to give up trying to feed this child?

[ankar]

We had dd's best friend for a sleepover last night. The girls are both 8. My dd has done quite a few sleepovers before but her friend started only recently - a mixture of not wanting to initially and then wanting to but her mum being too anxious about it. Anyhow...she was finally allowed to come and it mostly went fine, the girls got along well and even did some sleeping.

However....this child would not eat anything! We really tried and had them make their own pizzas, decorate biscuits and offered lots of general snacks like fruit, yoghurt, crackers etc. She refused everything at first but then later on was obviously really hungry as she did eat a couple of pieces of apple, but that was all she would eat. I just kind of shrugged to begin with and thought she wasn't hungry, but then I realised that she was, but she wouldn't eat our food.

In the morning I made pancakes which she also refused. She looked at the plate and said "I don't like them". By then I was worried but also a bit fed up of offering different things for her to turn her nose up at, so I just said "Well that's a pity" and didn't offer anything else. When her mum just came to pick her up she asked how things went and I said fine but she didn't want to eat anything so I hope she's not coming down with something as she seemed to have no appetite. The mum looked at me quite cross but didn't say anything, then on the way to the car I heard the girl asking if they could pick up pizza on the way home as she was starving!

What could I have done and should I have offered her something else in the morning?

My goodness, I'm dyslexic and dyscalculia and dyspraxic and I have a MSc degree, bloody hell it's not an excuse but a reason as to why some xhikdren struggle, get the right help and they could reach their potential. Shall we go back in the day where we were labelled thick or stupid!

Sheherzade

I am a child psychologist with over 15 years experience. I both work with and advise SALTs and medical professionals every day .

Key symptoms of oral hyposensitivity - excessive drooling, delayed chewing and biting, and gagging on textured foods at weaning. Closely linked with verbal dyspraxia.

So feck off.

And I have a child with those things. Diagnosed by professionals. :)

I doubt sheherazade will change her entrenched views though :(

Clair I'm a trainee health psychologist and would like to go into clinical psychology especially as dd has ASD and it's really close to me

Cool. Its a great job. Of course we mostly see middle class parents inventing disorders because their kids aren't as bright as they wish

It sounds fantastic, during the dx process my dd was assessed by a clinical psychologist and I found it something that I would like to do and that I can do. It means I have to gain some more voluntary experience, and apply for the doctorate in clinical psychology. I understand the competition is hard but I will try. It seems so far away from my school days where I was struggling, and behind all the time. I left school and retook my GCSEs at college, there I was assessed by an educational psychologist and dx, I was given the right help and the tutors were awesome really believing in me. Tgey encouraged me to apply for uni which I did, I got a place reading Psychology.

But there is a level on which there is enormous pressure - commercial pressures from supermarket/time pressures/media pressure/peer to feed children highly processed junk. If they get used at an early age to only eating bland smooth-textured food that is high in sugar, salt, fat, additives - they may well be alarmed when they meet something new. This isn't necessarily because they have a hidden disability. It may simply be that they are creatures of habit.

And as a general issue are we doing chidren a favour if we give in to these pressures? We might be caring adults who are giving children they like to eat. But if childhood obesity is writing and juvenile diabetes has skyrocketed are we - as a society - doing the right thing?

This is moving rather away from the original posting. But I'm not sure there's a lot that's new to say about that.

You raise a god point,

I mean virtually every one on here has said the kid won't eat a home made pizza. It's not the same. The he made pizza had been made out to be some ridiculous pretensions food item which no child but the op's would eat. That expecting anyone else to touch it was ridiculously unrealistic.

Since when is presenting a home made pizza like asking a child to eat worms.?

Since when has the better option been doughy bland plastic cheese topped processed crap.

And since when should we have freezers full of shit as we expect kids to only eat that.

And not owning reformed potatoe products is pretentious?

Putting any SN diagnosed or hidden aside, as that's obviously not something that can be helped and the parents do their best.

But these threads seem to prove that presenting kids with food that actually looks like food and isn't uniform in its appearance to Iceland equivilants is not trying to ensure kids have a healthy diet but part of some passive agressive stance that they won't be "served that processed crap here".

giles, the OP herself described her home-made pizza as "delicious".

That's not a fact, that's an opinion, but she presented it as fact in order to shore up her claim that it was unreasonable for her DD's best friend to eat it.

I can't actually imagine a home-made pizza that tastes anything like an authentic pizza unless the OP has a pizza oven, and I would probably not fancy it either.

Hardly a plate of worms - I don't think exaggerating is helping your case.

Also, you missed the fun fun part of this thread last night when we were all having a joke about what's in our freezer.

But I agree wholeheartedly with you on this:

presenting kids with food that actually looks like food and isn't uniform in its appearance to Iceland equivilants is not trying to ensure kids have a healthy diet but part of some passive agressive stance that they won't be "served that processed crap here".

• not to eat it

No but mariane has a good point I think. That we don't expect kids to eat it.

And I do realise that it is in some cases the truth that there is something wrong, but, when the first thought is instantly that there must be a sn and not sadness that actually kids are just used to eating shite and wouldn't know what home made food looks or tastes like and won't even try it as it's apparently so far removed from what they usually get, don't you think that it's actually a huge problem that kids are facing?

That we need to up our expectations of what we think (nt) kids will actually eat.

And I think we are almost evoke scared now of even trying.

And yes the kid you have over gor dinner may well have a sn. And it isn't the parents place to try and change things. But isn't it just as likely that the kid staying over hasn't had a proper cooked meal in a long time and would actually enjoy a home made version of something? That you could make a big difference to that child in just one day.

It works both ways and sometimes I think it's worth taking the chance.

Maybe not but a lot of kids eat their main meal at school and we all know how bad some of those can be.

I'm extremely sceptical about the loveliness of home-made pizza.

Why? It's much nicer than shop bought or takeaway, not as greasy and you can customise the toppings, which are also fresher.

An I ask why? Not on a sarcastic sense but in genuinely interested.

I find bought pizzas vile. The only reason they taste of anything is the ridiculously high salt content of the cheap processes meat topping.

Some are better like maye the pizza express ones (although nothing special) but on general the format is the same. Salty yet bland and plastic cheese topped with unidentifiable meat.

A home made one can at least have fresh tomatoes and proper cheese.

I don't eat pizza anyway. Just occasionally but home made was always a winner for me over shop bought.

Whilst it's hard to recreate an 'authentic' pizza (purely because it's difficult to get the oven hot enough) it's very simple to create something better than shop bought offerings.

I think a point worth thinking about though is that if there were no SNs and assuming that the home made pizza in question was nicely done and not topped with goats cheese snails and sea weed, that whereas I would find it worrying why my child wouldn't even try a home made pizza, that te majority of people here feel it was silly to even try and that a kid wouldn't like it and she should have bought one.

This is my point. That it's become normal to not cook. That we should buy it ready made.

Isn't 'better' in terms of taste a subjective opinion? Yes the homemade one is nutritionally better, but whether you prefer the taste/texture of homemade or shop bought is personal surely.