Not like steak & gravy??? and being from the south? that's a crime!

 

:iagree: :wtf:

 

I'm so OVER this. I was a picky eater and I felt my parents tortured me with the whole 'this is what's for dinner so eat it or go hungry' mentality. And like you I outgrew it.

I have 3 kids and while I'm not a short order cook I do take their likes into consideration when making meals. If nothing else I'll serve bread, mac-n-cheese, or offer them a sandwich if they don't like the main dish.

And you know what? My laid back attitude has paid off. My older two have gotten better about eating and like you I'm just left with a picky 7 year old. LOL

I believe it's up to the kids to decide what they will eat. My job is to provide well balanced meals and stock the kitchen with healthy options. What they choose to put in their bodies isn't up to me. I can encourage but that's about it. Even treats. They've learned through natural consequences that overeating junk makes them sick so they moderate themselves. It's very cool!

 

My daughter can win the record on being a picky eater

 

If you think you are crazy, jeez. the things we do to get our daughter to eat is total madness.

 

Be happy that she does like a variety of other things. Try and stock some of that in the house. Teach her to make mac n cheese or just keep her favorite fruits and veggies stocked. If she doesn't like what you make for dinner, then she can eat a banana. It is not going to kill her and she will probably out grow this.

The only time I think you should worry is when it is limited to chicken nuggets like my nephew.

 

I do stock her favs in the house. I'm just trying to cut down/out the making of 2 different meals. Maybe we should just start eating chicken nuggets with her! :rofl:

 

As Bill would say “I feel your pain”.

Our 9 year old daughter seems to have sensory issues along with a fear of new foods.

For a typical dinner, she will have chicken, oatmeal, squash, raspberries, blackberries, banana, broccoli….

The problem is that we have to blenderize it so she can drink it…As a baby, she would never eat no matter what we did. She wasn’t putting on weight and she was soooo skinny. The doctors wouldn’t really listen, so we did what we had to do. So for some strange reason, if we put her food in a blender, she would drink dinner. Now at 9 years old, you would think she would outgrow this….all the b-day parties she goes to and still doesn’t want to try pizza. I don’t get it. Chicken nuggets? Out of the queston. Several YEARS ago I made her eat a nugget from McDonalds and she still remembers that.


I don't want to tell you to do that. If it's veggies you want het to eat, add raw veggies to a smoothie.

Still, it's more important to eat food. For us, it is soo hard to visit friends for dinner.

 

Wow what an ordeal. Sorry you have to go through that. A friend of mine's little girl had food issues and they did some food therapy with her. It worked and she's now eating many different things. She's now 3.

My girl has tried oatmeal and does not like it.

She will eat raw carrots dipped in Ranch dressing.

 

She tried a piece of spinach the other night and said it looked like leaves. I told her she was right and that it was good for her, but she just wrinkled up her nose at it.

 

We did have her in therapy. They just told us she was a picky eater.

The story below fits our daughter to a T...

We did call them to get more info. It was something like $1000 a day. The parents are part of the therapy too. I think in the story it took several weeks to get the girl to take a bite of pizza.

Who the heck has to force/bribe a child to eat pizza? "If you take a bite of pizza, you can have some chocolate..."

My wife and I actually started eating pizza once a week to encourage her to want to try it. It's been a year now and she still has no desire to even try a slice...


We also add spinach to her smoothies. Whats funny is that our daughter knows exactly what in it and she drinks it.

Your doing great Southern Wife. It's good that you put new food in front of her and at least she will try it. eventually she may like you pasta dishes.
Fear of Food | Video - ABC News

 

Your doing great Southern Wife. It's good that you put new food in front of her and at least she will try it. eventually she may like you pasta dishes.
Fear of Food | Video - ABC News

You're probably right and thanks for your input. I'm just really trying to cook ONE meal....for all of us.

She did try, and likes, cauliflower with cheese. Maybe I should just put cheese on everything for her! She'll go to the fridge and get some shredded cheese and eat it!

 

I deal with this at home too.

An observation I've made in skimming this thread is this:

It appears no matter what approach the parent takes, the child remains a picky eatter...until they aren't.

Therefore I'm concluding that the best approach, as a parent, is whatever approach is less stressful/draining to the parent. The child seems unaffected by the approach, on the other hand the parent seems to be much more concerns/stressed/upset/drained. So fix the problem by focusing on making the parent's life easier.

Practice acceptance, recognize this is out of the parent's control....

 

wow, your DD is a lot less picky than my DS! He won't eat any kind of assembled food, no quality meals, no cooked vegetables. I can get healthy food into him, it just has to be a certain way...

So I often make two suppers because I want to eat something tasty once in awhile. And I too was a VERY picky eater as a child, when my parents tried to outstubborn me I went on a week long hunger strike and they nearly had to put my in the hospital - instead they just put some hotdogs and carrot sticks in front of me and I was as content as could be again.

So I know trying to force him into something just won't do anything but make my life unnecessarily difficult, so I will continue trying to mix up his daily serving of raw veggies, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese and fruit. When he gets on a streak of something new I will appreciate it while it lasts and he decides to quit that particular food.

