to be a bit peeved at kids who don't eat their dinner (at my house)?

[Clary]

Well, probably yes.

But all the same. This seems to be a running theme here - DCs' pals come to tea and don't eat their food.

They don't make a fuss as a rule - they are nice kids. They don't even ask for any other food, tho I sometimes offer ("would you like an apple?")

But I serve up, ooh, outre stuff like sausages or pasta with tomato sauce, or obscure veg like leeks, and they get toyed with and left.

It gets a bit depressing, esp when the other week we had 3 pals over (I have 3DC) and out of the 6 kids at the table only mine ate the pasta with bol sauce!

DH says I should serve them frozen chicken nuggets with smiley faces (shudder) and then they'd eat.

I don't even know why it bothers mem except I find myself thinking well, I could have just saved that food for me and DH to eat.

OK obv I am just feeling like a laet-night rant, but does anyone else have this?

I tend to stick to tried and tested fish fingers and other 'goodies' if dc have friends for tea.

With older dd's (11 yr olds) friends I'll do pasta if they say they like it.

I see it as a special treat. My dc eat lots of fruit and veg the rest of the time and it's not my place to force the issue with other peoples dc.

I find even with those things on offer no-one eats that much anyway. They're all too busy giggling and playing - the food is an also-ran at this kind of thing.

DD has a friend who refuses to eat at our house. Or even out. We all went to a theme park one day and I made a packed lunch for everyone (other option was food there which is always crap, overpriced and revolting). DDs friend refused to eat any of it, which included sandwiches of 3 varieties, mini sausage rolls, mini pasties, penguin bars, crisps, cheese portions, grapes and oranges and fruit juice. She wouldn't eat or drink any of it. So I said fine, go without. Her Mum was a bit and then bought her a crap meal anyway. I was a bit miffed, now she gets the offer of eating here but always says no.

I was one of those nightmare DCs who hated most foods (lived on Marmite toast apparently) and once was sick at a friend's house when her well-meaning mum made me try something Evil, like boiled carrots. I am now a 'dustbin who eats everything' with no food fads at all, strange how that worked out!

I've been very laidback with my DCs as per GetOrfMoiLand, and certainly am with visitors. If it winds you up, OP, then definitely make Playdate Night 'picky bits ' night a la MaMight - crusty bread etc.

I did once give a children's party where a big picnic tea was laid out on the lawn - every nice thing you can imagine. One young lad came to me big-eyed with tragedy:

"There's not a single thing here I like!" he said, lip a-wobble. "Not - one - single - thing," head shaking on each word to emphasise the totality of the disaster.

"Do you like icecream?" I tried in desperation.

"Yes - but only vanilla." Vanilla was produced.

Tears sprang and poured. "But I don't like yellow vanilla!" he cried.

Bless.

I agree with Fluffy. It is over excitement. Ds is about the unfussiest eater I know, he will literally eat anything but he picks at food at other peoples houses because he just wants to play and chat. I do normally warn people to give him a very small portion.

at yellow vanilla!

I can't comment on this from a parent's perspective yet as ds is only a baby, but I'm inclined to say YANBU.

I was brought up with a 'waste not, want not' philosophy (still unsure how me eating broccoli helped starving children in India ), especially when it came to being a guest. I would always clear my plate, even when really full! But I'm not convinced that it was an entirely healthy way to be as I distinctly remember forcing down sandwiches with margarine in (my least favourite 'food' in the world) and actually gagging with every mouthfull

Having 5 kids with a wide age range, I get this a lot. I have given up caring whether the visiting children eat or not.

We don't have organised arrangements, if a friend is here at meal times, I just ask them if they want to eat. Most of the youngsters i feed do not even recognise what I have cooked. Several have never experienced HM soup except here, some don't know what wraps are and can't work out how to eat them, some have never eaten pasta or rice, the nearest most come to a vegetable is a spoonful of baked beans once a week (no exaggeration) and they don't eat any veg at all, not even corn, peas or cherry toms. I have even been asked "You don't actually make people eat that?" when one child watched me make a potato bake. WHen my older boys have friends over, I have given up and just buy about a hundred pizzas (they are late teens) because that is about all they eat.

It used to really upset me because we are on a really strict food budget and I always felt as if I was throwing money down the drain. Now, as I say, I am much more relaxed. I only give the visitors small amounts to begin with, if they eat it they can always get more, and then I let the mothers know if they haven't eaten. I don't offer alternatives, though, because I almost never have the things that they would want (crispy pancakes, tinned meatballs, chicken nuggets.) Sadly, it actually is the case that the kids who come here don't have a good diet at home, not just that they are fussy. I know this because the children don't actually recognise any of the food and will say things like " i've never heard of/seen that before," and I have had a few mothers come and ask how to make things like macaroni cheese, patatas bravas or lentil soup because they "never cook and don't know how."

OK rant over, can you tell this is one of my pet hates?

i remember puking up at a friends house as a child when her mum dished up lasagne and i forced it down (didn't like cheese or pasta at the time...) I have a friend who gives mine pasta and pesto every.single.time my dd1 went to her house for a sleepover-my dd (and i to be honest) think pesto is the work of the devil (makes me gag tbh) so dd no longer goes to that childs house for tea and a sleepover at weekend as despite me saying 'she doesn't like pesto' repeatedly to my friend that is their 'saturday night tea' (no really!) and will not change it.
If we have people back i do things like 'roast a chicken' with all the veg, pizza/coleslaw/wedges, i wouldn't do a pasta dish or one 'in sauce' or fish for a kid that i didn't know as you are ASKING for trouble!
also-push comes to shove i'd do beans on for them if they didn't like it...

c&p from upthread:

I couldn't care less whether the guest children eat or not. I serve something I've checked they'll eat and that's it. I see my job as being to provide a decent meal they like, not to ensure they eat it.

