If your kids are fussy - just say!

[GoldenWonderwall]

Grrrr. I can’t be the only person that has asked visitors what their kids eat, to be met with an airy ‘Oh, they eat anything!’ and then it turns out said children only eat one brand of fish finger or just cheese on toast, but hold the cheese.

My dc are fussy so I’ll tell you they’ll eat fish fingers, pizza and nuggets before we come so you don’t spend loads of time and money on food they won’t eat and get really pissed off with us. You might judge me with my fussy kids who won’t eat a coq au vin, but we all know that is infinitely preferable and much more fun than watching the giant paddy and incessant whining brought on by the inclusion of a single slice of lettuce on a ham sandwich.

So say! Say your dc are fussy buggers before you come and we can all be happy

colditz maybe that’s it. After a decade or more of peas, sweetcorn and brocolli maybe you forget other people eat aubergine or courgette or bean sprouts or plum tomatoes so your perception of anything is different.

Much like when I worked in a food outlet for a day and I asked the customer how they’d like their tea and they said how they normally have it!

C.50% of my DC friends have ASD which affects what they eat. A few more have religious requirements. If someone says their DC eat anything I ask what's their top three favourite meals... it really helps translate what 'anything' actually means in reality! I want my DC friends to enjoy coming round. I know which only likes one kind of chicken pie and who doesn't like butter/spread on sandwiches. It makes life much easier if visiting children are happy instead of being too nervous to explain and then not really eating anything.

I suppose what I mean as well, is if you’re coming round to eat with your dc at mine then the original meal would be fairly unremarkable (roast dinner, pizza, a buffet etc), but I’m under no illusion that this would be edible to some children. But I don’t care! I just want them to eat something and ideally not moan about what’s in front of them or whine about when are they’re going to McDonald’s every two minutes for the rest of the visit.

My eldest refuses anything potato based (will tolerate chips but wouldn't choose them and refuses any other processed potato).
Doesn't like many veg. Is also dairy free. Also loves a good curry
Potato is a definite dislike and not awkwardness.

Middle loves food but is dairy free and gluten free - this makes parties and play dates a bit of a nightmare.

Youngest is going eldests way re potatoes.

So I will always warn you what's coming regarding fussiness, and more often just provide food for wherever they go. I've trained the eldest to ask for bread and butter as an accompaniment when they are serving potatoes as that's usually something people have and are happy to add to a meal.

Middle has learnt to ask for a jacket potato with beans as his staple safe food.

My DD (4) is tiny (still in age 2-3 clothing) and eats only small portions at the best of times. She’s fairly adventurous at home but is less likely to eat in an unfamiliar place. I always tell people this, and say honestly that she will almost always eat toast, beans, mashed potato and any sort of fish. But only a small portion. A lot of people expect small children to eat large plates of food.

I was labelled a fussy child and grew up believing I was. In reality I didn’t like boiled potatoes, mushrooms, veg boiled until it lost all colour or meat cooked for so long that it tastes like sawdust, seasoned with buckets of salt. This was what I was given almost every day! I loved stir fries, curries, all Italian food etc.

Not so bad now but my 5yr old (SeN) used to be so so fussy. Think 1 brand pancake, pasta, chicken nuggetts sorta diet. My BIL knew this so i told him he loves pasta. So he makes lovely pasta dish. We all sit down to eat in an DS goes mad. Didnt eat a bite. Different shaped pasta . Thankfully he has got much better.

So few people offer anything other than pizza & chips that I forget to tell them that DS is fussy. Cue one very bewildered mom who didn't understand why my DS wouldn't touch her veg stir fry. Oops.

I don't mind at all if DS goes without, though.

DS - for reasons complicated to go into - had 'trusted food providers' - so he would eat things I made, DH made, my mum made, a specific thing (but only 1) that the school kitchen made. Or he would eat certain things from visible packets - e.g. crackers, bagels, cream cheese - and a lot of raw fruit / veg. He would not, under any circumstances, eat anything cooked by a non-trusted food provider.