 

I guess you're right, Lon (mark your calendar! :rofl: ) J/K!!

Perhaps I'm worrying over nothing and eventually we'll be down to one meal for all of us. In the meantime, I'll be thankful that she does eat a pretty good variety, and chalk it up to "she'll grow out of it"!

 

Mark my calendar? It's already premarked for every day, I'm always right.

Yes it is no fun not having a kid that will sit down for a cohesive family meal like the kind perfect tv families have.

 

They'll eat if they get hungry enough.

 

Nope. As a kid I very clearly remember that no amount of hunger was going to get me to eat something I didn't want to eat. I literally would have sooner starved to death than eat mushroom soup, broccoli, anything with sauce etc. my parents decided to break my pickiness by refusing to offer me even one thing they knew I'd like to pick off the plate, went a week straight, lost almost 15 lbs (i was only 7 or 8).

same with visits to relatives and such, was pretty common for me to do 3 day fasts, based purely on stubbornness.

 

My H tried to sneak DD the PB&J after I told her if she wasn't eating, she'd go to bed without dinner. I intercepted. She had to try one bite of everything on her plate - according to her doctor, more than enough to give her the required nutrition. She has always at least tried everything - or else she went to bed without dinner. Today she'll eat anything from sushi to BBQ to chicken nuggets.

 

I was one of the pickiest eaters I've ever known growing up. My parents tried everything under the realm of positive and negative reinforcement. Nothing worked. I too would starve myself given the choice of eating what's on my plate or nothing at all.

I also would try something before deciding if I thought it was awful or not. Most times I thought AWFUL!!!!
Growing up I expanded my pallet a great deal. For instance I love sushi even the wild stuff. Love Indian and Thai food and have trued and loved many exotic foods.

I never grew out of hating many foods I grew up with though such as meatloaf, goulash, macaroni salad, Any pig product besides bacon. Peanut butter, chocolate and the list goes on and on.

However I love all fruits and veggies, Fish, Chicken and many many foods that are very healthy. I'm still a picky eater by definition buy I enjoy a great variety of foods now and will still try anything once.

For your laughs here's a few foods I hated growing up...
-Ribs
-anything with barbecue sauce
-Any kind of gravy
- Almost all kinds of fish
-Sour cream and cream cheese
- Peanut butter (but I loved peanuts)
- Any cooked vegetables (I only ate raw)
- Spinach, kale, collard greens, okra and asparagus

For the record I like all those things now except peanut butter

 

Sounds just like my 8 yoa and yes we have had several stare downs especially when it comes to Green Beans which she hates I believe it is the age

 

Lol I dont mind making different meals and in fact I always try to get something everyone will like. What works for me is letting the picky one eat what she wants and when she sees everyone else eating something different... She tries it. Of course my daughter eats ramen, chicken nuggets, toquitos, fresh fruits and veggies, and nuts. For a couple of years she only ate fresh fruits, veggies, and nuts.
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Switch to the organic versions, unadulterated. Most of those foods have addictive stuff in them. Plus it engages the parts of the brain and floods them, that react to the addictive stuff. The brain gets used to the super-flavored artificial stuff and loses its ability to detect other food that tastes good.

My kids have been on a vegan diet for 2 weeks now and they are eating things I never would have thought. They said that everything tastes so much better and they have more energy. Additionally, they are more apt to try new stuff (avocado, for instance) than before. Yesterday I made them vegan pumpkin bread pudding. They absolutely loved it.

I think for your daughter the best thing to do is to switch to the organic versions first, then slowly start adding new/different foods. You might also want to consider if she has allergies, because certain foods will taste bad if you have allergies. For instance, when my allergies were at their worst, even organic granny smith apples tasted like someone had coated them with a very nasty toxic substance!

I'm fairly lenient. For instance, this morning I got up and made them homemade baking soda biscuits, put the honey, compote/jam, and vegan spread on the table, along with some vanilla rice milk, and let them have at it. For lunch they got three-color rotini and vegan parm cheese substitute, vegan chocolate cupcakes, some of the pumpkin bread pudding. Dinner they are eating out, my guess is that they might get something non-vegan, or they might insist on getting vegetable-only pan-fried dumplings and green beans at the Chinese restaurant. (They're with their dad.) Stuff doesn't have to taste bad to be healthy.

 

That's what I did - not making a big deal out of food. You don't want this? Fine. What are we doing for the rest of the night? You're hungry? Ok, your plate is still on the counter, you're free to eat anything you want on it. No? Ok, well, the rest of us are playing Uno.

She ate, eventually. She won't starve herself, as long as you don't make it a power struggle.

 

yeah definitely, my son will eat eventually but only if it is a food that he knows (there are things he "won't eat" and then there are things he "won't eat this time"). When he leaves his food he becomes very difficult to deal with, but I persist and enforce the rules, however it is emotionally exhausting. Being consistent goes a long way, but as firm as I can stay, he will still inevitably try chipping away at me. His mom seems to have an easier time, emotionally, being firm with him, but he knows her words have a little more bite to them in the form of spankings.

