We enforced the “no thank you helping” when our kids were young and we were dinner guests. A no thank you helping is a teeny tiny portion of everything being served that they weren’t completely sure they’d like. We then encouraged them to try even just a nibble of those items. I think the small portion of something unfamiliar made it more manageable for them to tackle, and it made the hostess happy to see her food being tried/eaten. Surprisingly, our kids ended up liking a bunch of weird foods…liver wurst and marinated red cabbage salad come to mind. Not many 3 year olds have refined palates, but repeated exposure and gentle encouragement (with no rebukes for not liking it) seemed to head off any food wars with my kids.
You’re free to think the children’s eating behavior is weird. It doesn’t give you call to comment on it. That’s a great way to cause eating disorders. If the “rules” were truly universal, the parents would say something, wouldn’t they? The fact that they don’t should indicate to you that the “rules” aren’t as universal as you think.
Our rule was they couldn’t fight over the food or the serving pieces (“Whah… I wanted THAT plate/apple/spoon”). If they started to argue they had to recite the rule “you get what you get and you’re glad you have food”.
like anything else, most of this stuff depends on the specific situation. What if you saw your nephew taking a too-large portion that would leave the table short, and his mother wasn’t paying attention. Most of us would quietly say something to him.
I too made the conscious decision to never require a kid to eat anything. If you don’t want it you don’t have to have it. I don’t know why it’s important to force kids to try new foods. I don’t think it makes the slightest difference in what they will eat as adults. And while they’re kids–who cares? Most kids will eat what they need if it’s provided. If my daughter was invited to some other kid’s house for lunch or dinner, I used to warn the parent that she was unlikely to eat much of anything and offered to let them rescind the invitation in case that was not something they allowed at their dinner tables. Now that she’s an adult I don’t think she has eating habits that cause comment when she dines with other people.
@Wellspring I see a difference between forcing and encouraging. My kids might have only eaten brown food (chicken tenders, bread, French fries) if left to their own devices. A piece of mandarin orange, a stalk of broccoli, or a spoonful of cranberry sauce are all items that provide a bit of nutrition beyond the fried carbs and breads. No biggie, and maybe they’d still have become good eaters, but I felt that modeling what a balanced meal could look like was part of my job.
Well sure. But if they like apples and they don’t like cranberry sauce what’s the value in encouraging them to eat one instead of the other?
Ah, I see. Good point, but re read my post…when we were dinner guests the no thank you helping was always in effect. At home, I’d have no problem if they wanted an apple and helped themselves. But my kids never really complained at home, and I knew what they’d eat…so most meals were a non issue. Of course if I made a new dish, I’d roll out the no thank you portion rule. It worked, kids are healthy, no drama. YMMV.
shellz, I just disagreed with arguing with my kids about food. My daughter was tiny, and needed to actually eat food and not toy with it, so I fed her what she would eat. I told them not to worry about it at day care either. They’d sneak her cheese sticks and bologna sometimes because they felt she was not getting enough to eat, but she always ate her roll and drank the milk at lunch (they had lunches brought in by a nearby high school cafeteria, so it was casseroles and burritos and other food that was TOUCHING, and there was no way she was going to eat it). She’d come home and inhale her dinner. And she survived. For most of grade school, I packed her a lunch and she ate the few things I put in, not TOUCHING, and again, survived. The hardest thing for her was that they had shared snacks, and everyone else brought gogurts. Daughter never liked them and didn’t eat them.
We often ate with friends who had a daughter the same age who ate everything (but oh so s-l-o-w). They’d nag and try to get mine to eat stuff. Nope. I felt a little vindication when their son was a toddler and would scream “I want cereal!” and would eat nothing but cereal.
My daughter is now in college and eats many things. NOT yogurt. Not most condiments. Not most beans (but I don’t like a lot of kinds of beans either). It’s all fine.
@twoinanddone no worries…I was just sharing what we did. I think there are lots of reasons for choosing any one particular style. I was more responding to wellsprings comment of why cranberry if they like apples. For my normal sized, non-health challenged kids, it was just part of our routine to try to expand their palates. Had it caused a ruckus at dinner, we’d have likely changed our tactics.
My husband was a picky eater; I had a list of the 2 dozen foods he’d eat for a long time. He is much, much better, but will still not eat casseroles, pasta with red sauce, veggies other than carrots and corn on the cob. He has no allergies, just food issues. I think it was to get his parents to pay attention to him. As the years have gone by, he’s the one who orders rabbit, duck, boar, venison, and (ha) lamb. The only thing I will not eat, under any circumstance, is rabbit.
With our daughters, I decided there wouldn’t be any arguments over food outside the house. Our rule was simple: if it is served, you eat. Sure, there are foods they don’t particularly like, but they make do. Funnily enough, they were more inclined to eat something a friend’s mom made before they’d eat the same thing at home.
At home, they can be picky. #1D doesn’t really like potatoes or cheese. #2D doesn’t like spicy food. since I don’t like peas, we don’t have them, but if someone put them on their plate, they’d be eaten or smushed and hidden.
I personally can’t imagine asking someone what they are serving unless I had a true dietary allergy or illness. We don’t serve our daughter’s (mostly) vegetarian friend meat, but she’s ok with chicken broth in things so risotto it is. I usually err on the side of too much food, so there is typically something that everyone can eat. I also always serve either family style or buffet, so no one is ever forced to eat a food they don’t want to eat.
@shellz, I vowed when S was born that I was not going to spend his childhood arguing over what he did and did not eat. At home, we had a “one bite” rule. He had to take one real bite of anything new. If he didn’t like it, fine no argument, no need to eat more. If he did like it, great. I didn’t serve things that I found disgusting–liver and onions or lima beans, for example–and followed his established preferences, such as salad without dressing, or a helping of sliced sweet red peppers instead. As a result, his eating habits were much broader than those of his compatriots: he loved caviar, pates, Thai food, and the like at the age of 4 or 5. As well as pizza. 