So it was not always that his diet was limited, but that his trust was limited.

I agree, just say, I'm quite happy to serve whatever makes guests happy.

Spare a thought for me though, I was having this conversation with another mother pre DS going to their house for the first time in DS' presence and gave the usual he eats anything preamble, when DS interjected, 'Well I don't like keta caviar (salmon eggs), only Beluga or Sevruga'.

We had words.

Ha ha! Lucky he mentioned it!

Or just teach your children not to be fussy
Hahaha, there speaks a person who hasn't got a clue how difficult it is for some kids. There are things that some parents can do for some kids, but others have really serious problems with food.
My eldest will eat anything, my youngest has severe food aversion.

Whenever he eats anywhere else I always explain to the host exactly what he will eat. He would become very distressed if he was served something he couldn't eat.

only eat one brand of fish finger or just cheese on toast, but hold the cheese.

Have you actually had my son round to dinner?

Great advice there about teaching your kid not to be fussy. I am sure it's s something we will all consider trying
So, how do you teach a child not to be fussy?
According to MN rules, by doing the following:

1. Offering a wide variety of foods, the same as the rest of the family, Bland weaning foods are not for the MN baby.
2. Eating together as a family. Posters are always convinced this has led to a non-fussy child
3. Involve the children in the cooking. They will want to try what they have helped to prepare (said no mother of a fussy child ever)

Of course, you could just stay have been blessed with a non-fussy child in the first place, although parents are always sure the combo of 1, 2 and 3, together with their superior parenting, has done the trick.

I had this, invited ds friend round and his mum said (without me asking) he isn't fussy at all but particularly likes proper dinners lime full roast dinners with everything So I make the effort and do a roast with all the trimmings only for him to announce 'I don't like roast potatoes and then leave all the veg too! Think he literally are a mouth full of chicken. Maybe I'm just a crap cook

*Like not lime

I remain very grateful to the friend who would get in the kind of cookies DD would eat (one specific type) when we went round. DD is still very fussy, but making slow progress. Fruit and vegetables remain a challenge, so being at the houses of 'healthy eaters' has always been a nightmare. I always warn hosts in advance (whether they ask or not!) about what DD will eat - one friend knew fishfingers were good (DD doesn't even mind which brand!) but was going to put baked beans on the same plate. They would have touched the fish fingers, rendering them inedible to DD. Thankfully I spotted that one in time....

To be fair I never think I'm fussy until I eat with people outside my family. I do all the majority of the cooking so I only tend to cook things I like to eat!
I think if it's just a case of fussiness rather than being due to ASD for example then no I wouldn't necessarily forewarn people. I'm not sure it's helpful to a fussy eater to only be ever served food in a certain way all the time. It's more helpful to teach them how to manage social situations.
My kids have likes and dislikes, two in particular were very selective about foods but I taught them to just leave what they don't want to eat without making a song and dance about it.
I've eaten with several family and friends DC who strop, moan and pull faces etc over food and their parents flap around inspecting it, chopping off this bit, getting separate plates etc, producing endless alternatives or saying to the child you won't like X or Y or Z which only seems to reinforce the child's behaviour. It's only one meal if they don't eat it it's not a big issue.
On the other side of it, hosts can be unhelpful if they comment on what people aren't eating. There's several foods I can't eat even if I try, they make me gag and throw up. Mushrooms is one but if I'm given say a bolognese with them in I just leave them, some hosts are offended by this though which I don't understand. If I cook for people then obviously I want them to enjoy it but if they left an element or more of the food then I'd assume they didn't like it apologise and make a note for next time.

Sheepy that's it....I never assume any longer.

DH says when he was about 16 he had a girlfriend and his Mum made them both a toastie....she always put beans in Dh's so she did for his girlfriend. DH says he'll never forget her face as she sat their politely trying to squeeze them out of the end as she struggled to eat it! Bless her.

