<p>I have never had anybody put in special requests (except the family member who I talked about earlier, who decided he didn’t want to eat any of the food that I’d spent $160 at Whole Foods on the day prior, and went to the store and got him and my husband a steak and beer, and then proceeded to grill it).</p>
<p>This reminds me of another family we had over from our old neighborhood. We moved into a far nicer area (ie homes 4X the value of the others), and spent a lot of time fixing up the yard and cleaning. The guy never made a comment about how nice the yard looked, with the stepping stones, flowers, view and hot tub…but commented to my husband that he must not use weed and feed, while pointing to a weed in the yard.</p>
<p>I had also put out many tasty snacks, organic, healthy, tasty, along with good beer and wine, and an assortment of juices. They didn’t touch a thing. The husband finally relented and accepted a glass of tap water, after inspecting the glass closely for spots. One of the kids accepted some lemonade, then shrieked about the pulp in it, while her mother gladly removed the glass from her hand and said she didn’t need anything. Apparently they had decided ahead of time that we were a filthy lot, and didn’t want to expose themselves or their children to disease by consuming or touching anything. They walked through the house gingerly like they were in a garbage dump. The house was pretty clean, though I’m not going around sanitizing every item. Never, ever, again!</p>
<p>Yeah, tito, I never figured it out. Very nice kid, so maybe that’s why. He knew me well enough to know that all I wanted to do was please him and for him to be comfortable, but I am very familiar with odd behavior, so I never took it to heart. I’m sure he doesn’t do that as an adult. Believe me, I’ve seen far stranger behavior!</p>
<p>Hey for what it’s worth, some picky eater kids do grow out of it!</p>
<p>Like BusDriver11’s kid, my DS (now 19) would only eat a limited menu – said he was a vegetarian, although he hated actual vegetables.</p>
<p>Once he became a teenager (we had lost the food wars long ago) our deal with him was that when we were out somewhere that he try to find things he liked and not comment on the menu. In exchange we tried to ignore what he did or didn’t eat. (The kid is almost six feet tall and reasonably trim.)</p>
<p>However this summer he started trying new things. We went on a cruise for vacation and he sampled lots of different items on their menu, including some vegetable based items. While he didn’t finish some of the stuff he ordered, he got points for trying.</p>
<p>When we are house guests at a home (not family) I do often bring a hostess gift. I have also sent a big Edible Arrangements basket with a note to thank someone for hosting our student (our student had left a note behind when leaving)
If staying with family, we bring wine and various food times etc with us (as per family requests) to spread out the tab. </p>
<p>We had a house guest who kept messing with our thermostadt once… :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I was raised the same way along with most cousins. The few times the cousins or I did complain as 5-7 year old kids, all the parents & older relatives needed to do was to start lecturing us about how lucky we were and spoiled our behavior was because back when they were little kids, they were lucky to have anything to eat because of the widespread chaos, poverty, and the need to be on the run from Imperial Japanese/Commie/bandit soldiers during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War from the late '30s into the end of the '40s. </p>
<p>With many neighborhood American/Latino kids, the only difference was that instead of childhood in wartorn China, it was parental/older relatives’ lectures about the widespread deprivation during the Great Depression and War years(rationing) or fleeing Latin American dictators like Castro or Trujillo. </p>
<p>IME, a great way to guilt trip picky kids into eating…especially when it is backed up with pressure from older siblings/cousins and neighborhood kids.</p>
<p>My D was extraordinarily picky when she was little. So if we got invited to someone’s house, we would apologetically ask what was on the menu, so we could bring something with us that she would eat if the meal didn’t include one of the six things she would eat. These were all friends or family so it was no big deal.</p>
<p>We were at a $1000/person wedding reception, and she wouldn’t even try the food. :eek: They were nice enough to cook her a bowl of plain spaghetti. Her loss, the food was amazing.</p>
<p>(I think a lot of picky eaters are genetic supertasters. [Supertaster</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster]Supertaster”>Supertaster - Wikipedia) A lot of food simply tastes too bitter/sweet/salty/etc. My son was incredibly picky until around 15 (as was I), and now is very discerning about taste and cooking while he eats pretty much everything.)</p>
<p>^^^$1,000/pp at a wedding? You’ve gotta spill the beans on the wedding threads about that one!</p>
<p>S1 is beyond picky. Still does not eat ground beef, chicken, fish, tomatoes, potatoes or any kind of sauce. No amount of bribery, cajoling, ignoring or maturity has changed that. He has always had sensory integration issues and I figure that plays into it.</p>
<p>These days I see a lot of parents enabling picky eaters. Some foods might not taste like candy to kids, but if they refuse and the parents immediately give in…then what is it teaching the kid?</p>
<p>Interesting. My son was extremely picky, also until maybe mid-teens, and now eats most things and will at least try anything. I was also extremely picky as a kid, now I’m a vegetarian, as is my daughter.</p>
<p>I don’t think my D has willingly eaten a green vegetable… ever.
