5 year old reactions (and eating)

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My 5 year old is quite typical in most ways, I think. She can be reasonable, and can have outbursts which I thought would have passed by now, but tonight’s was extreme, and I’m worried by what she said.

She takes ages to eat, and it’s annoying me a lot. Sometimes she will refuse for ages to try something new, or eat something a bit different, and then when she tried it, she likes it. Are dinners are mainly:

pasta with pesto (pistachio or basil)
quinoa with roast veg and tofu
curry with rice. Not at all spicy
orzo pasta bakes with cherry tomatoes and tofu
udon or soba noodles with veg
pasta with roast veg and seitan sauce.

we do these dinners on rotation so once or twice a week, when it’s curry or quinoa, it’s just painful. “X please can you eat “ etc etc. takes ages and just delays everything. Eventually someone spoon feed her usually and I just hate it. I decided tonight there’s no more dessert if there is a battle at dinner. I’m too tired of it. She was so angry at the thought of no dessert, which is usually yogurt and fruit, that she started hitting her head, crying, and saying she wanted to die. I stopped her, calmed her down quickly, and she ate. No dessert tonight but this reaction was shocking.

i just don’t know what to think or do! I’m not changing what we cook, and we’re not giving her pasta every night as she would ideally like. She loves tofu and most vegetables, but not so much in a curry. She will however eat it if push comes to shove and a good puddingpudding is up for grabs. We have bribed her before with chocolate or mango yoghurts. But I don’t want to do this anymore. I just want a normal dinner time. Also worried that the one year old will start to copy either the extreme reactions or the reluctant eating.

Thanks. I can see why you would think that, but it’s more the practicality of needing to get her and the one year old down for bed, especially the evenings I’m by myself. It really is a time issue and the frustration of when everyone has finished, her still having most of her food on her plate. I think the timer idea someone mentioned did appeal to me perhaps because I’m used to timing things! I will give it a miss though. I just need to reset things now, as we both got too stressed last night.

and thanks to those who suggested she serves herself. I will try this.

Timer is a terrible idea. Just no.

None of my 3 like cooked veg. They will eat cooked brocolli if it’s still crunchy, and cooked baby corn. That’s it. It’s not a big deal, I just put some aside for them to have raw before I cook ours. It’s better for them to eat it raw anyway.

It sounds like your little girl doesn’t like things mixed together. Again, not a big deal. Children are still learning to eat at 5 as well as talk, move, etc. Mixing things together complicates what they are looking at and makes it hard to understand what they are looking at / tasting. It’s an aversion that’s common in kids and they grow out of it. Just give her the ingredients separated and without a sauce. Tofu, beetroot, side of quinoa. It’s still the same food even if it’s not mixed up into a finished dish.

also, it’s normal for a 5 year old to eat a much smaller range of food than an adult. List what your child will eat into food groups and I’m sure you will see all her bases are being covered even if the variety is not huge yet

Hahaha! Nice one!

Animal fat isn't crucial! Where the hell did you get that idea?!

Don’t call it spoon feeding. Call it what it is: force feeding. You’re setting up your child for an eating disorder.

You’re forcing her making mealtimes unhappy and a bad experienxe

Switch up the meals with new ones

as a therapists seeing children with eating disorders or problems eating- it’s usually due to parents making it a negative experience or forcing them to eat

Our human ancestors literally surviving off of animal fat and protein to bring us to where we are today? Countless studies showing the importance of animal fat and protein in a human diet? Common sense?

Are you really this dim? Please refrain from engaging in discussions about nutrition when you haven't the faintest clue about it. The secondhand embarrassment is painful.

We've caught another vegan lmaooo

I can post what I like thank you and I have a wealth of nutrition research behind what i say. A well maintained vegan diet is perfectly healthy, the fact you don't know this showcases your own lack of knowledge.

You may not share my views but your immature lambasting of me shows the kind of person you are.

I'm guessing you're rather immature from your goading of vegans and also your username.

As you were.

Try the old El Paso kits with Quorn in them, spag Bol with Quorn, lentil shepherds pie. It’s also not the way worst thing in the world to have eg cheese/beans on toast for a meal.

Youre just another ignorant vegan. "I've done my research" im sure you have, now tell me how many people give up the vegan diet because of the crippling it effects it has on their health and mental health? How many kids forcibly raised on a vegan diet have died? How many adults on a vegan diet have died from malnutrition?

And before you say "they arent doing the diet right", you shouldn't have to "do a diet right". Eating is eating, food is food. If you have to intricately monitor every aspect of your diet to ensure you get enough nutrition, you should not be on that diet. If you have to take copious amounts of vitamins and supplements to compelte your nutrition-void diet, you shouldn't be on that diet.

Stop being so naive. As with all vegans, you just blindly defend your preposterous views on diet and nutrition so you can tell yourself youre so much better than everyone else for not eating animals. Animals are food. Animals are part of the food chain and are supposed to be eaten. Eating a diet excluding meat and all animal products will end in a plethora of health problems and eventually death. End of story.