I always said that she will try most things but not to make anything different as she would be fine with the bits she liked.
Often DD would eat out of politeness ,one more than one occasion she would ask at home for something she had had at someone else's house.
I think the only thing she wasn't keen n was spicey(chilli/hot) food but would happily eat lots of plain rice.She still loves rice but we can at last share something hotter than a korma.

Or just teach your children not to be fussy i.stead of thinking it's something to boast about

Clearly you have no idea what it’s like having a fussy eater.

Totally agree Op. it makes life so much easier. I also tell people DD is fussy and what she will eat.

Mine's fussy but what she'll eat changes day by day. Sometimes she'll eat everything even things she's never tried. Other times she'll reject even her favourite brand of fishfingers which is awkward if someone's got it in specially!

When people with kids come for a meal I usually put out a mezze style meal so the kids can pick and choose bits. IME most will eat crisps, grapes, houmous, bits of bread, olives, cheese cubes and cucumber sticks.

My DSD (only ate beige food, peas and the occasional slice of fruit as a child, we had to count tinned spaghetti as 1 of her 5)(now in her 20's and a much better eater) was studying a course that included a module around the psychology of eating for children. She was pleased to tell us that actually, her 'fussiness' was nothing to do with anyone but her own choices and that there is pretty much nothing a parent or career can do, unless the child chooses to. Take that smug parents.

lets all take a minute to laugh at the amazing suggestion on the first post, thanks for that.

My daughter ate wonderfully after she was weaned, she'd eat pasta, tomatoes, feta, pesto, melon, all sorts.
Shes now 2y 7m and very limited in what she likes. Sometimes she'll eat something (boiled egg for example) and LOVE it only never to touch it ever again. She will only eat chicken or white fish, she'll sometimes eat a little ham on a sandwich. She will eat few fruits (strawbs, banana and apple) and even fewer veg. I've just got to be relaxed and wait for it to pass, however if you can teach me to teach her how to be unfussy i'd be so grateful!

I don't understand the angst around fussy eaters tbh unless its due to psychological/sensory issues.
I think its perfectly natural for children to be like this, most of them grow out of it as they get older, it may be slow change or one day the child suddenly becomes more open to different foods.
My eldest is like this, for the longest time and I mean years, he would only eat ham sandwiches, plain toast, plain pasta, spaghetti with sauce ( no meat ) and yogurt.
Since he hit double figures he eats 95% of what we eat happily and tries everything else, I've told him if he doesn't genuinely like something I won't put it on his plate and he is happy to try things because of that.
Second doesn't like any type of potato not even chips but lives on any and all fruit, any protein and pasta, yogurt but no cheese.
Third is still too young to know how fussy they will be.

My mother tried to 'train;' me out of being fussy with food by serving up any food/meal I didn't eat for the next meal, quite often this meant dinner from the night before was served cold and congealed for breakfast. I can't understand the logic, Faggots/Mince with boiled potatoes and peas are not and never will be more appealing 12 hrs after they were served.
It became a control issue and I used to take and hide food, I didn't even eat it. We got free school dinners so I mainly lived on that and I remember being hungry a lot, being hungry didn't make me want to eat her food either.
I remember the rages she used to go into when I wouldn't eat her food and her anger when I used to eat my grandmothers meals.
My mother couldn't cook a decent meal to save her life when I was a child and would have rather had a sandwich for dinner but nope it became a sticking point and still is.
She knows I don't eat mince, or sausages and a few other things and since I learnt to cook from my GM I used to offer when I'd visit but she'd refuse and make the same shit she would serve me as a child.
Now I offer to get a take away or leave before dinner to

The only food we agree on and eat together now is cake.

I don't fight with my children over food, the rule is they try something, if they don't like it they can have toast or porridge for dinner, they have a hot meal at school so that's good enough most of the time.
When we meal plan they can ask for a specific dinner or toppings for HM pizza etc, they like being involved and if they start to make noise about those nights I bluntly remind them they asked for X, Y, Z and that if they don't want it I won't ask for their opinion the week after and that yes, its porridge or toast again if they don't want dinner.