I think it does far more damage to make food a battleground and have it become a dominance issue. As long as the kid is thriving, it is not a big deal.</p>
<p>And it doesn’t have to be a big effort. If I make chicken curry stir-fry, and DD doesn’t like curry, it is practically zero effort to leave out some chicken and saute it separately with teriyaki, which she will eat.</p>
<p>There was more than one night my mother made me sit at the table until bedtime because I wouldn’t eat canned peas. What did that accomplish?</p>
<p>My oldest would eat just about anything. My youngest always seemed to have an aversion to fruits and vegetables. However, he always seemed to thrive and gain so the pediatrician pretty much said to forget about it. He’s less picky these days and has always eaten plenty of the things he liked (chicken, hamburgers,pizza, steak,etc). Would always eat french fries (somehow that didn’t seem like a vegetable to him I guess). Green vegetables though , forget about it.</p>
<p>My son also threw up in a restaurant, but it was just before the food came. He was 3. He had started pulling on my hand saying he needed to go to the bathroom NOW before he puked, so we were walking thru the middle of the carpeted dining room when he actually vomited. The whole place was staring at us. I had to ask them to box our food and we left. I never showed my face in that restaurant again. It closed a few years later… I guess as far as that restaurant was concerned, we were outrageous guests!</p>
<p>We also went through a phase where almost the only meat D would eat was chicken nuggets or chicken fingers. We would look at restaurant menus before going inside, if they didn’t have chicken fingers we wouldn’t eat there. I remember once on vacation our relatives were going to an Italian restaurant and we were going to eat elsewhere, until the relatives called us, “Good news! They have chicken fingers here!” Now she loves sushi and “hates” chicken… go figure. But when we’re visiting someone, my kids have always known they have to at least TRY something.</p>
<p>Oh, the number of times S2 threw up in a restaurant! At the table in a five star Thai restaurant, in the wine bucket in a Spanish restaurant, into the chip basket at a cheap-o restaurant. And then there were the times he just left the restaurant, including the time we were in a restaurant in Green Bay during a Packers game. The place was jammed and he decided he had to take off ALL his clothes since his stomach hurt. Fortunetly, I got him out the front door of the restaurant and into the car before he got his underpants off (he was about 4). He is a super taster and a super smeller. For him fruit and sweet smells in particular are his triggers. To this day the smell of a banana makes him ill.</p>
<p>BUT he will eat any vegtable - loves cooked spinach, rutabegas, turnips, braised cabbage. So we go with the flow in our house.</p>
<p>CountingDown and I can continue the twins separated at birth deal. My oldest is so picky. Weirdly he was pretty good as a baby but every year it seemed like he would eat less and less. He eats chicken and turkey (white meat only), steak and pork (but will cut off anything that looks like fat, plain white rice, bread, carrot sticks, lettuce (but only in a sandwich), plain or pepperoni pizza and chicken vindaloo. He eats Life Cereal with milk twice a day. He won’t eat any pasta. He won’t eat lamb or fish. And he doesn’t eat any cooked vegetables. He’s not fat and he’s never sick. I swear I am a good cook and offered him anything. He’s definitely got sensory issues too.</p>
<p>Thankfully S2 is willing to eat most things and likes to cook to boot.</p>
<p>I used to be very picky, and am not as bad now, though. I’m certain that my abhorrence of all things with mayo, and some greasy fatty foods (not talking doughnuts, here) have spared me 20 pounds over the years. I refuse to even try things that disgust me, and I believe it would be very rude for someone to try to pressure me into it. Just too old for that, and really, whose business is it anyways?</p>