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.

(Just realised that I have no idea if it's 'free reign' or 'free rein' - both make sense don't they?)

While I agree that op is doing unnecessary pandering, I cannot begin to imagine the chaos in my kitchen if 4 dc snd 2 adults sll made their own meals. And if they were mine they'd probably live off toast and cereal anyway.

Ask them to help you come up with meal ideas. I know it's more difficult with teens than with younger children as they generally aren't so keen, but perhaps that would be a good start. The 15 and 13 year olds can cook for themselves (or even the whole family) sometimes too surely? Let them see what it's like to prepare a whole meal and have nobody eat it...

If none of this appeals, you can just stop giving them the option. However, I would be dubious about doing this with the older ones as if they have their own money to spend you may find they'll start buying fast food on the way home from school to avoid eating it. It's not the 80s anymore and bad food is much more readily available.

My 9 year old eats pretty much everything a few things he doesn't like..Spicy food not keen on...He picked his tea last night wasn't keen so didn't eat much..He has had a nice big breakfast this morning..

My DS is also going throuogh a sulky phase ( we are coming out the other end..phew) reason I refuse to do anything for him while he has a sulky look on his face..He tires it when I ask to help..I tell him I will continue to give him more jobs if he sulks..

It relates to the same thing..Don't give in to sulking..

I would not be letting expensive fish go to waste..Does DC know how to cook pasta, use the grill? If so then tell them to cook it themselves..If not you really need to teac them.

MackerelOfFact is right, there might be many "don't likes" but very few "won't eats". When I stopped offering alternatives, only one or two "won't eats" emerged.

My compromise is that for snacky easy-to-make type foods they can have separate choices but for the main cooked meal (usually dinner), they must eat the same as the family. Then again, I only have 2 dcs and therefore it is manageable.

I honestly couldn't imagine spending my time eating food I didn't enjoy. I don't see food just as fuel, it's much more than that for me and I want to pass that love of the whole thing (choosing, shopping, preparing, and eating) to my dd. Dh and I don't eat food we don't enjoy, but that doesn't mean we aren't open to new foods and flavours, I give my dd the same courtesy. The only agreement with dd is she must try everything on her plate.

faddyness is something you will outgrow if you force yourself to eat different things and stop screaming disgusting just at the view of something new/that you don't fancy etc

Muskateer I don't disagree, but there's a point where you can go 'too far' IMO...and forget that children are also individuals that have genuine likes and dislikes of their own and want to experiment with different ways of eating.

I don't put up with 'Oh I don't fancy spagbol/shepherds pie' or 'I don't want the mushrooms in there' type moaning. I cook a meal, the dc eat it and can leave the bits they don't like...ds1 will always pick kidney beans out of a chilli, ds2 will pick the mushrooms out of a spagbol. They know they're still going in.

But I just cannot understand insisting on putting butter on sandwiches and toast, because like a pp said, butter is not essential to either. Both of mine have gone through temporary phases where they ask for no butter...sometimes I enjoy a piece of butter-less toast myself. I can't see this making a fussy eater, it's part of dc trying things out.

For the last few months, ds1 (8) has decided not to have gravy on a Sunday lunch. He'd rather eat a plate of plain meat and veg. Should I be insisting that he covers it with gravy just because that's the 'typical' way people eat it and because the rest of us all do?

Another example is ds2 who went through a period of not wanting milk on cereal. He would sit and eat weetabix, branflakes etc dry (bleughh) with a big glass of milk to drink instead. Should I have been forcing him to have the glass of milk tipped in the bowl? Why? To prove a point that i'm the adult and he has zero choice over the way he eats?

It's all very well saying do not pander to kids tastes etc. My 12 year old went to hospital, whilst under sedation told the nurses mum sometimes doesn't cook for us - true - we have a takeaway and sometimes there's no food in the house - true - we then have a takeaway. Well you can guess what happened next. By 4pm there was a card from SS. Parents are under a lot of pressure these days

I think it would be "free rein" Mackerel.

Think I've heard of it in the context of horse riding and it makes more sense from that derivation?

I agree with all of those greasel I would do exactly the same.

I made jumbalaya last night. I cooked it all in one pot then separated out a portion before adding the Tabasco. The eldest refused it, the youngest wolfed it up. The eldest went to bed hungry. I make some allowances as I like my food spicer but I do not condone the wails of fussiness and blatant refusal to even try. Hunger is a fantastic sauce to any meal, even when there's a blatant illogical hatred of peppers or sweetcorn

There is a difference in cooking a different meal for someone who doesn't like dinner being cooked and cooking something different for every person in the house.

