To think this is not a fucking cafe?

[calamityjam]

I am getting so fed up of children and food likes/dislikes. I have 3 dc's at home ds2 age 15, dd age 13 and ds3 age 8. Every time I make a meal or buy food recently one of them says "Oh mum you know I hate that". It is getting ridiculous now, I have to make seperate meals without sweetcorn or ham or whatever else they won't eat. Last week dd was the only child at home for tea so I offered her 6 options for tea, all of which were refused and she sulked in her room for hours until I felt bad and ordered her a takeaway because she hadn't eaten all day. Cereal is a joke. Every single one I buy, one child will not eat it. They all like weetabix but say they are getting fed up with it now. I have a list of about 10 meals which they will all eat but are not very cheap to make. Any ideas gratefully accepted.

Your 13 year old sulked, you offered 6 options then caved and got her a takeaway?! So basically, you rewarded really shitty behaviour and she got what she wanted. A 13 year old dictated to you and won. YABU. Cook, if they don't eat it, they go hungry. Unless you're trying to for feed boiled carrots or something really foul like tripe, the DCs are BU.

Breakfast is the easy bit. If one box of cereal lasts a couple of days, you could buy three different ones a week with little wastage. Add in a bag of porridge oats, which have a shelf life of about 37 years even when opened, and you already have four choices - five as you say there's always bread for toast anyway.

On evening meals, if you know there's one ingredient one of them hates, avoid it altogether rather than making a separate version without it. Make life easy for yourself! Another option might be to make the rare dishes they do all like in bulk - that way you could freeze a couple of portions (or keep them in the fridge for a couple of days) and if they turn their nose up at what you're cooking, you can say 'get that curry out of the freezer instead then'.

Just cook the family meal and if they don't like it they get no other option. They are not allowed to cook individual meals, which means you buying all those different ingredients- that's crazy. If they want to do something helpful they could cook the family meal once a week (the 13 and 15 year olds). That's how I was raised. It didn't do me any harm. I was busy doing homework when I f=got in from school. I was starving hungry. I liked some family meals and didn't like others but ate them anyway. I cooked the family meal quite often when I was older.

I wouldnt tolerate comments like 'I dont like' this or that. Or grumpy faces or strops. Its irrelevant that they are children it is rude to be negative about a meal that someone else (you) has spent time preparing. Yesterday I made Cauliflower cheese which my DS doesnt like (I dont make it often). But he ate as much as he could and then made a sandwich. He thanked me for the meal the same as he always would. I dont mind them leaving it if they dont like it but I wont have rudeness.

I'm not hard arsed about food. I would not let someone who had rejected six reasonable (I assume) options then have a takeaway, but I don't have a "I'm cooking X and you can eat X or go hungry" policy. I'm fine with doing pasta or similar as an alternative if someone doesn't like what I'm cooking- but I do expect to know about it BEFORE I have cooked.

I'd let them have their choice of cereal each, as then you know they'll all eat breakfast. I would clamp down on dinner, and as others have said, have one meal, like it or lump it. I'd say maybe let them pick one meal each per week, then you pick the other four meals (cook's privilege).

YANBU to be fed up. You need to be a bit less accommodating.

Oh, and then if they reject a meal the options are the cereal (thus letting them pick their own - but the older two go to the shop and buy more if they use it all up too early) or toast.

I don't remember being asked what I would like to eat as a child - my DB and I ate what my mother cooked. Sometimes, she would cook it badly (burnt fish fingers being memorable) and we would still eat it.

The first time I met my SIL to be was at her house and she opened the fridge door and asked her 2 sons - 4 & 6 - what they would like for tea - free choice. They are the fussiest eaters I have ever met - one will only eat sausages if the skin is taken off, the other will only eat breaded chicken. That's it.

It's not setting them up well for the outside world, IMHO.

I came to the end of my tether today over this ! I think I even screeched "This is not a cafe!!" ...
Sat the four of them down with pen and paper to come up with an evening meal for all, for the rest of the week, that included a least one vegetable, was 'healthy' and cost less than £5 in ingredients .
Then took them to do the boring food shop, making sure they stuck to budget ..it was hilarious .
They are also prepping and cooking each meal and clearing away afterwards.
Tonight was a dodgy looking soup and two baguettes and the money they 'saved' they spent on pudding ...

