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.

What would you do if one of them absolutely hated food and had no interest in it and needed to be coaxed to eat and tempted with something special for them. Would you just let them starve?

The heart of stone would have come in useful if you had one like mine. No silly tears at the funeral.

I've got kids with completely different tastes. They were all weaned on exciting and tasty home made food. Lots of kids hit age 3 and their taste buds really kick in. If they are screwing their faces up and refusing to eat lots of foods, I don't see the benefit in turning it into a food battle.
I also wouldn't assume that because parents order from the bland children's menu when out, that the kids are only eating beige food at home. There's nothing wrong with ordering chicken goujons with chips when you know they'll enjoy it.
If I'd only had one of my children, I would be the perfect parent, who could do the 'my child eats all international and spicy cuisine' brag.
The good thing I've found with the fussy ones, is that their taste buds usually change again but for the better, around age 10.

I have two fussy children. I did everything I was supposed to, started with vegetables, then introduced fruits, carbs and meat etc. Blended homemade meals, everything. One wouldn't eat anything from the get go, the other went fussy around age 2. I literally have no idea why. Now I do 50% homemade meals and 50% meals of stuff I know they will eat. They will both repeatedly go to bed hungry evey night otherwise, believe me I have tried. If anyone has a fussy child cure I'm all ears 😫

I fed mine the same food I was having.
We are now mostly vegetarian, my DH will not touch any meat at all, I do eat meat occassionally. My DD eats meat. So I do cook "two meals" sometimes. I mean, I just change the protein source for her.
Otherwise, we would be eating all the same.

It made no difference to them- but it makes a massive difference to lots of people.

I didn’t even know feeding children different food was a ‘thing’ until we dished up chicken curry to our friends and their teenage dd.

There were awkward looks around the table and then the penny dropped as to why they’d always fed the kids separate cheap hotdogs when we went round theirs for a meal. Their dd ‘managed’ the curry and said it was actually quite nice! 🤦🏻‍♀️

I rarely do different meals, unless we’re eating later than DCs. However, I will adapt meals to suit preferences I.E DCs hate mash, whereas we love it, so they’ll have the boiled potatoes and I’ll mash the rest for us. DD is veggie, so I will batch cook for her. If we’re having curry/bolegnaise I defrost her lentil Dahl/quorn bolegnaise and so on, she will have fish or prawns when we are having chicken/beef. Accommodating veggie is already a pain without adding anything else in to the mix!

There are a great many parents who are not buying or cooking the fresh veg or fruit or the variety of fibre, calcium, or protein sources that is optimal, all because of cost. They're buying and serving food that will make them feel full and won't end up in the bin.

If the kids don't or won't eat a healthy or healthy enough food you're eating yourself, yes, you can eat it, but they still have to be fed. A family meal that only one or two family members eat ends up being served again the next day or it's wasted, so that's two days when a child or two haven't eaten much.

Parents are very often stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I'm not sure this is a thing. It has never crossed my mind to make different meals. I wasn't fed differently as a child. Friends with kids all seem to feed a family meal, perhaps with adjustments to spice if it's too hot, and obviously smaller portions.

My five year old cries when he tries our spicy food (and it's not even very hot, I don't like it too hot). He's never liked spice, but he would eat almost anything a a baby and toddler. He got fussier around 3 when he started refusing anything with 'green bits' - but will still eat whole broccoli and enjoy it. He doesn't like anything with sauces, but that's easy enough to serve separately. He doesn't eat entirely beige foods, but he does eat quite a lot of pasta with veg and protein served separately.

Speaking to friends with older children, it's super common to be fussy at this age and so long as you keep offering more interesting foods, they grow out of it around 9/10. We always offer him a bit of ours, although he rarely takes it.

This is a thread about why aren't parents feeding children what the parents are eating. If the parents aren't eating certain foods for whatever reason (I mean I hardly ever buy fresh vegetables because the cost isn't worth the quality when so often they are bad or go bad before they get eaten, so I buy frozen instead as cheap and reliable) then of course they won't be feeding their children those foods either but parents can always keep offering the food they are eating to their children along with whatever the children will eat. Basically my advice is don't give up offering, because tastes can change so suddenly. This can go side by side with feeding them whatever safe foods they'll eat if that's what you have to do or giving a bigger supper if they won't eat the dinner you offer.

Dd1 ate anything and her favourite foods as a toddler were fish soup and liver casserole! Dd2 was lactose intolerance so I think we were a bit lenient with her but when she was about 4 she went through a stage of refusing food or vomiting it up. I took her to a doctor who said there was no reason she couldn't eat our food. So I stopped giving her anything different but if we were having pasta bolognaise I'd give her a normal portion of pasta with a teaspoon of bolognaise on the side. I told her she didn't need to eat a full portion but I'd be happy if she ate the teaspoon quantity. Gradually I increased it until she was eating a normal portion. Years later she said bolognaise was her favourite meal!