For example dd2, ds and dh are having cowboy casserole tonight for dinner, but neither me or dd1 eat baked beans work of the devil so we well have sausage, mash veg and gravy. But there is no where in hell would I cook 5 different dinners.

I think OP you should get your children to write a list of their favorite dinners and make a menu plan including their meals.

And then you end up literally eating 5 meals and get lambasted for that

I tell my child that she either eats what I'v given her or she gets dry toast (brown bread and no butter; if i offer her buttered toast, she will always opt for that instead of the real dinner!)

My daughter is 8 and needs to have a meal at least three times before she honestly says whether she likes it or not. Each time i make something new and present it to her she will lick it and declare it's disgusting.

But when i give her the above choice (dry brown toast), she just eats the dinner. Result

I try limiting new dishes/meals to no more than 3 a month. And having her help me to devise the next month's meal planner, or choose ingredients from the supermarket, or prepare some steps of the meal (e.g. layering a lasange, or putting toppings on a pizza) helps too.

I make one meal, with variations, different veg/sauces etc but that's what put on the table, eat/don't eat up to them but I don't cook to order.
Lunch is usually more relaxed with 2/3 options but it's basically what's in the fridge or press and they like helping to make their own lunches.
We have 4 cereal containers and if they want a different cereal bought they need to empty a container.

We do Friday leftover supper sometimes. A buffet of 2 sausages, a bit of mash, 3 spoonfulls of guacamole, one bowl of stir fry, one bowl of spag bol, 2 hardboiled eggs... none of it enough to feed all four of us, but together the week's supper remainders were enough. Most popular meal of the week.

My son is now 14 and he is the only child, so it's easier to manage but nonetheless I have the same issue. He is never happy with food. The only things he is happy to have are pasta and pizza but seeing as I don't consider it healthy to eat pasta and pizza all the time, I don't make them all the time. Everything else gets refused. I used to make separate things for him but, in the end, I got so fed up with it that I now just tell him that there is only one thing for dinner. If he doesn't want to have it, he is welcome to either find whatever he fancies in the fridge or not have anything at all. It's not reasonable to be expected to serve 10 million different meals at dinner but the issue is that children have no comprehension of the effort that goes into it. Neither do they know the cost of food. So unless we draw that line for them, they will just push boundaries until they find out what they can't get away with.

I would have a couple of boxes of cereal to choose from each week. Not always the same and not always necessarily the ones 'everyone likes'.

I definitely wouldn't have ordered a bloody takeaway to someone who'd refused my first offer of dinner let alone my sixth. Dinner gets cooked and if you don't like certain aspects of it, leave that part, pick out the 'corn', 'ham', 'whatever' or go hungry.

I hated peas and my sister hated beans growing up. Sometimes we had peas, sometimes we had beans. We had to suck it up and try to eat a little of the veg we disliked whenever it was served. If I had realised I could've held out for a takeaway...

JugglingFromHereToThere Thanks - and I think you're right. In my head it meant sovereign reign, but thinking about it, horse-related reins make more sense!

Good point, SnotGoblin, the option of a takeaway instead would make me not eat my dinner even now sometimes . I noticed eating rates going up when the only "later, when desperate" option is the same dinner, albeit cold by then.

I had walked into the weetabix or bananas instead of dinner trap with a toddler. Sorted on day 3 of dinner now warm with company or same later, cold and alone.

If it's not a fucking cafe, stop being a fucking cafe. Make whatever you want to eat for an evening meal and they either eat it or they don't.

I used to have this problem. I now have one central theme each night e.g. Mexican and do a selection of easy dishes on the theme so that there is something everyone likes (and hubby and I get to have a bit of everything). Now the kids know there is something they like every night. With planning it's not hard to make sure there is fruit and veg that everyone likes to go with the meal too.

my brother and sister are both fussy so my dad wrote out a massive list of meals and we all had a place to mark which we liked etc, meant he had a large selection of meals to cook and could adapt to who was eating and who wasnt

I make the main part of the meal and then some sides (potatoes/couple of veggies etc). They then serve themselves what they fancy from that. If they don't fancy the main then they can have toady or cereal later. Mine eat more of the mains in the past 2/3 years since we adopted a rule that if you are in the house at dinner time then you sit at the table, even if you are not eating.

I wouldn't have just one cereal. Even I don't like just one breakfast choice.

I'd try and get them involved in meal planning as well. I'd hate to have my dinner decided for me every day and mine take great pride in "their" night for cooking (though supervise I case your DD ever dishes up a pasta surprise like mine once did bleurgh)