage them to try meals they helped make, even, if you have room in the garden let them grow simple things like lettuce, it's amazing how they'll try things they've grown even mustard and cress on the windowsill is good fun. Hope you can find a way to engage them, it will make life so much easier all round.

So So True and encouraging is always better than letting things get to be a battle.

Ivana_Tinkle

I'm in my late 30s and I, in common with all my friends growing up, was raised to clear my plate without any fuss because my mother had worked hard to cook it, and it would be terrible to waste food when there were children starving in Africa etc etc. I think it did most of us a tremendous amount of harm. The majority of adults have weight problems or other "issues" with food.

What's more important in the long term - that the food you've cooked today all gets eaten or that your kids grow into adults who can eat when they're hungry, stop when they're not and see food as a source of nutrition and enjoyment, not guilt and conflict?

bossymoo

Ivana_Tinkle wrote: »

I'm in my late 30s and I, in common with all my friends growing up, was raised to clear my plate without any fuss because my mother had worked hard to cook it, and it would be terrible to waste food when there were children starving in Africa etc etc. I think it did most of us a tremendous amount of harm. The majority of adults have weight problems or other "issues" with food.

What's more important in the long term - that the food you've cooked today all gets eaten or that your kids grow into adults who can eat when they're hungry, stop when they're not and see food as a source of nutrition and enjoyment, not guilt and conflict?

^^^
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This!

moomoomama27

Two of my children are quite picky, they eat barely any fruit or veg, but the rest of their diet is ok. I was the same growing up, but my parents were relaxed, and allowed me to choose what I ate ( no veggies at all until I was 12) and didn't impose any rules or pressure to eat a certain food, or amount. I found my love of fruit and veg after I started secondary school, when I started to have school dinners, surprisingly our school meals were lovely! Because I felt no pressure to clear my plate or eat something I despised I developed a healthy attitude to food.

No point on making food an issue IMHO.

cheeswright

I am often surprised when people talk about the past and the "clearing your plate" thing - being the issue that has cause them to be fat now
not oddly that they were fat then though ?
For me - a child from a poor family - that was a childhood with no car and no central heating - I was cold well exercised and hungry most of the time. The clear your plate was out of genuine concern from parents that you would be adequately nourished until the next meal.

These days the processed food is so high in unnecessary carbs and sugars and this along side a much more sedentary lifestyle means that people need to have quite a lot of information to make healthy and balanced choices.

If you let people naturally eat what they want to - kids for instance - they will gravitate towards the sweet..this will either be sugars or combinations of fats and sugars. Today these combinations proliferate in pre processed food. Eating these is the main cause of obesity as they bypass most of the bodys "stop I am full" mechanisms
Lots of people say " I don’t want a fight about this with my kids" I often wonder if it should be a fight - or a gradual process of education like most things are for kids.

The "they'll pick it up as they go along," attitude is a bit scary though - we don’t expect them to do this with..for instance maths, well not if we expect them to be any good at it.

notanewuser

cheeswright wrote: »

I am often surprised when people talk about the past and the "clearing your plate" thing - being the issue that has cause them to be fat now
not oddly that they were fat then though ?
For me - a child from a poor family - that was a childhood with no car and no central heating - I was cold well exercised and hungry most of the time. The clear your plate was out of genuine concern from parents that you would be adequately nourished until the next meal.

These days the processed food is so high in unnecessary carbs and sugars and this along side a much more sedentary lifestyle means that people need to have quite a lot of information to make healthy and balanced choices.

If you let people naturally eat what they want to - kids for instance - they will gravitate towards the sweet..this will either be sugars or combinations of fats and sugars. Today these combinations proliferate in pre processed food. Eating these is the main cause of obesity as they bypass most of the bodys "stop I am full" mechanisms
Lots of people say " I don’t want a fight about this with my kids" I often wonder if it should be a fight - or a gradual process of education like most things are for kids.

The "they'll pick it up as they go along," attitude is a bit scary though - we don’t expect them to do this with..for instance maths, well not if we expect them to be any good at it.

You can't force a child to learn maths any more than you can force them to eat cabbage.

cheeswright

notanewuser wrote: »

You can't force a child to learn maths any more than you can force them to eat cabbage.

so .. would you try to teach them though ?
would you find ways to make it interesting and fun
or would you just ...assume that somehow the kid was going to learn it themselves ...somehow...or do without it their whole lives ? ( cabbage or maths )
and do you have no responsibility in this...?
is it fine if your kid doesn’t want to learn to read to be happy that they're illiterate

is it someone else’s responsibility...?

or if you surround them with books will they somehow pick up the ability to read....? of course not...

Butterfly_Brain

Try making mealtimes fun by giving vegetables pet names or serving up food looking like boats, faces etc

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=fun+food+for+kids&client=ubuntu&hs=4Je&channel=fs&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=rD2wU824FMSwO-_xgYAP&ved=0CCwQsAQ&biw=1023&bih=491

notanewuser

cheeswright wrote: »

so .. would you try to teach them though ?
would you find ways to make it interesting and fun
or would you just ...assume that somehow the kid was going to learn it themselves ...somehow...or do without it their whole lives ? ( cabbage or maths )
and do you have no responsibility in this...?
is it fine if your kid doesn’t want to learn to read to be happy that they're illiterate

is it someone else’s responsibility...?

or if you surround them with books will they somehow pick up the ability to read....? of course not...

I'd encourage in every way I can, and I'd explain why. So, for example, my 3 year old knows that she can't live on cake but I'm not going to force feed her carrots or whatever. Her dad and I have 3 a levels in maths between us. Doesn't mean she has to be good at or enjoy maths. We can just encourage what she shows interest in at the moment.

Butterfly_Brain

If they are toddlers it is usually down to texture, both of my children had the same meals as us from the weaning stage, I just pureed it down so it had only small lumps in.

Babies and toddlers also love finger foods, just don't worry about the mess that ensues :rotfl:

I used to give mine carrot sticks to munch on when they got in from school rather than fruit because carrots were cheaper, they still had fruit but usually that was for dessert if I hadn't made one