To stop making my kids dinner?

[CarbsAreNotMyFriend]

Hear me out. I probably won't let them starve.

But it is soul-destroying making dinner every night for them to then moan and whinge, complain about any sign of a vegetable, look at the plate like it is diseased, and ultimately most of it ends up in the bin. I feel it would be easier to cut out the middle man and scrape their dinner straight into the bin.

I don't serve them anything controversial. Just things like bolognese, lasagne, chicken & rice, pasta etc. But you'd think I was serving them chopped liver.

WIBU to just give in, serve them anything in breadcrumbs or in a bun, and give them a multi-vitamin for desert? 😁

Children are allowed to choose what they eat! Give them new things to try on their terms and stop making it a battle.

Ahh but what you’re forgetting is that control over little children is the only power they have and they must win! Can’t have a small person getting one over on them. No no no. That will never do.

@helenoftroystonvasey

I don't agree with making kids sit and eat a meal they don't want. Also giving it to them the next day

My parents did this to me. Not allowed to move from table until plate was clear. No pudding if You don't eat your dinner. Sitting there forcing down stone cold peas overcooked veg and fish has scarred me. Old school thinking

Maybe reduce the portion sizes so you're not wasting too much but relax. A balance of something frozen with some veg?

Kids eat intuitively. Maybe they're not hungry? If they're hungry, they'll eat.

I agree.

I think it's pretty awful and can be very damaging to have stand-offs about finishing what's on the plate, and also serving the next day is a bit rank in my view - I wouldn't want to eat day-old meal so wouldn't inflict that on my kids.

But I won't tolerate rudeness about what I've cooked, especiallty if they have previously eaten it and it's a perfectly normal family meal. I won't accept pickiness and "that's the wrong shape" sort of nonsense and certainly won't be cooking something different for them based on that.

It's very normal for kids to have this pickiness, but it's just a childish squeamishness which they can overcome with parental support. It's just a little discomfort they have about whatever food it is and they need to learn to deal with that and eat it anyway!

A lot of chidhood is about learning to deal with the small discomforts in life and you need parental support and also a little discipline at times to do that.

@UhtredRagnarson

Children are allowed to choose what they eat! Give them new things to try on their terms and stop making it a battle.

Ahh but what you’re forgetting is that control over little children is the only power they have and they must win! Can’t have a small person getting one over on them. No no no. That will never do.

Indeed. Makes me so angry.

don't agree with making kids sit and eat a meal they don't want. Also giving it to them the next day

If they really arent hungry I wouldnt force them to eat but quite frankly if mine didnt eat I wondered if they were sickening for something!
We didnt do lots of snacks and no squash so mine were always hungry.
More likely is that the DC want to play/ watch tv and so kick off.
Well sorry but no its lunch/ dinner time.
Parents are in charge not the DC.

I can’t see why I should force my child to eat food he doesn’t like when the things he will eat are generally healthier. If he grows up and his diet is some form of protein with lots of raw veg and fruit then that’s an excellent diet and better for you than most cooked meals.
All kids are different, some love to eat (other son hates junk food and only wants full meals preferably with mashed potatoes and gravy) others just find eating a bit of a chore. We’re not all the same and don’t all have to eat the same food. Out of the whole family my fussier child is easily the healthiest

My dd was incredibly fussy. It started as a baby when she decided she would only eat Greek yoghurt, breakfast cereal and puréed fruit. I think she’d also eat baby rice too, but no nutrition in baby rice. I could hide a certain amount of other food in the yoghurt (eg a tsp of bolognese sauce) but she’d spit it out if I added too much so her diet was very much milk and yoghurt. After months of the yoghurt, it changed to toast. She had a lot of different food on toast to try and balance her diet, even puréed veg. Then the toast phase passes and she accepted to eat spag bol, cottage pie or eggs for dinner. So I batch cooked for her and froze in tiny pots. This it for a looooong time. She wouldn’t eat anything (apart from toast), which required chewing until 2 1/2, when she tried a nugget. I cried. I could finally take her out for food even if it was only McDonald’s.

