to not make her a seperate meal?

[fairy1303]

DSD lives here full time.

She is currently having a massive meltdown because I have told her we are having... shock horror... CASSEROLE for dinner.

We have this about once a month, it's cheap, easy, healthy.
I know she doesn't like it.

I have said that is what we are having, no I won't make a seperate meal.
She is telling me not to serve her any. She doesn't want it. She is crying because she 'isn't allowed any dinner'. She has phoned MIL to tell her. She is about to phone my mum to tell her too. She has phoned daddy at work to tell him.

Now, I'm pretty strict. I'm also aware of the wsm stuff.

AIBU to say: that is what we are having. There will be nothing else?

Or am I being too hard on her?

She's 8

Hope it goes OK!

Perhaps she can meal plan with you or add a couple of things in that she would like another time.

Or have sausages with it

Thants - I regularly make food we all like. I regularly make food she LOVES too. Casserole is not poison.

I like vegetable casserole (with dumplings) and will actually plan it as a meal and not just to use up left-overs. I will also cook food I hate if I know that DH really likes it. eg I don't eat meat and the smell of lamb in particular really turns my stomach, but it's DH's favourite so I will buy and roast a leg once a year as a treat for him.

I guess a lot of this all comes down to how you view food and meal times.

Are meal times a time when you just consume food in order to gain nuitrition, energy, etc. ?

Or are mealtimes a time when you sit down to enjoy food and gain pleasure from what you consume? (The nutrition bit thrown in at the same time)?

For me it is the latter. Therefore to eat something I do not enjoy would make the mealtime less pleasant.

I hated casserole when I was your DD's age. I think it was because it had all sorts of unknown things in it, same with things like quiche - I didn't know what the bits were.

Once I learned to cook and put ingredients into things I started to like so many more different things; does your DD enjoy cooking? Perhaps next time you want to make casserole you could get her to help make it, so she sees and handles the things that go into it. You could call it something else like goulash or stroganoff or chicken/beef whatever 'delight'.

I can't help but wonder why you are cooking things that she doesn't like? I have two DC and two DSC, all grown up now, and have cooked for the lot of them for years and years, and if I knowingly thought one of them didn't like a particular thing, I wouldn't make it for them. Having said that, I think a sandwich as an alternative is completely reasonable.

Can you get them involved with actually making and preparing the food? It is such a great skill, to be able to cook, and they are never too young to start learning how to put a meal together. Eating family meals together is a lovely thing to do, and it is such a shame if there is an atmosphere over something like this. Now mine have all grown up and flown the nest and I really miss those family meals

I cook loads of food I don't like. Meat - most days. I just don;t eat it.

I am in the one meal camp. Always have been neither of mine have suffered.

I think it does children no harm at all to be presented every now and again with a meal they don't like.

This was a regular feature of my childhood and I was led to understand that if you want a meal of your own choosing you prepare it yourself or go to a restaurant. Otherwise you just eat what's put in front of you.

As an adult it wouldn't occur to me to refuse a meal a family member had prepared for me. I want to prepare my children to be the same as adults.

What is veg casserole?

I thought to start with YWBU because you know she doesn't like it but then it seems as though she doesn't like it much but will eat it so it's more of a daddy thing than a genuine dislike. If adding cheese to it makes it palatable this time why not call it special DSD cheesy casserole next time and maybe her tune will have changed? I'm a very fussy eater and have sat in front of many a cold meal which didn't make me like it. But then some stuff I tried after not liking it in the past, sweet corn for example, and now I do so tastes can change at that age given repeated exposure. Do tell us if she eats it!

If it's just that she doesn't fancy it, rather than actively dislikes it, then I would serve it up with bread and butter.

All mine had the same meals, I never made them eat more than they wanted, but if they didn't finish they could have toast or fruit if hungry, nothing else.

But, then, I am a meanie as well

In fact, how about starting with sausage casserole, as your DSD has said she likes sausages? Delia does a good one. If DSD sees what goes into it, she may change her mind about casseroles.

I know someone who gave in and ended up cooking 3 kinds of meals for 4 people most nights.

