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.

🐁🐁🐁🐁
Never tried one myself. What do they taste like?

I have a video of DD at just over 2 demanding I order her olives in the pub. I can’t stand them myself but she’s always loved them!

We all eat the same. I just bear that in mind when cooking / buying

Great if that works but what happens if no matter what you try to introduce the child refuses. Then you go with the whole ‘they’ll eat when they’re hungry’ route but after 24-36 hours they’re still refusing to eat, do you keep going? If you keep insisting they try food and they keep vomiting it back up, what then? Sometimes it’s really not as simple as saying they just need to be exposed to different tastes and encouraged to try new things.

My kid would eat anything until she was 2, then she went a bit pickier, now at 6 she's coming out of it. She's never been terrible but sometimes I want something she really won't eat so she gets something different. Obviously if she would eat everything I wanted to eat she wouldn't get a different meal. I don't do it for fun.

Pubs and restaurants do bland kids menus as that's what most want

Sometimes it takes sixteen years to acquire the taste.

I have a DC who ate no green foods whatsoever until age 22. Would not open mouth to try. Sat with folded arms and point blank refused. When I say 'green foods' I include specks of green herbs in otherwise tomato or cream based sauces too.

Everyone said they would eat if they were hungry.

Pah!

Well done on being such a fabulous parent. I started out feeding mine whatever we had (never cook with salt), but as they grew older their sensory issues became more and more apparent and they started to refuse to eat anything other than their safe.foods. sod cooking two.different meals, I cooked.4.different Chistmas dinners to cater for everyone's needs

No, everyone's kid does not start off fussy. All of my NCT friends agree that our kids were great eaters until they were between 2 and 3, then became pickier. Same with the mums at school.

I had a child that ate EVERYTHING at 2-3 years old - apart from avocado.

Then at 4 just started being super picky - but randomly - so one month loved tomatoes next month wouldn’t touch them etc.

You could make a whole dinner that you’d swear she loved one week and she wouldn’t touch any of it. And she was stubborn so could go a whole day with no food if it didn’t appeal - she was also super skinny and on the lowest percentile for weight so made me anxious about trying to ‘wait her out’ for food.

She also was bizarrely adventurous in her pickiness so would eat venison, olives, stuffed aubergine, loved mustard but would go off chicken and apples.

When friends were stressed that their kids would only eat beige food they thought I was ridiculous for worrying about her pickiness but it was so random that it was very stressful - food waste and trying to calculate she got enough of all the regular food groups etc.

She’s a teenager now and pretty much eats everything but still gets bored of the staples like roast chicken, salmon etc.

Maybe my cooking is too repetitive!

I wouldn't shell out money for food in a restaurant on the off chance a DC would eat it, then end up going home and preparing a meal for the kid who wouldn't eat anything on the menu. No thanks.

Tikka masala 😆😆😆

I don’t know why but it’s fairly new so probably marketing. My kids are what we ate and I was brought up on healthy homemade meals too, except for the odd jar of puree as babies it was seen as a positive. The society we live in allows children’s health to be targeted all the time, junk food is a ‘treat’ and sweets are exciting etc…

People who haven't had a fussy eater often congratulate themselves on their superior parenting. Most of the time it's just luck. I have one child who eats anything and one who is extremely fussy. Both raised on meals cooked largely from scratch with everyone served the same meal at the table.

My mother was an excellent cook who served my brother nothing but hamburgers for a year in the 1980s because he literally would eat nothing.

When my kids were little we ate at different times. They couldn’t wait until 7 or 8 pm when my husband got home for their evening meal so I used to always cook different meals. Now they’re older they’re rarely around at tea time so tend to cook for themselves. My youngest is also really picky . With two older kids that were never picky it was a bit of a shock. He started out well but gradually dropped foods. He’s 16 now and getting better but we had awful few years. Tried everything. I was very much of the opinion that if they were hungry they’d eat they’d eat what I put on the table or go hungry. That’s all well and good until you get a child that would rather go hungry .

Too much bland food for kids makes fussy eaters, and fussy eaters make bad guests. We need to expose our kids to a variety of foods so that they don’t turn their noses up at everything when they’re guests at other people’s houses.

Aren't you fantastic. You are all fantastic.
I've 2 children. Both of whom ate a varied diet when being weaned and slowly but surely reduced their safe foods over the years. They're both autistic, dyspraxic, adhd and other medical issues.
So for me 100% of my children require specific meals and the minority you mention is not as small as you think.
I hate these threads. Honestly I am a great cook and started my kids on a fab varied diet, but now they eat pretty much the same thing every day and it's soul destroying, but they're happy and healthy.
So reserve your judgement.