 

What I have read/heard is that over a period of days kids will eat a mix of things that will give them the nutrition they need. Parents just need to give them choices.

From experience it's not worth fighting. Just provide her with a mix of things and let her pick and choose.

When my kids went through picky phases, I just had a healthy variety of food for them to pick from.

My parents did the thing where we had to eat what they put on our plates and we had to eat ALL that was on our plates. Then my mom would serve large portions. It set up very bad eating habits that I had to unlearn.

 

Also keep in mind that children's taste buds are much more acute than those of adults.

I remember when I was a kid my mom would serve us cooked bell peppers & onions and avocado (raw). The taste was so strong that I could not stand them. They were horrible.

As an adult they are some of my favorite foods. I eat them at least once a week. But I remember what they tasted like when I was a child. They do not taste that strong any more.

 

DD22's taste buds (preferences) change at least every 6 months. Nowadays her favorite food is spinach, and she wouldn't touch it 6 months ago.

 

It's a bit frustrating making meal after meal at night to have it rejected, but I'm trying not to get emotional about it.

If mine don't like what's on offer they can have a sandwich, a banana, some yoghurt - whatever is around that's easy. I also try to have at least something that everyone likes.

My little one loves plain pasta and rice, so that's easy. My big girl doesn't like either, unless the rice is part of sushi. She loves eggs though.

I don't get the refusing to let them eat something else if they don't want what you've cooked. How is that not a power struggle? I'm an early childhood teacher and I've known plenty of children who certainly will refuse to eat until their blood sugar drops to a level where they are irritable, irrational and can't eat. Leaving a plate of food on the counter wouldn't do sh8t to make my 3 year old eat.

And what's the point of forcing it? She'll widen her repetoir when she wants to, and if she doesn't, so what? Adults have all kinds of food quirks that you never notice, because they can choose and prepare their own food. Children can't.

To the poster who's daughter will only eat puree'd food, does she have sensory issues? It sounds like it, that's quite extreme. She may benefit from general sensory therapy.

 

I don't get the refusing to let them eat something else if they don't want what you've cooked. How is that not a power struggle?

My son would malnurish himself on goldfish if I let him pick what he wanted to eat. It is a "power struggle" that I will not let him win, because I love him and his health and nutrition is a basic need that I am responsible for.

I give him choices and I don't force him to eat anything against his will, nor deny him healthy alternatives - if he has a food request I will incorporate that into his next meal items, but as for the food I just put on the table, those are his choices for this meal.

 

I grew up with the "this is what is for dinner; eat it or starve" type parenting and it worked for me. I always hated a number of foods, but I didn't have a choice to eat any other foods I wanted, so I had to eat what was available. My siblings and I today will eat just about anything, the same with my husband and his siblings who grew up with the same lifestyle. That is completely different from my cousin who was a picky eater as a child and her mom catered to her food preferences. She is still a very picky eater to this day as an adult and now does this for her daughter who is a picky eater.

 

She is still a very picky eater to this day as an adult and now does this for her daughter who is a picky eater.

And really, is that such a bad thing?

Maybe it's not for you, and if she is willing to put up with the hassles that accompany picky eatting, then does it really matter? Is this person not capable of being a productive member of society due to this?

 

There are foods kids have complete aversion towards. When I was young it was eggs after having the flu once. My daughter could detect peanut butter in anything we made and avoided it.

I think the trick is to recognize the true aversions but foster trying new things by tasting. Our rule has been that you need to try it but don't need to eat it all. Sometimes this led to not eating at all but most of the time they would nibble and move on to other things on the plate.

We always have at least three components to the meal so there was usually something they would eat.. We also vary what we eat a lot so there is not much repetition.

When it was clear that they truly didn't like something we would find a substitute for that course and provide something else if possible. Our youngest was the most picky and once he saw that we accommodated his worst dislikes he became less confrontative. We also tried to show him techniques like using small bites and swallowing more quickly with food he didn't like and eating it first.

Each of our kids went through a picky stage our youngest the most. But they have each said that they becamame accustomed to foods they didn't like at first through the small exposures.

Our daughter came back from college for Christmas with a surprise, she was eating peanut butter. Our youngest who hated steak and had even had a seizure while eating some once enjoyed pepper steak last Sunday.

What is interesting is that one of our kids friends is an extremely picky eater. His mom talks about it all the time and gives him only what he will agree to try. But when he comes to our house he eats nearly everything. It is this interaction which causes me to beleive that his pickiness is really him training his mom to give him what he wants. His moms rants are very similar to the extreme cases mentioned on this thread.

 

What is interesting is that one of our kids friends is an extremely picky eater. His mom talks about it all the time and gives him only what he will agree to try. But when he comes to our house he eats nearly everything. It is this interaction which causes me to beleive that his pickiness is really him training his mom to give him what he wants. His moms rants are very similar to the extreme cases mentioned on this thread.

I know all about that. For instance, my kid's school offers tacos, chicken & dumplings and things like that. And she'll eat them and says she likes them. But when I make those things that her school makes, she won't eat it.

 

my daughter asks for one thing....then says no she does not like it. lol

very frustrating. especially breakfast when time is an issue