[shrug] they won't starve.

ApplesinmyPocket you have given me hope

perhaps sling it on the table, let them serve themselves, the n there's no waste?

there are so many playdates that you can't adapt to other people's children's junk food and disadvantage your own in the process

eat or don't eat.. yanbu

My friend's child only eats pizza so catering for him is easy, but a bit monotonous!

If they don't eat they go hungry in my house.

I take the view they are unlikely to starve long term. Although one child criticised my plates...she has not been invited back.

TheFoosa definitely have hope! There's not a lot of telling from childhood likes and dislikes who grows up to be fussy and who doesn't. Mine eat a completely different range of things from when they were small.

I do think that it's possible that things actually taste different from one person to the next - anyone else agree? In which case one would be much more understanding about other people's apparent 'faddiness'.

DH for example swears that red peppers have 'very little taste' whereas I think I could tell if one little widgy bit had been dipped into a stew for 30 seconds and then removed! (though I love them.)

Don't really do the smiley faces/nuggets thing, but just because the children have always just eaten smaller portions of the family meal. Visiting children get the same, but I don't stress too much if they don't eat it. I am much more annoyed if they exhibit poor manners - chucking food around, not bothering to say thank you, etc.

I'm amazed how fussy many of our guest children are, but am used to it. Some only eat plain pasta, some don't like pasta.

Even with pizza they're fussy. Last week I made (really nice) homemade pizza, one of the guests (I think she lives on McDonalds and Pizza hut type food but her mother insists she eats healthily) didn't like it and the other did quite like it but approached it as a rare exotic thing.

but I don't get offended or I would be offended at every child guest, I just accept that most children seem to be ridiculously fussy, my own are fussier than I'd like too. In my dreams all my children would love curry and all manner of spicy vegetable offerings. In reality they like bland boring familiar food.

My ds likes freshly caught wild trout, especially the skin, roast chicken - but doesn't like potato in any form, will eat broccoli, carrots, peas, but only like sausages burnt on an open fire - we have been trying to get him to eat sausages for years because that is dd's favourite food - dh took him out at the weekend and they had a fire and cooked sausages, he asked for more. I do have fussy kids, dd would prefer an apple to any other food, but eats rubbish and healthy food too.

I wish they weren't so fussy, and hope like me they grow out of it!

I always ask what children like before having them over to tea, and try and make that - but if they don't eat I just think they are not hungry/too excited/maybe what I served is different and they are not keen on my cooking.

I would much rather people didn't feed my children, save them worrying about it. I remember only getting snacks at friends' houses when I was little, unless I was staying over night.

Afraid I don't really care if the other children eat or don't. I do try to cook something I've checked that they'll eat but I'm not going to force them.

Although now I do the 'let them serve themselves' thing from Slubber's thread it seems to work better.

I would just do what your dh suggests, save yourself the annoyance.

Lol at child listing smiley faces in a list of vegetables

Yanbu at the leftover food, but I guess some of them might be excited etc or have small appetites

my dd loves spicy food and anything garlicky - but won't eat anything wet or mushy

what's that about?

I think a lot of DCs are just too excited to eat.

I just do a simple type buffet - cheese, carrot sticks, mini tomatoes, bread sticks, bread, salami, ham, crisps and leave them too it.

I am not fussed about what other children eat at my house. If I can find a replacement (egg, toast...) I will ask the child if he wants it otherwise I will just let the parent know that they did not eat much and might feel hungry when back at home.

There is several reasons why a child would not eat in someone elses house:

• to exited to eat,
• to shy
• food does not taste like at home (even if same dish)
• genuinly not hungry or small apetite.

I started a similar thread a couple of months ago after a particularly difficult visitor. God I was so frustrated.

I'd kept it simple as I knew he doesn't like so many things (including pasta! I mean, I ask you!? What child doesn't like pasta!?)

Anyway he likes pizza but not with any toppings on, just plain margharita. I dish it up and he says " I don't like that, it doesn't look like the sort of pizza I have". Same with yoghurt for pudding "I like yoghurt but not those ones".

I either offer:
sausages, homemade wedges, baked beans and peas, bread rolls, all served in bowls to help yourself.
Or make your own pizza, with a selection of toppings to choose from.

And ice cream sundaes for pudding.

I wouldn't stress if a visitor didn't eat anything - but prefer to reduce the odds of them going home hungry.

if you had a kid from say 3pm for tea and then a sleepover wwyd if they ate no tea (through genuine dislike of it) and then weren't being collected until lunchtime the next day-i wouldn't have a kid almost 24 hours on a bit of toast....

My son is a bit like Lily's. His diet at home is pretty good now, and not too restricted, but he regresses when he goes to other people's homes, to the extent that I'm sure they think he doesn't eat even pasta or pizza at home. He does.

I have kids who come over and claim they don't eat peas or whatever. I don't see it as a personal insult.

Clary Don't assume that these children eat badly at home. It isn't fair.