I could never understand how parents fed their children different foods, we always ate what my parents ate. For me it was plain cheap foods I saw my friends eat like tinned spaghetti & sausages instead of steak and mash that we had. It was only as an adult I realised we got decent food because my dad was a butcher who owned his own shop selling meat & veg so all our food came from there. Plus my parents ate very basic meat & 2 veg meals no sauces so it was pretty much plain food for us. There was very little tinned food, no one ate spaghetti or beans in our house because my parents didn’t like them, my DF might add some tinned spuds to a stew but that was it. I didn’t even know cauliflower cheese was a thing until well into adulthood as it was only ever served boiled at our house. My DF did love curries though, but nothing a child could ever eat.

Now I make various dishes some shared some not.

Tonight DH & I had goats cheese and red pepper quiche, none of our DCs had it, one due to allergies, one due to can’t standing cheese & the other can’t stand eggs or vegetables. So they has sausages, chips, Yorkshire puds & mixed veg, all put in the middle of the table so they choose what they wanted and what they didn’t. It was no big deal, quiche went in the oven the same time as the chips, I plated the salad while cooking the sausages…

Most nights, due to allergies & likes I put a selection of food out I know that the DCs will all eat at least one thing from. Sometimes DH & I will eat what they sometimes not.

There are very few meals we share, even meals I know everyone would like or give a go I have to do something separate due to dc with allergies anyway so I may as well give them something I know 100% they will eat and DH and I may as well enjoy what we are eating too.

We have always eaten the same meal in our house as well as where possible eaten our evening meal together at the table. After years of all eating the same meal DD decided to become veggie so now most meals have 2 have 2 variations! So even if they are good eaters when younger they can choose a different diet when older!
lickily DD also likes to cook so she cooks a couple of nights a week and doesn’t mind handling meat for the rest of us.

I could not agree more. I'm from a culture that doesn't really do "baby food" much less kid food. Kids eat what the adults eat chili and all.

I grew up in a household where I ate 3 meals a day around the table with my family, shared food for all of us, cooked from scratch. I assumed I'd do the same with my kids, except life doesn't always turn out like that.

I have 1 DD and to look at her, you'd have no idea why she was such a fussy eater. You might judge me for what I feed her, but the truth is she has stage 4 chronic kidney disease (25% function). This means she has a reduced appetite, desensitised taste buds, and will only eat a handful of foods.

She relies on medication and vitamin tablets to support her kidney function plus fortified powder in her drinks each day to ensure she has enough calories to grow. If I put the rest of my family on her diet they'd probably die of malnutrition, if not boredom.

A lot of families struggle with clashing time schedules which doesn’t help and leads to eating separately. Cooking different meals for fussy eaters must be frustrating and a headache though. What makes kids fussy eaters? Personally, I think they often get overwhelmed at an early age by too much on a plate and then try to fight for control. Tired, stressed out parents that have been at work all day, just want a break and a quiet life. It’s much easier to chuck a plate of beige down to keep the peace.

I’ve got two that eat most things and have always eaten with us. Neither like very spicy but both will eat a mild chili/curry etc and one doesn’t like shellfish but will eat cod/salmon/haddock etc. Both eat all veg except mushrooms. None of these are battles I’m willing to fight. They are people in their own right and have their own tastes.

The key for me was no pressure. Everyone sitting together for dinner. If you don’t like it, you can have Wheatabix but that’s it. Putting food in the centre of the table so everyone controls their own portion. Having a selection of seasonings/additional toppings on the table to make it how you like it (chilli flakes/parmesan/oils etc) Yes, it was time consuming and we were lucky to be in a position to do this but it definitely took the pressure off and gave the kids a chance to work out food for themselves.

Mine always had what we were eating, including curries etc.
When I was weaning them, I just used to blend up what we were eating until they were competent at chewing properly.
If on the rare occasion they didn't like a particular item, I would just leave that item off their plate and add extra meat or potato in its place.

YANBU, ok I get that there should be some "beige" on menus for kids as some are fussy and won't eat anything but say chicken nuggets and chips.
There should be a smaller child's size portion of the adults menu available too though as mine have always loved stuff like shepherds pie, stir fries, curry etc.
When it comes to eating foods like this at relatives houses, I suppose you know what your kids will like. Seems a bit daft to feed them something you know they don't like.

My child has her father’s childhood palate: if it has gravy to some level she’s in: shepherd’s pie, roast dinner, minced beef and if there’s a pie or a Yorkshire pudding she’s there for seconds.

She also loves a curry, tagine, homemade soup.

But if a green vegetable even strays near the plate there is a complete boycott.
We had courgette fritters with Greek lamb at the weekend. not a chance.

some courgette was found in her lasagne last week - “it’s just meat” we said.

I look forward to the days of not sneaking in extra veg into meals and just serving them on the side.

She hates jam and custard so we know she isn’t a time traveller otherwise she eats like it’s Bolton in 1983.