Its a joke, but clearly your nutritionally-starved brain cant comprehend that.

Disagreeing with vegans and calling them out on what theyre doing to their bodies and their kids isnt immature. Its just a fact, sorry if that offends you.

Omfg! Hahahaha! 😂

Wtf!

Timer is a very bad idea.

you may find it easier if you deconstruct the food. So eg roast veg with seitan and quinoa - separate bowls for each and serve yourself.

fajitas - salsa, tortillas, guacamole and various fillings and you construct your own.

my dc hated “all smushed together meals”.

btw, cats for example are obligate carnivores. They have to eat meat and cannot survive on a diet without meat.

humans are not. They can live perfectly well on a diet without meat.

Give her pasta every day.. Once she feels she has some say in her food she may be more likely to branch out!!

Neophobia is very normal at her age. Keep exposing her to new foods alongside her safe foods with every meal. It takes 8-10 exposures to trust a new food.

It used to stop babies and kids from eating poison when foraging.

However, never use food as a reward or punishment as they then devalue the ‘threat’ food and the brain sees it as a bad thing and heightens the value of the ‘treat food’. You shouldn’t be having dessert most days anyway. She likes dessert because sweet foods can be trusted and it’s bitter and sour and savoury tastes that promote the neophobia.

Just take the stress away. She eats or she doesn’t. Leave her to it to learn the consequence of not eating/eating. Don’t make the table a battlefield.

If you’d like to know more about psychological models of food choice then Ogden has chapters on it in her Psychology of Eating book.

My eldest was exactly like this at this age. She did mostly grow out of it - now 8.5 and will at least try most things, but still has strong preferences (beige, chips but also randomly things like kale, Brussels)

She is however being assessed for ASD. That may be an irrelevant detail, but my NT youngest child is much more relaxed around food.

I think you’re doing the right thing here in that you provide something healthy that you know she’ll definitely eat so confident she won’t go hungry and is getting some nutrition, and then alongside something new or not a favourite for her to try.

All I would change is to not make it a big deal, just give the food and see how she goes. We did this with my child and though it took a long time they did increase variety in diet and mealtimes improved.

Thanks. I’ve been too rigid on trying to make sure she eats a decent amount in a time that is a bit short.

tonight was so much better, and I’ll just keep going on like I did tonight, in that she ate what she wanted. She ate enough food, but did talk nom stop too. But tonight we can be more relaxed as she has no school tomorrow so I am not bothered if she goes to bed à bit later.

she skis twice or three times a week during school time, and obviously has school too, so it’s a tiring week. And no, she’s not at a special ski school or anything like that! We just live in the mountains in Switzerland so it’s part of the curriculum.

I'm not sure why this is in this board really, but I do encourage you to just relax and not make this become a thing. Kids are allowed to have preferences, and using punishments and timers to force feed them is just going to lead to loads more issues later.

If she normally is happy enough, and there are 2 meals out of a very short list of rotated options that she doesn't gobble down, that's not really an issue at all. You can either stop making those or give her an alternative on those days. My son doesn't like mushrooms. My husband (the only cook in the house) loves mushroom risotto. So on those nights my son can have crackers and cheese or tomato soup and toast or whatever. He's 9 now so can usually sort this out for himself but we would support him when he was younger.

I can't stand quinoa so I support your daughter in this one ;-)

And honestly she might just not need as much food as you think. Framing it as the toddler is 'an excellent eater' and the child is 'difficult' is problematic anyway - children should be encouraged to have a healthy diet and listen to their own bodies, not eat whatever someone else puts on their plate in fear of being punished. To be honest, yogurt and fruit wouldn't be the worst dinner on a busy night anyway so maybe just add some toast and call it a day if it's going wrong that evening.

Yes, thanks. Things have been so much better since I relaxed a bit, and I think you are right. She doesn’t need as much food as I thought she did perhaps. I have a big appetite and big portions so I’m a bit skewed by this maybe. My 6’4 husband also eats a lot. Just to clarify, that when we were spoon feeding her (decided not to anymore), I think it was a bit of a laziness thing because she would open her mouth for us to feed her. Anyway, not going to do it anymore, and things have been good since we both relaxed. My husband included.

i put it on this board because her reaction that one night scared me a lot.

im so glad to hear! My daughter has a lot of anxiety around food - she’s autistic AND a teenager AND a dancer so it’s a lot all the time. The more I’ve pulled back and let her figure it out, the better it’s been. I hope it’s the same for you!

Please don't try to police the speed at which your child eats. Children need to learn to listen to their own bodies and develop a sense of bodily autonomy.

The real issue here is you and your reaction/dysregulation. You "get annoyed" at how long she takes to eat, you need to stop this. You're the adult here, you need to be better in control of your reactions - getting annoyed at a child eating at child pace isn't normal or healthy. It's not surprising she acted so emotionally when you make meal times stressful and uncomfortable.