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?

I think that BBC "test" is a bit rubbish, though. It claims I'm a supertaster, which I'm pretty sure I'm not.

• Perceive all tastes as more intense than other taster types, particularly bitter tastes (nope...)
• Tend to be fussy about their food and have strong food likes and dislikes (nope... although celery is the devil's work)
• Usually don't like coffee, grapefruit, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and spinach (like them all)

My son's a great eater, so would eat, pasta, sausages, broccoli and tomato sauce, but for some reason not mixed up. That's not unusual, especially with younger children. When he has friends over, I check they're okay with what I'm cooking, but also get them to help dish up. That way they agree what's on their plate, so don't get stressed about eating it. So yes I think YABU. Poor kid to be faced with something he doesn't like and then be pressured to eat it. tbh, I was shocked when you said he's only 5.

Having read all this post (taken a bit!)
All I am going to add is that I liked the idea of offering plain pasta, sauce and sausage seperately, this maybe solves any potential problems??!
YANBU at all, exactly the same in this house...

Goose - I actually saw/ learnt the separate bowls of meat/ cheese/ sauces (cheese or tomato)/ veg /pasta thing in action when we went skiing and had this fab chef who cooked kids high tea. He did this, and ALL the kids had something they liked - some mixed it together, some didn't.... cue happy kids!

Having said that, I find children will eat ANYTHING after a day on the slopes

I'm quite fascinated by the idea that many parents wouldn't give young children pasta in sauce - I'd be utterly stumped some days unless I could sling together a tomato sauce for pasta, or some pesto and veg. Plain pasta just seems wrong, somehow - I wouldn't like to eat it - isn't it a bit horrible, just unadorned?

Habbibu, I know what you mean, but in our case DS will eat my sauces, but if anyone else offers something in a sauce he won't. Bit like BrightLIghts DS then, though in a slightly less extreme way. Am keeping my fingers crossed they grow out of it.

Well, I know that children can be suspicious of "different" - didn't Dr Tanya call them neophobic? - it's the plain pasta thing that surprised me. Do people treat it like a direct alternative to, say, potatoes?

I think YANBU and I would have done the same because I wouldn't want to confuse the message to my DS.

I would have offered him some alternative as a main course though - that bit I would have relaxed.

DS (2.8) has recently taken to either refusing to eat dinner or having one mouthful and wanting pudding straight off - so he is told that he must eat more of the main course before pudding. He doesn't have to finish it - but he has to eat some of it at least!

Bribery with pudding might not be ideal but it gets sensible food into DS so it's worth it. He eats very well - we took him to a posh restaurant the other day and he ate most of his meal quite happily, without squawking or carrying on - the owner said we could bring him back any time.

Thumb, what about just not having pudding, though?

Habbs! no pudding?

Or do you mean in the OP's situation - yes, in the OP's situation I think I would have probably passed on the pudding entirely, not made the guest sit there while my DC ate theirs.

(We don't actually have pudding every day but mostly we do)

Does this create problems for the future? I would be worried that as an adult, they believe they "deserve" pudding because they've eaten the entire main course, and end up with weight issues. This kind of attitude is learnt as a child and it is very difficult to overcome. (different thread, I know...)

Yes! We generally don't have pudding, and it means you bypass the temptation to bribe. Also means that dd is very easily pleased wrt pudding, and thinks that yoghurt is a Big Deal.

Do those of you who serve pudding every meal eat a pudding after each meal of your own?
From this thread the world seems to have a sense of entitlement to pudding .

As I said before, if everything you offer has nutritional value then why differentiate between "main" and "pudding"? Why do we have to eat pasta in preference to youghurt for example?
When DD was little she used to have a real thing for yoghurt. She used to have it as a "starter".

YANBU. At All.

Very surprised by some comments here - we eat pasta mixed in with all sorts, so DS (who's one) has always done the same. Have to admit it would never have occurred to me that there was any problem whatsoever with what was offered as a main meal, and I'd consider any kid that refused it to be pretty fussy.

I also think it's a bad thing to say to children that it's okay to refuse your main course and go straight to pudding. And I'm speaking as someone whose DH would do that every day if he could!

clemette, both dd and ds, when weaning, would have, say, pasta, and then some yoghurt, and then would pick up pasta again and dip it into the yoghurt and eat it.

I guess my problem is DH - he is used to pudding. So we mostly have it. I rarely used to have pudding on my own as an adult!

Justanother - can't answer for others here but I don't force my DS to finish his main course before he can have afters, just to have a decent stab at it. If he really doesn't like it (occasionally the case) then I will give him something else. I am not into forcing him to eat too much, or eat something that he hates (both things I had to put up with as a child but I do not have food or weight issues now)

to be honest, as a child I often ate my dessert (always fruit) as a starter. As clemette say, providing it is all nutritious, I don't see a problem with this. I beliver that if you pay too much attention to food rules, you get obsessed with it.

Forgive me if this has been said before (I have had many interruptions while reading this thread). It is a mistake to mention what the dessert it before it it is served.

We always have dessert but unless the DCs have helped make/pick it, they don't know in advance what it is.

thumbwitch, I was not suggesting you were forcing DS to eat up, but merely pointing out that there are some people with weight issues (my sister for example, who grew up with my granmother) who started that way. I also observe that most of my "naturally slim" friends come from families where they just didn't fuss about what food or how much the kids ate.

Fair enough JustAnother - but I think it is hard to generalise these things. I was always naturally slim despite being made to eat up/ eat stuff I hated. OTOH, my sis is hugely overweight. I think it is over-simplifying to say it all comes from fussing about food - there are other factors to consider, such as self-esteem, gratification issues and so on - although I would agree that it makes no sense to turn food into a battleground or punishment arena.

Your house your rules

We always have pudding with dinner.

We mostly have pudding after lunch.

Lunch deserts are fruit.
Dinner puddings can be anything.

They aren't conditional on eating everything but the children have to at least try it before declaring they're not going to eat it.

Sure the children merrily ate three mouthfuls and progressed to pudding with everyone else for about a year.
Now however, I really think they've got the balance, sometimes they decide they don't want pudding, sometmes they'll turn down the exciting pudding prefering fruit and sometimes they take the exciting sounding pudding.

I was not a picky eater as a child but was genuinely not interested in food.
I am overweight but not worryingly so (if you know what I mean) and do feel that myself esteem when I was being forced to eat plummeted hence becoming overweight (incidently after counselling my weight is slowly dwindling (by about 3lbs to half a stone a month) I think it could well be self esteem related).

I think my children eat food they lke in the quantity they need. Like someone said a night on the ice cream won't hurt them in the long run.