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.

OP, your DS is 10? I think he;s old enough for you to say: to be healthy, you actually have to eat food from each food group. (If he wants to be a footballer or a geeky computer genius you explain he needs the vitamins for his fitness or mental agility.) Tell him it doesn't matter at all whether he likes veg or not. There's loads of foods he can eat because he likes it. But some foods wejust eat because they're good for us. So every broccoli floret or carrot coin brings him closer to being picked for the team etc. Don;t lay it on too thick, but they do eventually realise it's not all about what they like. If it were they'd eat nothing but icecream and crisps, and have spots and black teeth and pillowy bodies and no energy. He doesn't want that either, does he?

Mistigirl if I gave my ds even a tiny inkling that he could make himself beans on toast or have plain pasta, instead of eating the family meal then that would be it, he'd take full advantage and would soon be declaring he didn't like anything at all. I know my son, give an inch he'll take a mile.

I can just imagine it now, I'm having chilli so I let him to beans on toast, then next time I'm making curry, something he does eat, he'd be declaring he wanted beans on toast, arguing the toss that I let him last time, how he haaaates curry now.

I don't insist on putting the rice on a circle, he can have it presented to him however he bloody well likes and the same goes for any food.

I'm not confusing his fussiness with bad manners because it's all part of the same thing.

I'm not planning on making food a battle, I'm thinking of just going down the route of this is what's for tea, eat it or not, but there won't be anything else. Of course I will include meals that he loves, of course I will present it in a way that makes it more appetising to him, chicken separate and so on, I'll give him a larger bread to veg ratio or whatever but just not completely rule out meals.

Ds1 everyone tells me eats amazingly, and to a certain extent he does. He will eat a wide variety of foods

However he is INCREDIBLY fussy about foods that are not on the ok list. Eg, he’ll eat bread, but will not eat bread with seeds on it or in it without looking like a sulking toddler and then only picking at it.

It is emensely irritating and I view it as bad manners espcially now he is 10. I don’t give him food I know he detests but after that I think he should eat what he is given with some semblance of good manners.