From about 2/3, I also started doing picnics. IE deconstructed cold meals. She loved them. From time to time, I’d add foods she didn’t eat. And eventually she started to eat them. At about 5, she started to eat veg as a side. Peas and sweetcorn, I think. At this stage, she declared she hated potato. So meals were picnics (of the 5 things she’d eat), nuggets, eggs or spag Bol.

Over the years, I’ve given her things to try from time to time. And she’s occasionally asked to try my food and realised she likes it. Eg at 12, she really likes stir fry veg as a side. Some people say their children will et anything at friend’s houses. This was not true of dd. She did try Indian food at a friend’s house when she was maybe 6 and now loves Indian takeaway. But that was more, would you like to try a bit of this, rather than as the main meal.

You just have to keep plugging away. Give safe foods then offer / serve foods as an accompaniment from time to time. Dd often wouldn’t entertain them even sitting on her plate and pushed them onto the table or my plate as she got older. However, slowly but surely she improved and eats a relatively varied number of foods.

I absolutely do not agree with the eat when they’re hungry philosophy. It isn’t true for some children, who would starve themselves. My dd would just cry and scream and I refuse to make food a battle. I don’t think that’s healthy.

Hmme, it sounds tough op. There are two things helping them eat a healthy balanced diet and helping them to be polite socially adept young people.... Both will take time.
Ahh the manners, so...we had a no rudeness to the cook thing. You could say, it's not really my thing thank you if pushed (because if someone asks why your not eating something you need to learn a polite answer). We had a list of 4 things for each child they were allowed not to have. (, It couldn't rotate daily ).On the rest, they are the same good as us, no grey beige nugget crap, just more l ok limited when little, roasts, pasta, sausages and chicken schittzel, baked potatoes, pizza. They were allowed to choose serving size. Also, no cajoling or comments. Just serve it, give it some time (reinforced by polite to chef rules) that's it.....

@SmidgenofaPigeon

Depending on their ages, they shouldn’t be being rude about what they’re served. I’m a nanny and they don’t get what they want to eat all the time, who does, but I will not tolerate picky ungrateful (this sauce tastes too much of tomato, why have you used this shape of pasta, I don’t like those sausages etc) comments. They get one meal each a week where they can choose, within reason, (usually ends up being burgers or hot dogs) but they only get the privilege of that if they are polite about the food they’re served the rest of the week. It’s be polite if you’re not that keen, compliment it if you really like it, but either way you’re eating it without being rude or pulling faces, or you can leave the table and good luck finding a restaurant 😂 I just won’t have it.

I second this! My DTs were allowed not to eat something they didn’t like (as in, really couldn't tolerate, not just a passing whim on something they previously enjoyed), but comments of the ‘tastes like shit’, ‘eurgh! that looks horrible’ type were not tolerated. They won’t allow themselves to starve if you serve a reasonable selection of food.

I used to make a large amount of plain pasta. And I cooked what I liked more or less for the week on a Sunday. Any whining they got plain pasta no sauce no butter no cheese. By day 4 of the increasingly grim pasta things would improve. I did this for quite a while.

Sunday evening was crunchy chicken in front of the tv after swimming.

@Wallywobbles

I used to make a large amount of plain pasta. And I cooked what I liked more or less for the week on a Sunday. Any whining they got plain pasta no sauce no butter no cheese. By day 4 of the increasingly grim pasta things would improve. I did this for quite a while.

Sunday evening was crunchy chicken in front of the tv after swimming.

So you cooked what you liked? And bugger everyone else? And you're offering up that tactic as good advice?

Really?

Give them fruit instead. Take it or leave it, or go to bed hungry.

Of course children don’t get a free choice over what they eat. They need parental guidance and control or many will end up with diabetes and no teeth.
If you are serving good food, they need to be respectful. Do not tolerate rudeness when you have made the effort to cook. If they are rude, tell them to leave the table. They’ll survive until the next meal. Get rid of any options for fried junk in breadcrumbs except on holiday. If it’s not in the house, they can’t eat it.
Don’t over complicate it. This is what’s for supper. No fuss.No praise or reward for eating. No persuasion. This is supper. If they are rude they leave the table. Hold firm and be consistent. No snacking between meals. No top ups with toast if they haven’t eaten. No punishment or parental sulking. Eat it or don’t. It’s a choice.

