Not giving my DS's friend an ice cream after he didn't even try his dinner?

[whoopdeedoo]

My DS's best friend from school came over to play and for tea today. I dread it when he does as he is such a handful, climbs on everything, pretty rude and just doesn't listen, drives me mad....today I stopped him opening the cupboards in the kitchen right in front of me and asked what he was doing - "looking for a snack" came the reply . I said I would cook dinner - did he like rice - no. OK - do you like pasta - yes. Do you like sausages? Yes. So I made sausage pasta.

Once on the table I get "I don't like it" and he refused to even try a piece of sausage. I am pretty strict with my DC's eating their dinner before being allowed dessert - if they don't eat enough of their main meal they don't get one and they don't get any other food before bed - pretty simple and effective for us. My DC's both ate their meals, encouraged by the temptation of ice cream to follow. But DS's friend did not eat anything at all. I was left wondering if it was cruel/not my place to refuse the friend an ice cream, but feeling that it was unfair and a bad example to set my DC's to give him one after they did as they were asked.

Luckily the friend's mum turned up to collect him and in all the fuss the ice creams were momentarily forgotten so I dodged the issue, but AIBU to not want to give him an ice cream?

The typical Italian diet of a child is actually very restrictive and bland for the first few years, parents are incredibly selective about their children's food. I think it is a myth that "other" cultures are spooning moule mariniere into their baby's mouths so they grow up to be great eaters with a huge repotoire of tastes.

It is quite the reverse actually.

By whoopdeedoo Tue 20-Jul-10 20:49:27
They will both be 5 in August.

Thisisyesterday - what's wrong with sausage pasta - penne, pieces of fried sausage (I even took the skin off!), tiny bits of broccoli cooked with the pasta, all mixed with tomato sauce - what's not to like ?!

(thisisyesterday had said "yanbu, i'd have done the same but sausage pasta???")

BLBL even quoted whoopdeedoo's question in her post that you objected to so strongly.

The typical italian diet is quite restrictive for the first 2 yrs, when the average Italian child is fed all sorts of soups, pasta al pomodoro and lots of parmesan cheese. Different food are introduced gradually to avoid allergies.

But by the age of 2 they are expected to have a varied diet, if you look at the menus in nurseries they offer "simple" foods (no fried food for instance) but very varied.

And my dc started to eat spaghetti with vongole at 3

To be fair, this is a very subjective thing. My BF has a standard dish that her kids have eaten virtually weekly their whole lives - it looks and sounds like a perfectly harmless cheesy pasta bake (which is not everyone's cup of tea in the first place) but she ALWAYS puts loads of celery in it - and it's still crunchy beacuse celery takes ages to break down when cooked. It's poleaxed my 3 DCs on more than one occasion -luckily they are polite so they have done their best to pick their way around it - but what is perfectly acceptable non-challenging food to one family is something bizarre and unappetising to another.

I have always refused to go down the route of breaded everything, but if I know I'm feeding other kids I do try to keep it simple and unchallenging.

AIBU to be at a 200-plus post clearly pretty polarised AIBU thread where someone comes in a day after it's all kicked off and assumes that "all parents" will agree with the OP?

"but what is perfectly acceptable non-challenging food to one family is something bizarre and unappetising to another"

Absolutely spot on. That's the core of the problem.

What an incredibly eye-opening thread! I do tend towards the "my house, my rules" option, but my kids are a bit older and ds1 has asd, so therefore our house rules are maybe a little different to other houses. I think some people are being pretty hard on the OP, I totally get why she wouldn't have wanted to give this child ice cream, but I suspect that if his mum hadn't arrived, she would have done.
Slightly off point - some people have asked why the child was there at all if she doesn't really like him - my ds2 has "best friend ever" that I'm really not keen on, but he comes here regularly for tea, and sleepovers, and I never let on how I feel, because he's my ds2's friend, not mine!

DD's (part-German, part-Jordanian, brought up in English in China and now living in France) friend ate the gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce with great gusto. And some spicy salami and cherry tomatoes. Cherries for pudding.

I could have given that to any of DD's friends.