I don't eat meat, the rest of the family do. My son has a poor appetite due to his ADHD meds and it's often hard to get him to eat anything at all so I will often make him a seperate dinner of beans on toast as he will not try anything new or anything spicy etc. My daughter is pretty good and will at least try most things, not interested at all in a vegetarian diet though!

I like spicy food

I weaned my two on the stuff we ate. Chilli, curry, (both mild), all sorts.
Dd1 age 15 is the fussiest person out there. She wasn’t. I’ve got photos of her eating happily cucumber, banana, potato - all things she hasn’t touched since about 6 years old. Veg - she eats carrot, sweetcorn and broccoli and peas at a push. No beans or cauliflower or cabbage. No curry or chilli. She’s a waif. There are certain meals she has to eat even though she’s not keen. She likes roast meat with the select few veg - I put a potato on her plate and she has to eat it. But there’s no point now in putting a plate of chilli in front of her. Been there, done that, lost the battle. No tears, but digging her heels in and happily going to bed hungry.
So I batch cook meatballs in tomato sauce which she does love, and if we want a curry or sausages and mash, most of which DD2 (age 10) happily scoffs, I take my single frozen portion of meatballs out of the freezer and give her that with pasta.

I did all the same things as everyone else
with good eaters, except one thing. I forgot to specify the non-fussy variety when I placed my order and now she’s 15 the warranty has long since expired and I can’t return. I rectified it the second time around. Although with that model I failed to include a sleep function. She eats but is still a restless sleeper.

You win some, you lose some.

Ours usually have the same as us. Occasionally they have a much earlier tea and that might be different depending what's happening, but tonight they are having macaroni cheese and salad - same as DH. I am having salad and baked potato (on a diet).

I don't know anyone who does this, to be honest.

You’d hate my household then OP, I’m cooking three separate meals most nights. One for my severely restricted diet DC, one for my DC that has allergies and one for me because I’m also restrictive in my eating habits and won’t touch either meals DC are having. People cook to suit their family setup, not to suit your thinking of how children should eat. Being forced to eat shit I didn’t like or tolerate as a child is what lead to a 10 year eating disorder for me.

I remember the first time we fed mine curry and dim sum and Chinese. They were incredibly small. We used to ask for it without salt and MSG.

I've always tried to feed mine the same meal as I'm having with DH. Allergies and food preferences have altered this along the way but a recent example would be the Special Fried Noodles we had for dinner. DC had the same but had the chicken and the prawns without sauce and didn't have some of the veg items. The thought of having to get separate food for something like a roast dinner strikes me as ludicrous. We used to tell my MIL that they weren't a fan of lamb but otherwise anything was fine.

Our DS doesn't like chocolate or cream/ice cream - it makes him gag. Other than that he'll eat anything really.

When he was little he'd have chicken nuggets (still a favourite if he gets the chance) when we had a curry or something similar. But I would put a little bit of what we ate in a bowl and put it by his plate. Gradually his taste changed and he was soon having a small curry with a couple of nuggets on the side. Then we dropped the nuggets. We did similar for other food that he had previously turned his nose up at. No pressure, if he didn't eat the small amount of 'other' food, that wasn't a problem. But he gradually tried everything.

My mum did the same with me and cucumber. I hated the stuff when I was little. When she did me a sandwich she'd occasionally pop a slice, just one slice, on the side of the plate. It didn't touch the sandwich. After a while I tried it and liked it. My taste buds had developed. Now I love cucumber. So I did the same with DS - different food but the same principle.

Me and my mum are ALWAYS talking about kids menu

chicken nuggets. Sausages/…chips….pizza

the ONLY time I’ve not seen that was at a 3 star Michelin star restaurant and that was so far the other way like fish pate…..

Yes I think their first foods are plain with no flavour.
We have never cooked separate meals.
When they were little we just blended our own food for them, then when they moved onto solids they ate the same as us.
I think it’s all about introducing lots of flavours, colours and textures asap.

We have a rule of ‘have to try everything once but don’t have to eat what you don’t like’. The only
thing our DC doesn’t eat is spicy food - but I just take out the portion for them before adding chilli/cayen etc. I think it is not down to parenting but to a child. My husband was apparently a super
fussy eater as a kid whereas his brother was not. DC, thankfully, eats everything. I haven’t made a ‘kids meal’ since they were 1.5yo.

I eat different food to my DH.

I have food allergies which where NOT respected by most as a child and I ended up severally underweight, 'you will eat what I eat' is prehistoric abuse. Many children do not have the power, understanding or language to articulately explain why they can't eat something and many adults don't listen anyway.

Just as I dont expect to be force fed food I can't eat or even just don't like I wont do that to my kids... we all eat whatever it is we personally LIKE.

I hate Banana but my kids like them so they get banana etc... I can't imagine being so controlling I would force anyone to eat exactly what I wanted instead of what they choose.