@LemonRoses summed it up perfectly.

They really didn't.

Well, in my opinion they did.

No way would I have let my son behave like that. He was not allowed to criticise the food I cooked. I consider that to be extremely bad manners.
He had to eat what I cooked or starve basically.
I brought him up from a baby on fruit, veg, home cooked meals, I never let him rubbish, not even fish fingers.
I was a nurse for 25 years and children have been admitted to hospital with severe malnutrition and teeth and bone loss from junk diets.
There have been a lot of stories in the news about teenagers going blind due to malnurition.
DS ate anything because it was presented to him right from the beginning and was all there was to eat in the house, no crisps, sweets or anything like that.
He is 40 and doesn't have a single filling.

He won't eat peas though. They make him gag. I don't know why peas are evil but apparently they are.

He had to eat what I cooked or starve basically.

Perhaps you were lucky. Some children will starve. And some children will grow up to resent their parents.

@Billandben444

My OH once moaned to me (under his breath) that he couldn't eat the chicken croquettes he'd ordered in the restaurant because... they tasted too much of chicken. I blame the parents, take note!

This reminds me of the time I went to a seafood restaurant and there was a woman complaining that her meal was “too fishy”. Still makes me laugh!

Shehasadiamondinthesky Same here adult children with no fillings, no fussiness and a healthy body weight. Worked for me, but I allowed fish finger sandwiches sometimes. They could have junk in restaurants or on holiday sometimes. They had weekend sweets. They weren’t on any restricted diet but I expected reasonable table manners.

@Shehasadiamondinthesky

He won't eat peas though. They make him gag. I don't know why peas are evil but apparently they are.

What is it with peas? My DD would eat pretty much anything; she would woof down a whole chicken, skin and all, if allowed. Ate a huge variety of fruit and veg, but peas, no. If I hid them in something she would pick them out. Strangely, she loved mangetout 😄

@Shehasadiamondinthesky

No way would I have let my son behave like that. He was not allowed to criticise the food I cooked. I consider that to be extremely bad manners. He had to eat what I cooked or starve basically. I brought him up from a baby on fruit, veg, home cooked meals, I never let him rubbish, not even fish fingers. I was a nurse for 25 years and children have been admitted to hospital with severe malnutrition and teeth and bone loss from junk diets. There have been a lot of stories in the news about teenagers going blind due to malnurition. DS ate anything because it was presented to him right from the beginning and was all there was to eat in the house, no crisps, sweets or anything like that. He is 40 and doesn't have a single filling.

Great! Everyone is different I guess.

Just to clarify, my kids always get their 5 a day. They also get treats as I believe in balance. I also have no issue feeding them fish fingers sometimes, I don't believe they are the work of the devil 😁 The only issue I have with their diets is at dinner time, it's big heavy meals with lots of ingredients & flavour that they seem to struggle with. They prefer plain flavours but that doesn't mean that they don't eat nutritionally-balanced meals.

Again, my original post was tongue in cheek.

@ladsholiday presumably they’d only ‘starve’ until the next meal, which would be something different and then they could eat that. If the children I nanny for really actively dislike a particular thing (one hates mushrooms, one can’t stand prawns, for example) then it’s not on the menu. But criticism over something they’ve had and enjoyed previously, or saying something is the wrong shape/too flavoured/I don’t like it anymore/they make it differently at school, well I’m sorry sunshine, you can eat it without being rude of you can bugger off from the table and go hungry. Of course I wouldn’t serve the same meal up reheated, but the choice is eat what I’ve made the efforts serve to you ( I can cook well so no excuse there) or you’ll be hungry until breakfast time. No one is ‘starving’ in their beds. And they’re not allowed to say they don’t like something without trying, and then trying again a year or so later, because children’s tastebuds change.

Fish fingers are fine though! Nothing wrong with fish fingers. Sustainably caught of course.

Can I just clarify that my children are VERY well-mannered. We are hugely strict on manners. When I say they moan, it's not that they say it's disgusting. They will say 'I'm not hungry', 'how many more mouthfuls' etc. I might have badly-worded my original post, as it was immediately post-dinner and I was also being slightly droll.