Feeding children things they don't like

[Theanimalsoffarthingwood]

I find my 10 year old very fussy when it comes to eating fruit and veg.

He will eat a couple of types of fruit, raw carrots, occasionally some cucumber and veg with a roast dinner and that's about it.

The type of foods I make fresh mid week are different kinds of pasta dishes, chilli, bolognese, lasagne, fajitas, different stir frys, pizzas topped with veg, casseroles, baked spuds with salad, fish chips and peas, curry. Things like that really.

He moans about any type of veg in these dishes and just picks at it or won't eat it.

We have a couple of nights where we have something like fish fingers mash and beans, or freezer food with beans, and he will eat that.

It's got to the point where I dread telling him what is for dinner because he moans and groans. I don't feel for example, that I can make a stir fry mid week because ds won't like it. So it ends up being a weekend treat for me and dh.

I feel that at 10 he should be more open to eating different things. Surely I shouldn't feel guilty for making a chilli, which is a fairly bog standard dish?

I'm sort of thinking maybe I should just give him whatever and if he doesn't eat it tough luck.

The whole "you wouldn't feed an adult something they don't like so why do that to a child" is pretty flawed.

Your job as a parent is to train this little person to be a functional adult.

There is a difference between serving an extra spicy curry to an adult who doesn't like chillies at a dinner party, and an adult (without SEN or medically diagnosed challenges) who won't eat fruits or vegetables as a rule. The former is an easy and accomodatable food preference for a one off, the latter is an unbelievably unhealthy diet that they should have grown out of ages ago. So continue to make a varied diet, allow them to pick what they want, and stop catering allowing the crap food because its easier.

Children are addicted to high fat, high carb, high sugar and high processed foods. Why is it that fussy kids are fine with chips, McDonalds and beans? Its because they are all crap, and humans are genetically programmed to want calorie dense, sweet, fatty beige food. There is a reason that kids in the UK and US are so obese, and why obese children are so much more likely to be obese adults. It is because of these crap diets we are giving them, making them had issues surrounding whole swaths of food "fruits and veg" and getting them into really bad habits.

So yes, don't serve your child liver and onions, but a stir fry with chicken and noodles? Let them serve themselves and they can eat around what they don't like.

I put the rice in a circle round the plate with the curry in the middle but not on top of the rice, iyswim?

He did like the sauce at least somewhat because he ate it on the chicken, was dipping his naan in it, was eating it, but then he decided he'd had enough but wanted to eat his brothers bread.

He's got a huge appetite so was obviously still hungry but what am I to do if he wants to fill up on bread? We had two massive naan breads between 4 of us, a chicken breast each, and loads of rice.

I think with the naan bread thing, just let it go. He ate chicken and she veg. It very much is a pick your battles thing.

I would just keep introducing varied healthy meals, involving him with cooking, and eat the family menus you want instead of catering to him.

Somehow you need to get him to expand on 'I don't like it'.

Clearly he will eat the sauce - he can dip naan bread in it. And he is hungry.

He's old enough to do better than 'I don't like it'. He has to come up with 'I don't like it because...' If you'd known then you could easily enough have given him no rice and double naan bread for example.

What about soup, and I agree with blending. What they can't see they don't know. I take the same approach with FIL who's completely irrational with food at times.
He once quite happily chomped on mashed butternut squash thinking he was eating some sort of carrot mash (I just put the dish on the table and he didn't ask) after the meal I asked if he enjoyed. He told me he did but on learning it was squash he admitted he would never have eaten it if he knew it was squash.

Not all fussy kids eat only junk food. My DD will eat a good range of veg, most fruit, but won't eat 'mixed up' food. So yes to veggie sausages, broccoli and boiled potatoes. But nope to pizza, chilli, stir fries of any description, any pasta sauce other than tomato, anything with melted cheese, ketchup, vinegar, jam, mayonnaise , marmite, crisps, curries, casseroles, meat generally...it's a long list. Plus some foods are ok at certain times of the day but not others. Food shouldn't touch.
No SEN, but a happy, healthy child of a good weight who just has very strong ideas about food.
Battles with kids over food is counter productive. My older DSD was probably worse with food than DD, in that she didn't like fruit or veg either...before you think we're just shit parents, DSS eats almost anything. DSD however, is now older, not living at home and cooks for herself and has a much broader repertoire of foods she happily eats.

I only make food that my kids like, if it’s new then I always ask them to try at least a mouthful. One out of three can be a pain in the arse - he’s the one that loved chilli until the night before payday when there’s literally nothing else in . However in those circumstances he can make himself a piece of toast. I have neither the time nor the inclination to be making multiple meals.

I’m fairly fussy with veg myself so if they don’t like it, I will do something they do. Stir fries I don’t do often as they’re not a fan of the veg, so on occasion DH and I will have it but I’ll cook the veg separately and not dish it up for the kids. Most of the time they’ll have a try of it though.

