Am I a restaurant?

[moominsr]

Help!! Every mealtime is becoming a battle with my six year old daughter. She wants to dictate what we we have for every meal and she's almost never happy if I choose. We created a meal planner which listed what we would eat every day. At the time she ensured me that she liked all the food on the planner. But inevitably a) I don't have all the food in for the correct day b) she changes her mind and decides that she doesn't like what is on the planner. There seems to be a battle going on. The meal time arguments are a metaphor for something bigger, more sinister. It's a battle for control. What shall I do???

I'd teach her what food is for. Explain (in v basic terms) that you need carbs at every meal to give you energy to play and run around, protein to make you clever and grow your muscles and fruit and veg to keep you strong and healthy so if you get ill you can get better (or similar.)

then have a week of very simple picnic dinners. Just put a couple of choices from each food group on the table and get her to choose. If she wants plain rice with a lump of cheese and a pear, fine. She's eating healthily enough for now. the main issue is to ditch the battles.

Bit by bit, once the battle is gone, get her enthusiastic about cooking with you.

But keep explaining the point of what you eat. That way, when she gets older, you can just say: you don't have to love it, you just have to eat it because it's good for you and I'll make your favourite soon. I'd never make a child eat food they hated, any more than I'd eat stuff I loathed, but teaching them to put up with food that isn't in their top three choices of dinner is good manners.

I think this is pretty normal behaviour but you sound very anxious.
Lose the battle, make sure to start with you have planned properly and you do have all the food in according to the planner and then stick to your side of the bargain. If she changes her mind she goes hungry....the fussier my kids got the more I pulled back on snacks and sugary foods. Make sure she is not filling up on other food, making dinner refusal easier. I love to hear my kids are hungry and I tell them how good that is because they will really enjoy their dinner. Good luck.

Don't let food be a battle for control.

Make sure you have the ingredients to cook what you planned. Then cook it. She either eats it, or she doesn't.

Remember, she will be getting lots of nutrition from breakfast and lunch, as well as dinner, so in the scheme of things, missing or not eating much dinner isn't so important.

Make sure you have lots of healthy snacks about. For example, if I have a box of cherries in the fridge, they will sit there, uneaten. If I decant them to a bowl, and put it out after school, they will all disapppear before dinner time.