A bit of flexibility is ok, but you have to seperate "I can't bear to eat that" from "I don't especially like that"

Surely everyone gives kids food they don't want. Otherwise they'd all be living on ice cream and chips.

Ha! ^faddy not daddy! Also I'm one of 4 and making 7 meals a week that all 6 of us liked is impossible so of course there were days I got served something I don't like. As did my siblings on other days. That's a lesson in compromise!

I am hungry. Wish I had casserole.

*helpful

*Pooka - I'm not an expert on SN. I'm willing to accept there are exceptions and that someone who has SN could well be in a different position to others.

Just talking about most people.

As an immediate response- I'd offer bread, butter and cheese together with the casserole, and DSD can then eat that in whatever combination she chooses to fill herself up. I'd also allow fruit or yogurt for pudding.

If she's eaten a cooked meal at school then it's not as though she's going to go without any vital nutrition.

We are in a similar position to you in that I'm veggie but the rest of the household eat meat. I won't make separate meals for everyone - it's impossible to find a meal everyone that everyone would choose, but we all get to suggest our favourites once a week. I don't think serving up casserole once a month is unreasonable, to be honest- you're not insisting she eats it every day. And nobody is forced to eat anything they really do hate (and it sounds like casserole is something she prefers other stuff to, rather than she cannot eat it).

I don't insist on the children eating veggie (though DH often chooses to). I try and make meals that either have a veggie or meaty version (things that can be batch cooked like spag bol are good for this), or have things like chilli where everyone can choose from bean chilli, plain chicken, chilli chicken, guacamole, tacos, tortillas.

Once she's had her dinner, I'd be insisting that she call back MIL and explain what she's had for dinner.

Thants stop dramatising. At most the DSD will have to endure veggie casserole 12 times a year - she'll cope.

I imagine she'll eat her dinner without much complaint and all will be fine.

what's actually in the casserole and what are you having with it?

What the hell is wrong with you people. Would you eat something you don't like?? I know I bloody wouldn't.
If I make something I know my children don't like then I would offer an alternative. You know she doesn't like it and she has every right to refuse it but to then saying its that or nothing is cruel.
Do you make them sit there for hours until they've finished it and then serve it up for breakfast if they don't or can't??

Oh dear. An 8 year-old going into meltdown about tonight's dinner and has to phone the two grannies and daddy because of it?

Tell her to pick out the bits she does like. Veg. Whatever.

With casserole there's usually potatoes too, no?

If a geniune dislike, there's always bread, cheese, yogurt, musli, fruit in the - whatever's in yours - house, tell her.

The more you pander to her the more horrendous she will get. Cos she knows she can manipulate you, and believe me, you don't want to get to the teenage years like that....

(Single mum, early 20's DS - got all the t-shirts! ).

"You can have preferences but can't dismiss something that is a recognised meal like casserole as inedible. "

you have clearly not tasted one of my Mum's casseroles.

Completely and utterly vile.

34 years have passed since I was last subjected to one, but as soon as anyone mentions the word "casserole" I start twitching and looking for excuses.

< shudder >

It doesn't always have to be eat it, or complete other meal.

One of my children doesn't like beef or beef stew. I give him loads of boiled potatoes, or mash,which would be served anyway. Grated cheese on top and lots of frozen veg, cooked then a tiny bit of beef, or a few veg / pearl barley from the stew. He still has a good meal, still has contact with the disliked food, no extra cooking for me.

We're having veggie chilli tonight. My youngest son currently hates black and pepper or chilli so I made it mild but with lots of coriander, cinamon, cumin. I'll give him mainly brown rice, with a little of it, lots of salad and a couple of tablespoons of those 5 bean baked beans, plus cheese.

Are you able to pull the wool over her eyes next time by making similar cheap meal (we all have to sometimes!) but alter it slightly and call it something else? Or is she too old for that? This would work with dd if I knew she'd got it into her head she didn't like a particular thing, but she is only 5. I have also done the slatted spoon trick when dd had a phase when she didn't like "wet" food but gradually reintroduced the sauce because there is a lot of goodness in it.

the more you pander to her fussiness