Why don't parents feed children what they eat?

[Gruffallowhydidntyouknow]

Twice this week I have had conversations with people that make me wonder why in the UK we are obsessed with children's food and feeing children bland foods.

One friend told me that they were furious at their mother in law, as they had been for Sunday lunch at the weekend and had had to go to Tesco to get food in for their children (5,7, 10) because it was ridiculous that they were being offered the roast beef dinner.

Another friend was bemoaning cooking two different meals as she had to cook something the children would eat and something separate for her and her wife. She laughed and said she couldn't wait until they were old enough to eat curry (8 year old twins).

I despair at the sight of pub menus as it's always beige and chips for the children or a token tomato pasta unless you are in a really nice place. Is that really how people feed children?

I have literally never made separate foods with the exception of not giving my children steak pre teeth.

I'm genuinely intrigued what makes people feed their children separately. Is it that people really believe that children won't eat normal foods? Do people think you "shouldn't" give children spicey foods, or Game/ an olive / duck / stir fry?

Is it that they were weaned on plain things and are now fussy?

I'm not talking about the tiny portion of additional needs selective eaters.

My toddler has always eaten what we eat, but just lately he is being much pickier. Won't touch the protein items like chicken and fish. Steering clear of the vegetables. Then waking up at night, asking for a snack.

In principle I'd love for him to eat what we eat. But if it comes to it, I'm going to microwave some cheesy beans or a jacket potato so that he eats something, gets a relatively balanced diet and sleeps through the night.

It's not important, but I do also feel like pointing out that fussy eating =/= only liking bland foods. Like most, my kids when little were fed bits of everything as we're told that will make them like a wide range of food when they're older.

My kids are currently quite fussy but reject most typical kids oven food. As mentioned earlier I've needed to give myself a break from meal planning so have bought in a load of freezer/stock cupboard things they are sure to eat, but I've had to stock up on things like hot and spicy chicken fillets, BBQ chicken grills, southern fried wedges and those bloody spicy ramen things.

Some things run in the blood I'm sure, my partner eats naturally very healthy, I prefer more stodgy things. DD is like me and DS is like him, despite being exposed to the exact same types of food.

I try my best to make one meal for the whole family and my son has always been offered what we are eating for dinner. But there are some things he just won't eat, and I would rather him eat his dinner than go hungry because he doesn't like what we are having. I will always get him to try things but accept he may not like it.

For example he has tried both curry and sweet and sour chicken, he seems to not like sauce on his chicken, so on these days he will have grilled seasoned chicken with noodles, veg and prawn crackers, and grilled seasoned chicken with rice and veg and naan.

He also doesn't seem to like the texture of mince so if we have cottage pie he will have sausage with the mash and veg for example. But 90% of the time he will have the same or very close to the same.

I wouldn't say his diet is bland, he likes spicy chicken, has some of my calamari when we are out etc but I am not going to repeatedly put things in front of him he has already tried a few times and told me he doesn't like, I wouldn't like that.

He has a good varied diet with at least 5 to 7 portions of fruit and veg a day.

My son has always been on the leaner side, tracked on 9th percentile so it's important to me that he eats his meals.

8 year old, he went through a really fussy stage of only wanting beige food!! He has grown out of it, now eats anything and we try a new food every week! He is autistic and has adhd and he got stuck in a rut, it took a long time to persuade him to try things but he has realised more often than not he will enjoy it. Although today he only had an apple at school for lunch so can't win all the time! We eat the same but eat at different times- son and I eat earlier when he gets home from school, husband doesn't get in usually from work till after bedtime so he will have his portion then, or he will cook for himself.

I don't personally know anyone who does this. Of course every family will have a beige dinner once in a while, but in general, kids eat what everyone else is eating.

I have two who are not fussy and one who is a bit fussy - he doesn't like spice of any kind and can be picky with some textures and flavours. I don't cater differently for him, other than I might do him chicken instead of salmon because he doesn't like salmon, or sprouts instead of carrots.

@Withinthesewalls

Awwww. 😆

Sounds my my twatty cat! 😆 Some days, she makes you put out 4 or 5 different types of food, and walks away from them all, before returning to one after about 10 minutes - and leaving the rest! Snooty little miss! 😂

I do love her though. Honest!

There are children who will simply refuse to eat anything, and it doesn't matter if it's a plated or family style meal, if even one element isn't to their taste or if they can smell some food they hate, etc.

I had a child who would eat only one specific shape of pasta. There was no amount of showing her the ingredients that would convince her that her favourite pasta was exactly the same as all the rest apart from the shape.

What's the difference between a child eating only pasta, rice, or mashed potatoes for weeks or months on end and a child eating only nuggets and chips for weeks on end anyway?

@mathanxiety we all know there are a tiny number of children who would rather starve. But most children will eat if they are not offered alternatives like yoghurt which is a dessert.
Lots of adults, including me will miss a meal or not eat a lot one day. I am not sure why children should be any different.

It’s not superior parenting it’s not feeding your child rubbish - and moaning about a roast it meat and veg. There’s no need to cook something separate

My experience is most of my parent friends cook the same meal for everyone. My kids get spaghetti bolognaise, chicken rice and veggies, homemade pizza, fish and veg, chicken burgers etc, pesto etc.

I think what you’re missing is that everyone who is feeding their kids a separate meal would LOVE this to be the situation. So much easier and healthier and what I hoped was going to be the case with how I fed my kids. But we’re not always in control of how fussy our kids are and therefore end up doing a lot more work at mealtimes and worrying about our kids nutrition.

That’s why there’s the sarky comments about superior parenting. It’s hard enough without feeling judged for it.

That's sensible advice, but not sustainable when food is growing more and more expensive.