When we were at the houses of friends, I expected him to eat whatever he wanted out of what was served, without comment from either him or me. Most people provided pretty bland food for kids, so it was not an issue. At restaurants, we would order something he liked.
I think the main thing is not to create a fuss or draw attention to oneself or one’s child[ren]. Some people apparently need to realize that they are not the first people in the history of he human race to have reproduced. B-)
@Consolation since my kids were good eaters of a pretty wide variety of foods at an early age, they’d frequently turn their noses up at the kid menus at restaurants. They were early readers, too, so we couldn’t do much about it. Lol. We indulged them, unless we were at a more upscale and costly place. Then, they made due with the kids menu. One time, at a Chilis-type place, our then pre schooler asked the server if they had any calamari or baked scallops lying around. (We’d had both at an event recently and he loved them) I about snorted my ice tea all over the table.
My history, as a child/teen, was fraught with drama over food. I was notoriously picky and my well meaning mom (who was convinced I’d die if I missed a meal…or that she was a bad mom if I didn’t eat her food) didn’t quite know how to handle it, so she’d hand me money and I’d ride my bike to McD’s and get a Big Mac. I’ve battled my weight all my life, and as such I wanted different for my kids. For me that meant trying to find healthy foods, of all varieties, that my kids might like, or learn to like. I vowed early on that I would not create drama around mealtime, and that mealtime was going to be about more than just the food…talking, laughing, and being grateful for the food on the table. Even if it was green, or mushy, or weird… I was never ever required to try anything. One sour face, and i was given something else, or money for junk. I had no clue what a balanced meal really even looked like. My folks were immigrants, to boot, so the food I was presented with didn’t look or smell or taste like any of the foods I had at friends’ homes.
I didn’t mean to offend anyone on this thread. Food and weight issues have scarred my life. My redemption has been kids who love to cook, love to try new things, and generally have a healthy and adventurous attitude about food and its place in their lives. For this I am grateful, because there enough other issues in this world to worry about
I have always believed that the more parents make an issue of food the more it becomes one. I simply refused to have any power struggles over food with my children. I served dinner every evening and they either ate it or they picked at it depending on where the meal fell on their “favorites” scale. Some evenings they might have just consumed a roll and a few bites of salad. I never said a word. Later in the evening if they were hungry I would see them rummaging through the fridge or the pantry for something additional. That was ok too.
I have a very good friend and we raised our children together. She and her D would go at it over what the child was eating at every meal. It literally was an epic battle that ruined the meal for everyone else at the table. It was clear that the child was using food as a weapon - not sure why but she knew how to push my friends buttons and she did. No matter what was on the table the child wanted something else - even if it was her favorite meal. My friend would then prepare something else. Usually the request was Annie’s Bunny Mac and Cheese and then the child would say it was cold or the bunny’s weren’t shaped right and refuse to eat. It was a nightmare.
Surprisingly my 20 yr old picky eater is suddenly trying new foods. This break he ate chicken fajitas and pulled pork sandwiches for the first time. And I hear that he’s learned to like california rolls so that he can go out for sushi with his friends. That was always our goal - that he could go out to eat at most restaurants and find at least one thing he could eat. Still won’t eat anything that resembles a casserole or has sauce but we’re making progress.
This is a very good thread for training future grandparents.
Penelope Leach IMHO gave the best advice about handling food issues with small children. She suggested that you should not force kids to eat any one thing, but at the same time, they are not entitled to eat whatever they want without regard for sharing food with others at the meal. Also, a variety of nutritious food should be offered the child at regular family times each day and if a child isn’t hungry he should not be forced; but he should not have special food prepared for him at his convenience later (unless he’s actually ill and not just picky). Healthy children will not let themselves starve under those conditions and will develop a varied palate.
These rules are good because they don’t turn food into the grounds for a power struggle between parent and child.
I’m not clear on how Leach’s advice differs from starving the child into submission.
If you only offer the child food at mealtimes, obviously the child will eventually have to submit and eat whatever’s placed in front of him so that he doesn’t starve. But the child will spend huge amounts of time being miserable from hunger and won’t be able to learn, play, or socialize during those periods.
When my son was in first grade, he refused to eat lunch at school (because something about the cafeteria frightened him), and his teacher was concerned that he would not be able to learn the lessons taught after lunch because he had not eaten. The school advised me that we should give him no food when he came home from school until the normal family dinnertime so that he would experience the hunger that comes from a skipped meal and learn the importance of eating every meal. But when he came home from school, he was so intensely hungry that he could not control his behavior. He would scream, cry, and hit any person who came near him. For the safety of his younger sister, I had to confine him to his room until dinnertime, where he would spend the entire time crying and begging for food.
After three weeks – during which he still didn’t eat his lunch – I gave up. The whole thing seemed cruel and pointless.
Is this the kind of approach that Leach is advocating?
My daughters have strong memories of the time their paternal grandparents tried to get them to drink eggnog. Both girls were willing to try a sip, and did. But Grandma and Grandpa thought they should each down at least eight ounces (or more). I think the girls have good memories of Grandma, now disabled by Alzheimer’s disease for many years, because mostly she was kind and gentle. But Grandpa just wanted to show who was in charge, with food and everything else.
I do not cook for my parties, I order from restaurant. Since we always order the same food for many years, everybody is aware what kind of food will be at our party. If somebody does not agree with this food, they are welcome to either bring their own or not eat at all. Frankly, I do not care. However, it never ever happened for many years. What people eat is their own business, I would not adjust my life style to anybody but my family. When kids and grandkids are visiting, I know exactly what they like and I cook accordingly to treat them.