I offer my kids two options at mealtimes:

1. eat what I cooked for you
2. nothing

They're quite fussy but I stick with it, and they're slowly improving. Nobody has died from starvation yet.

Mine does this. I have two options. The main meal I am cooking or 2 pieces of toast, an apple and a glass of water. I can assure you after around 3-4 days of having the same meal every night they give in and opt for the main I'm cooking.

It also works for my rather fussy nieces and nephews and my brother whenever they come over for dinner. They know my house rules. I am OK about them leaving food or picking things out they don't like. Nephew hates mushrooms and will eat around them but wont complain about it. Brother wont eat lettuce. But they'll all accept the plate of food I offer and eat the majority.

tbh kids like options but too many options can be just as overwhelming as saying we're having X nothing else.

Wellies please let me know how this goes. It should be very interesting. I may give it a go, it will keep them off their screens for a while too! (My lot I mean).

Certainly wouldn't have got the little monkey a takeaway!

If someone genuinely doesn't like a food, I wouldn't force them to eat it, so for instance, if we were having chicken, mashed potatoes and broccoli, I wouldn't put the potatoes on DD's plate because she doesn't like them in any form except chips, but she'd get the rest. Mostly it's not because they don't like something - it's because they don't fancy it.

If only one child was in the house I might off them a choice of two/three things, but if they said no to that then they could do without or make themselves a sammich.

offer

We do discuss with DD what sort of things we can eat each week, but more of a meal planning thing.

But generally, it's eat what you've got or you can have a sandwich.

Looking back, my mum (who did all the cooking) never asked my siblings and me what we'd like to eat. We were only allowed to "choose" the dinner on our birthdays, but even then it was usually tweaked because "the supermarket ran out" (my mum's line on anything she didn't want to buy, and we were rarely allowed on supermarket trips to discover that they never run out of KitKats, crisps or ice-cream) or just forgotten.

I'm kinda jealous of Savoy's breakfast counter I need to get some shite of my counters to accommodate one.

My two don't like mince, it's a pain, but it's a very real dislike, there's other things either one may be not so keen on, but I dish it up anyway, and they'll do their best.

If i gave them a take away when they pulled a face at the dinner option, they'd probably do it everyday!

Good luck in the toughening up op :)

I have 3 dc and they're generally good eaters. The only alternative I offer (when I know dc2 won't eat the meal) is a baked potato. It's easy to cook, cheap, nuttritious and the kids like them. Otherwise they eat whatever is on offer. Plus each meal is usually someone's favourite so they all get a turn at having their preferred food.

Also saves me having to serve baked potaotes as a meal another time because I don't like them.

Calamity ..I will ! There was a lot of googling going on, there's a chilli and homemade pizza on the list .. but to be honest the soup didn't look good but was eaten in defiance

"I have to make seperate meals without sweetcorn or ham or whatever else they won't eat."

You have to?

I don't make mine eat stuff they don't like. There's plenty of things I don't like myself and I wouldn't appreciate someone knowing that and cooking it for me anyway. I don't like minced beef but I still make my family shepherds pie/bolognaise/tacos/etc. Then I have soup or a sandwich.

YANBU!

My three are like this. DD1 (12), will eat ANYTHING, DD2 (9), is so, so fussy, and DS (6) is somewhere between the two. The youngest two will happily eat meat and veg (including bloody steak!), but anything a bit strong or spicy and they can refuse it based on the smell. They won't even eat takeaways. And the middle one just won't eat if she doesn't like it, but she is very stubborn.

If I'm cooking something new, the rule is that I'll do something simple but different for the youngest two (like a jacket potato or beans on toast), but they MUST try the bit of new food I put on their plates.

she sulked in her room for hours until I felt bad and ordered her a takeaway because she hadn't eaten all day.

WTF?!

The phrase I used to object to most was "this is disgusting" grrr just not on when it's fresh cooked food you've slaved over. One solution to all the different aversikns was to deconstruct. So I'd cook pasta and put it on the table with servers. Them a plate of bacon (or whatever) some grated cheese, some olive oil and some salad with dressing on the side. Then they could each eat the bits they liked and it felt grown up. It works worn lots of meals so chilli is mince with optional beans / chilli etc and rice or jacket potatoes. They all had to sit at the table and afterwards to clear the table take their own stuff and one serving thing to the dishwasher (at least in theory...) This also worked well at lunches in summer holidays when there were often lots of friends.