(I also blend any saucy stuff but I do tell them - after they’ve eaten it - that there was veg in it!).

the person who says they wouldn't cook food for an adult if they didn't like it - er..no but an adult would cook their own meal? As a parent you are responsible for the welfare of your 10 year old - are you suggesting the OP puts crap food on the table every night for her child and never thinks about pushing other food at him?! what a weird attitude.

All over the world children daily eat food that british kids refuse - curry/ sauces/ spice/ etc - it is clearly cultural - kids who are regularly fed fish fingers ( I am just as guilty of this btw) - are obviously going to be less inclined to broaden their tastes.

it clearly isn't just 'taste' - google pictures of different kids lunchboxes round the world. It's cultural and we all have a responsibility to encourage kids to be healthy eaters.

I think the general understanding of kids and food is to be quite hardline - they are offered food, no forcing them to eat but no fussing and giving them waffles and fish fingers all the time either.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/school-lunches-around-the-world_n_6746164

I feed them what I know they like or don't mind but will eat it (usually fish). Why would I give them food they don't like? One doesn't like tomatoes, if I gave him spag Bol he would be miserable. The other doesn't like eggs, if I made him an omelette, he wouldn't eat it and just eat toast. They aren't too bad with fruit and veg though.

I have some very unhappy memories of my childhood having to sit at the table long after everyone else had finished. I don't want mealtimes to be anything like that for mine. Sometimes I make 3 variations on the same thing.

OP deconstruct everything as much as possible and ensure there are 2-3 safe foods on offer. So rice separate from curry, separate from bread, salad separated into its components. Everyone selves themselves what they like. If anyone wants a massive portion, talk to them about portion sizes and sharing with everyone else. Anyone can come back for more of anything until it is finished. If he wants to eat just bread say nothing. Make no comments positive or negative. If he wants to eat something that is not on the table, say this is what we are having for dinner, you can have a snack at X o'clock. At X o'clock offer what he asked for earlier plus 1-2 other choices.

"corythatwas do you actually have any statistics on that or are you making up divisions and prevalence? There is a strong cultural bias towards labeling fussy children as spoilt and parents who feed them as indulging and failures."

My actual statistics is that schools get away with running these menus year after year, decade after decade, with absolutely no provision for bringing in your own lunchbox. Parents are happy because the lunches are paid for by taxes, so have absolutely no interest in supplying junk food to spare their child from eating the vegetable stew. School menus are published by Swedish newspapers/websites so it's very easy to check what the children in different primaries in e.g. Stockholm are eating every week.

I am not saying all fussy children are spoilt: did you not read the first part of my post? What I am saying is that some fussy children get addicted to high-fat, high-salt high-sugar foods because they are exposed to them on a regular basis from an early age. And that that is more likely to happen in societies where these foods are eaten on a regular basis.

When I was a child, crisps was something you only had at teen discos; it wasn't something you ever gave to small children. These days it's something children expect to see in their lunchbox every day. That change was totally unnecessary. No child would start clamouring for crisps in their lunchbox if parents hadn't introduced this as part of a meal. There was no need for that.

Children are addicted to certain foods? Now that calls for a nice reference doesn't it?

I’ve got a fussy 11 year old. I have a completely not fussy 10 year old, and a middling 8 year old, and me to cater for. I make a meal, and just make sure there are ‘bits’ that everyone will eat. Eg bean chilli, rice, salad and bread.

Eldest will eat bread and salad
Middle will eat it all
youngest will eat rice, bread, salad.

I try to make meals that at least 1 child actively enjoys.
I also put veg in cake to introduce it. I’ve managed to get all 3 of mine to eat courgette and beetroot by including them in cake form first!
I don’t get the moaning if the kids know there are at least components of the meal they can enjoy.

For example last night I made a curry, there was plenty of chicken in it, rice and naan bread too and no lumps of veg in the sauce. Ds picked out the chicken and ate that, ate his rice and naan, and was then trying to steal his little brothers naan bread who was still eating his dinner. But he still had loads of rice left himself, but because it had sauce on it he wouldn't eat it.

If you know he doesn't like foods mixed together, like sauce on rice, why not just serve the curry and rice separately on the plate? It doesn't take any effort, avoids a pointless confrontation, achieves the aim of feeding your child.

Liking foods to be kept separate seems to be very common among fussy children (including my DS). As behaviours go, it is mildly perplexing to "normal" eaters but entirely harmless.

I don't understand this mumsnet parenting rule which dictates that even very mildly non-conformist behaviour must be challenged and battle-lines drawn. Some of you must have truly exhausting lives, or extremely cowed, compliant children.

