Argument over food with my 9 yo dd - please help me calm down.

[Dumbledoresgirl]

DD was a fussy eater as a little child and is still quite fussy now. Aside from the pickiness, lately, she has not been eating her packed lunch, or correction, not eating all of it. Since Christmas, I have made all my own bread and the slices are quite large. Dd kept coming home with her 2 slices of bread hardly touched so I started giving her the smaller ends of the bread. Then she complained that the crusts were too chewy (although she liked that before) so now she only has one large slice of bread.

Even so, lunch comes home uneaten. Sometimes it is the bread, (too much, or yucky filling although she only ever has the filling she chooses) sometimes it is the fruit. Today, for the second time this week, she did not eat all her lunch. Before you say I am giving her too much, she took one slice of bread with Bovril on, one yoghurt and one banana. The banana came back uneaten.

I admit I saw red and told her to sit down and eat the banana (she was asking for a snack so I know she was hungry). She refused. Cue huge row. Me ranting, her screaming and crying. I sent her to her room. I am absolutely seething because I feel she should be able to eat 3 small items at lunchtime, and we really shouldn't be having rows about food now she is 9. It is not as if I give her to things in her lunchbox she does not like.

She wears me down. I also have 3 sons. The oldest and youngest have never been such fussy eaters, and the middle one (who, in his day was the fussiest of all of them) is now thankfully willing to try foods he does not like. Why does dd have to be so difficult? What can I do to a) calm down and b) solve this problem.

PS I made chocolate brownies for them all this pm as I like making a treat they all enjoy for Friday afternoons/ teatime. But this row with dd has taken all the joy out of this treat as I now don't want her to have any of it.

I don't get wound up over food TBH. I'd have told her if she was hungry, to eat the banana. I wouldn't have got into any shouting about it at all. Some children just have small appetites - imagine if you were forced to eat something just because someone else thought you hadn't eaten enough, even if you didn't want any more?

Is there anything else going on, such as what happens during lunch time at school?

Does she help to make the lunch?

Does she choose or suggest what she might like in the lunch box?

I would reduce the quantity by 50%, get her to agree the choices, and try not to get into a row. Perhaps this is more about control than food?

why the fuck are you forcing her to eat a banana? so what if she doesn't eat it? i don't get it. no wonder she is so freaky about food if you treat her like this.

does she want normal white squishy bread like her friends probably have rather than the doorstops you're giving her?

TBH, there is so little that is worth having a huge row about. Things that spring to mind are:

Using/selling hard drugs

Stealing

Mugging old ladies.

Turning other stuff into huge battles just makes everyone miserable. IMO.

Sorry ruddynorah but it does matter to me what she eats. I don't want her growing up only able to eat Mars bars and baked beans. In case you do not know me, I am not a liberal parent. I know best, not my 9 yo old child.

I don't think there is anything else going on at school, except that dd probably spends too much time chatting and not enough time eating so when her friends have finished eating, she wants to go and play with them. Oh and she hates fruit. Well, so do I, but I still eat it because it is good for me and she needs to know that too.

She makes her own lunch btw, although I do insist that they all put some fruit in to eat (see above).

I do appreciate she has a small appetite, hence only a small lunch being given to her each day. But she came home from school today and asked for a snack (ie a biscuit or one of the brownies I had made) and when I checked her lunchbox to make sure it was all gone, there was the banana. So I know she was hungry and the refusal to eat the banana (I did not make her eat it - I told her to, she refused, I sent her to her room, no force involved) is because she would rather eat something else.

I would second everything 3littlefrogs has said - plus she may want the squishy bread too!
I'm sure most of us have had times when we have lost control and shouted and said things we have regretted. Apolgise to dd for shouting but then talk/agree calmly about what she will/won't eat.

ah well you know best then

god help you when she actually rebels about something of significance.

Oh and a) she told me my bread was nicer than the old shop bread we used to have and b) she can want the shop bread all she likes, but she won't be having it as I haven't got the money to spend on it and do not believe in buying separate things for individual family members. That would be like making separate meals for them. I have never done that. Are you really suggesting that?

Push her too hard and she'll click on to put her lunch in the bin and pretend she's eaten it all.

Maybe have a quiet chat with her and agree what fruit she likes/dislikes/tolerates? It may be that her classmates don't eat fruit at lunchtime - so she feels she shouldn't have to??

I usually don't fuss over what ds does/doesn't eat at school - but if he wants something unhealthy - he knows he has to compensate with something healthy first.