There are many families who can't afford to take a chance on buying the variety of fruits and veg and different cheeses or whatever that is necessary for this approach. The little punnets of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and cherry tomatoes, and the cucumbers, sweet potatoes, etc. are out of reach for many.

Food wasted by children can cause huge anxiety in less well-off parents.

We haven't got much money. Which is why the children eat what we all eat.

One of my brother's is autistic, the other Aspergers- it made not difference. Meals together, same meal- tweaked a bit but no more.

While I wouldn't have starved as a child I would have been significantly underweight if i hated the food on offer and that would have effected my health. I doubt I was in a tiny minority.

My sister has autism and had serious sensory issues as a child. She would have starved herself rather than eat non- safe foods.

In her case my parents had no choice but to make her the food she would eat. But I agree with the OP in principle it’s better for kids to eat the same as parents. Life just doesn’t always work out that way.

I have B/G 7yo twins.

The boy eats everything - always has done. Always up for trying something new. The girl is a bit of a fusspot. I'd say the fussiness started around 4yo. She pretty much ate as well as her brother up until then.
That being said, she was much easier to wean than he was. I started them both at just over 4 months. She loved it, took to it straight away, he seemed to think I was feeding him actual turds. Gave up with him in the end, and went back to milk only until he was much nearer 6 months.

Both DH and I believe in kids eating what the adults eat - that's how we were both brought up. The only rule is, if you don't eat it, you can't be that hungry, so no pudding.
I'm happy to re-heat it later on if they want another go. But apart from that, the only thing available is a cheese sandwich or an apple. I want the alternatives to dinner to be fairly boring.

A a very experienced primary school teacher, with most of my experience with the little ones, so I've got a pretty good heart of stone when it comes to stubbornness.

To be fair to your toddler, I was fine with most foods up until his age. Then we went on a family holiday to Greece and all I would eat was Greek yogurt with honey and these little honey balls which are fried/boiled I think? I think I returned to normal when I got back to the UK after 2 weeks.

I don't see any harm in giving him what he wants and maybe even food you wouldn't normally give, milky drink, rice pudding pot so he doesn't wake up hungry in the night.

If its food you're cooking for yourself anyway then its not going to cost more, you just offer some of yours and if they don't eat it you can eat it. I don't mean buy random foods to offer that you don't eat and would go to waste, that would be silly in these times.

That's exactly how I was brought up and how I would parent, if I'd had DC. I was similar to your DD at 4 too.

What I'd say to add to your apple snack is... cheese and also maybe peanut butter on apple slices. Then at least they're not starving. An apple isn't enough.

When your children are supposed to be growing, and they're all on the small and skinny side - maybe 10th centile - and you've seen them refuse everything else but toast and butter for breakfast, a ham sandwich and a granola bar in school (because that's all they will eat) and a plate of plain spaghetti or rice for dinner for ten weeks with only two or three occasions when they ate the family meal, you start to cast around for alternatives that would at least get some protein and calcium into them, while trusting that they could get other nutrients from gummy vitamin supplements. I even resorted to presenting baked items with hidden veg - brownies made with spinach, muffins made with carrot puree, etc.

It's not a matter of appetite when children skip a meal, and there are many, many more children refusing food on a regular basis than people appreciate. Even if a child refuses one meal per week it's going to have an impact, and the same goes for eating two or three forkfuls of a meal and then saying they won't eat any more/ aren't hungry, etc. Neither situation is optimal.

I narrowed down my dinner offerings to three just to make sure everyone ate, and I didn't go the separate beige meals route. It was soul destroying, because I love to cook, and it caused huge anxiety because everyone said not to worry, the DCs would grow out of it, but they didn't. Or at least they didn't in the time frame I expected them to. 17/ 18 years of meat and starch isn't great. I have one DC who is only now at 22 starting to broaden her choices, but still won't knowingly eat veg or fruit.

I've got 5 so no way was I making different meals for all of us. They ate what we ate from being weaned. Whether that was home cooked curries, pasta, roasts, etc, or nuggets/fish fingers and chips (because I like those too!)

Obviously there's stuff they don't like (eg mushrooms) but they can pick them out, or not have them, and I wouldn't cook anything they absolutely hated.

One of mine would eat anything as a baby/young toddler then stopped eating when ill with a very bad chest infection. Life was a nightmare, I did all the things you are supposed to do, serve them a meal, don't offer alternatives but she gradually went hungry more and more so I started "pandering" to her but her restrictions got tighter and tighter until we got to 4 and our GP was monitoring her as she was so underweight. One day he said he wanted to weight her again in a week and if she had lost any weight, even half a pound she was going to have to go into hospital as it had reached the stage where if she lost any more weight she was in danger of organs starting to close down. He said let her eat chocolate for breakfast and cake for dinner if that was all she'd eat but we had to turn the weight loss round. For the next week she did indeed live on cake and chocolate and didn't lose any more weight. Gradually she started to eat, it was like she had forgotten what feeling hungry meant and she had to learn to eat food.

I despise all the "it's the parents fault, don't offer them anything else they won't starve." Some of them will starve. I often wonder how many Victorian children who "went into a decline" were actually children who just wouldn't eat.

Mine used to eat at nursey at 4 ish and have a seperate light meal at home because he went to bed so early and we used to start his bath at 6pm. Then DH and I would eat our dinner after DS was in bed.
Then when he got older we started having dinner together. I don't have time to cook separate meals.
DS gets exposed to "kids food" if we eat out in pubs or if he goes to kids party, but he doesn't eat it at home.
We are lucky that DS (8) would eat pretty much everything and anything. Maybe it's genetics, as both DH and I are the same. There is 1 thing DH cannot stand, I can't think of any for myself. And we recently found 2 thing that DS doesn't particularly like. Otherwise we would pretty much eat anything.