Misti I did serve the rice separately, not in a separate bowl but I already said I put the rice in a circle round the plate, ds mixed it all up himself and he happily ate some of it, then decided he was leaving it, which was fine, only he started grabbing all his little brothers bread who was still eating.

I hope you didn't allow him to eat his brother's bread. That's really terrible manners, grabbing food, and unpleasant for his brother.

It does sound as though in this case, DS is behaving like this because he can get away with it, and is holding out for the bits he sees as nicer. I too would eat naan over curry, I like the curry, but if I was full I'd still find space for the last bit of naan. He ate the curry so clearly liked it well enough.

I would place the food in front of him, make it clear that he can eat what he wants and leave the rest, however on no account will he be taking the bits he likes best off other's plates or getting something "nicer" after dinner.

Then ignore him, apart from pulling him up on poor manners if necessary.

There are children with SEN and sensory/texture issues whose fussiness does have to be accomadated, but I really don't think your son is one of them.

Too many children these days get to dictate family meals, simply because they want their favourite thing every mealtime.

You can cook food he doesn't like and expect him to eat it as long as you also cook food you don't like and eat it yourself.

Dd1 was a fussy eater. I battled it and tried to get her to try new things etc but gave up in the end and stuck to the small repertoire of healthy meals she liked ( anything with mashed potato like cottage pie fish pie etc) and chilled out. Not worth the aggro. One thing I found helped was making our own pizzas and introducing new veg into the toppings. The fact it was on a pizza seemed to make her more willing to try it.

I see you've already tried That!

Odfo witchend. I've already said a million times there is a big difference between genuinely disliking certain foods, and just being a fussy, picky little bugger. Ds has got to the point now where he's pretty much declared he 'doesn't like' any vegetables or any dish with vegetables in. So I am as a parent supposed to say ok son that's fine, and just make him a frozen pizza every meal time?

I've been patient for years putting salad bowls out, getting him to help prep the food, trying to bribe him with smiley faces on pizzas with veg, hiding vegetables, it hasn't worked.

Ds is being the second, he basically wants to live off beige junk food, pepperoni pizza, waffles, chips.

Some people really are projecting their own issues onto this thread.

Fuckthetodolist you've hit the nail on the head, he's just playing up. He did like the curry because he ate some of it. Why should I let him steal his brothers bread because he sees it as the best bit?

Also people keep going on about force feeding children. Nowhere have I said I want to force feed ds anything.

I'm just sick of avoiding so many meals because ds will kick off.

Also I do make and eat food I don't really like to please others, I'm not so keen on things that I know the kids or dh like but I try to please everyone so we all get a turn of having our favourite foods, so long as they don't make me gag I just eat it. It's called being mature, there are 4 people in my household and we can't all have our favourite foods every day.

So yes, don't serve your child liver and onions, but a stir fry with chicken and noodles? Genuinely puzzled. Why wouldn't you serve your child liver and onions? (separately, not all messed together).

So I am as a parent supposed to say ok son that's fine, and just make him a frozen pizza every meal time?

People aren't saying that. They are saying that food is a battle you can't win so you are better off not fighting it. It is much better - for long term attitudes to food and for your relationship with your son - to make reasonable compromises that result in him getting fed and don't create much extra work for you. That doesn't mean giving in to his every whim. It may mean serving curry and rice on opposite sides of the plate rather than in a circle in the middle. It may mean giving him plain pasta while you eat bolognaise sauce. It may mean serving particular veg that he will eat more often than you would prefer. It may occasionally (because it suits YOU) mean bunging a ready-meal in the microwave, or him making himself beans on toast. None of that means you have failed as a parent and hopefully none of it requires much extra effort.

Pick your battles and don't fight proxy wars. Stealing a sibling's food is not a "fussy eater" problem, it is a "bad manners" problem and needs to be treated as such - don't mix up your issues with your son's diet with his antisocial behaviour towards his siblings.

OP, I noticed that DC were a LOT less fussy and more adventurous in restaurants, at school and in other people's homes. Still are. They'll try veg there that they won't try at home.
I listened out for stuff they said was fantastic at school (butternut squash in risottos and curries - untouched at home) and then tried to make similar recipes.

Also, I found introducing veg via the least healthy cooking mehtod possible works well. So dip courgetti in cornflour and water batter and shallow fry for curly twizzly fried bits they have no idea are veg. Toss sweet potato chips in oil and cornflour for crispy fries like Five Guys make etc. Let them pour half a pint of ketchup over everything, or grated cheese. I did this with DS2 who was mega fussy and now he eats a fair range of veg - not everything by a long way, but he's prepared to try lots of veg in sauces and eats about 10-12 identifiable veggies on their own. It took a very long time to get him to that stage. I just never stopped trying - all the things you say you try and all those years of thinking what's the point? He leaves everything. But it was worth it and he did come round to it eventually.