5dollarshake to clarify, I wasn't really looking for opinions on sausage pasta and as parent arrived to collect her ds, no ice cream was served until after he had left. I was just curious about people's views on my feeling that I didn't want to give him an ice cream but at the same time felt bad about the prospect of him not getting one when my dc's did! It's only recently (since ds starting school) that we have had children over without their parent and I think the etiquette on food/discipline for friends can be challenging if you don't know the parents and their approach well. This is evident by differing views expressed here.

fwiw, I would also fall into the camp of preferring my dc not to have only ice cream because I would rather they ate something more nutritious at home before bed, which they wouldn't do after ice cream at 6pm!

OP I bet that when you were asked what you'd cooked for the main at dinner by hoever it was, you'd given the stock answer I always trawl out for dd's.

Food!

That way you wouldn't be embroiled in what is essentially an "I don't like that" discussion.

FWIW I think that YANBU to feel that you didn't want to give him an ice cream, but YWBU if you hadn't given him one when your DCs had one.

Most children refuse my food when they come. I check with the parents and tell them what I am cooking and it still never works out.
I've had home made chicken nuggets refused. Baked beans. Peas. mashed potato - twice, by two different children - apparently is is common for children not to like sloppy food.
Home made spag bol refused - it was again pointed out to me that lots of kids don't like pasta sauces.
One of ds1's fussiest friends came and refused my food three times. Then he came unplanned when I was doing a roast chicken on a monday night, 3 veg, roast pots, yorkshires, scoffed the lot and asked for seconds. Had to have a little giggle to myself.

Children and food are wierd. let it go.

mrsspock - I agree with you.

The 'children's meal' thing seems a very UK/USA invention, and I find it bizarre (despite being British).

If you only ever feed kids variations on chicken fingers/chips/plain pasta etc how & when do they ever make the 'switch' to 'adult' food? It's not as if you suddenly say, "Happy 12th Birthday darling...now you're old enough for Green Thai Chicken Curry.." (my 7 year old's favourite dish..)

Just seems that it's oue duty as parents to introduce a wide variety of food and encourage kids to try things several times rather than just accept that they're fussy.

If the kid doesn't like it, you bin it and offer an alternative.
I agree with giddypicke and stressed.
I am obviously not in line with all you others.
I threw my (most beautiful mash EVER) away. smiled. and said "don't worry about my lovely". and then all we ran outside and all had ice cream.
best not go round to whoopdeedoo's house.
All kids get ice-cream at my house

are you a supertaster?
www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/interactives/supertaster/

I've offered alternatives to children I feel have tried hard to be open-mined and polite and give it a go, but I've taken the 'that's what's on offer - if you don't it, fine - you'll have to make a sandwich when you get home' approach as well - only to those kids who I have found to be particularly rude and demanding and lacking in manners!

I have a trick for getting visiting children to eat what I give them but you need to be time rich (and I think it would only probably work from about age 5/6 upwards).

Get them to cook their food. So I make pizza base (or even buy it) and chop toppings then they make their own pizza. It usually works!

I don't worry too much about food (as a consequence of many battles and much tearing out of myhair when dd's were babies). For DD's I try to look at what they eat over a week. For guests I do try to coax them to finish their meals but don't push it too far.

Like with the main, I never give away what pudding is till we're all ready to eat it and we pretty much always have yogurt and the fruit bowl in our house is always full.

If I'm not happy with their efforts Fruit and yogurt (or my version of Eton mess wth whatever fruit I have in) is a pretty good pudding in anyone's book.

FWIW OP I think you'd have made a good decision if you hadn't been saved by that mums arrival. Even if you withheld/gave ice cream on this occasion, it would have made you come up with a strategy for next time, you sound like a thinker to me.

That's fascinating sorebore.

I think I am a supertaster.

I've always been fussy - but also very foodie and interested in tastes - whereas to some of my friends and family food is just fuel and they will eat anything, good bad or indifferent. And I can't eat very salty or very spicy food, and really love "bland" foods like mozzarella or white bread - possibly because they taste of more to me?

of course it makes sense - some people have stronger sight, others stronger sense of smell, why not a stronger sense of taste.

It also explains why those who have never been fussy eaters and will eat anything, simply do not understand those who are picky.