So although he eats tons of shite all day - he eats tons of healthy too.

Maybe the banana was all warm and mushy after being in the bag all day??

No god help her ruddynorah. Of course I know better than a 9 year old! God help your child if you don't!

I've never met a 9 year old who will eat bread with bovril on it, IMO, it's really salty.

I do think you are being harsh on her, if she's no hungry then you shouldn't be nagging her, food shouldn't be a big issue. Home made bread can be tough, the tougher it is the harder it is to eat. There are bigger things to worry about then her not eating a banana to be honest. She's probably not trying to be difficult, she's a child. Food should never be a weapon, forcing her to eat something she doesn't want turns it into one.

Ditch the bovril!

Maybe offer her a range of healthy food for her to choose from - so she doesn't have to have 'that banana'! It might have become a battle of wills over a silly banana. But if you offer her something else, equally healthy might be enough for you both to 'win'???

no people are just offering you some idea of how she may be feeling and give you a sense of perspective.

she probably told you she likes your bread better than the shop bread because she was scared of saying anything else.

Yes Tracy it was all warm and mushy. It would be after a day in a lunchbox. The other day, ds2 came home complaining his banana was all warm and mushy and I showed him how we used to eat them as kids - mushed up with cream on. He ate it readily then.

But dd always has to scream and make a scene and refuse. I know she pushes my buttons and I push hers.

Anyway, I obviously am not amongst like-minded people here. Thanks for replying. It has not helped me calm down, but I suppose I have long known that I parent differently to others.

I'm kind of with Dumbledoresgirl here, a child who has left half her lunch shouldn't (imho) come home to fill themselves up on cake.

Also, I really do understand how constant fussiness / food refusal gets you to the point where you do lose the plot over something which, in the grand scheme of things, isn't a matter of national importance. (In fact, I sent dd to her bed on Saturday evening for a very similar reason).

However, it is true that by the time you get to a shouting match about it, the battle is lost.

And I'm not sure that, even if I had come home hungry, I'd really want to eat a banana that had been knocking about in my lunchbox all day.

I wonder whether you could do what cuppatea suggests and try having a very calm discussion, possibly appealing to her vanity: talking about the importance of different foods for good hair / skin, energy for dancing (or whatever is her favourite activity), brain function to do well at school etc., and get her to identify foods she can eat that meet each requirement.

(There's every chance you've done this already, I don't mean to patronise you, I'm trying to empathise because she sounds just like an older version of my dd).

LOL at her being scared of saying anything else! What do you think I am? Of course she wouldn't say something like that if she did not mean it.

You know, loads of people here on MN make their own bread. Some because it is cheaper, some because it is free of additives, some for whatever other reason they have. But I am sure none of us do it because we want to torture our children by making them eat it. LOL.

like minded? in what crazy sense? that we don't send our kids to their rooms if they don't want bovril and a banana? frig a jig.

sorry, x-posts about the squashy banana!

Well, DG, I'm with you on this one. My ds2 also used to play the trick of coming home ravenously hungry and asking for food only for me to discover he hadn't eaten most of his lunch.

He also was a chatterbox so never had time to eat. I didn't shout at him, though - I told him he could either eat the fruit or stay hungry until dinner time - his choice, but no other food would be available.

You sound more like a dictator than a parent to be honest. I feel sorry for you both when she is a teenager.

It sounds like you and your dd are very similar personalities. I don't mean that rudely or unkindly, but I think you need to find better strategies than screaming rows, or you are going to have a horrendous time over the next 5 years.

I think many suggestions on here are reasonable.

But, of course, it is entirely up to you what you do.

It's not about making your own bread. The combination of food is sickly, I'm not surprised she didn't eat it. Bovril (salty) followed by a yogurt, then a banana to top it off. I'm not surprised she didn't eat it all to be honest with you.

There really are bigger things to argue about then an uneaten banana.

If it was me, I think I'd tell her that on days when she eats all her lunch she can have a biscuit or similar when she gets home and on days when she doesn't, she can have fruit (not necessarily the same piece of fruit as was in the lunchbox, I must say I wouldn't fancy a mushy banana) and that is the non-negotiable rule, same for all your children. But if she really thinks sandwich, yoghurt and fruit is too much could you give her a smaller portion of fruit or no yoghurt and save the yoghurt for the snack when she gets home? Or can you ask her what she would need to have in her lunchbox for her to be sure of eating it all in a non-confrontational way? I know this is easier said than done.

Having said all that, there is no way I could have eaten all three of those things in one go when I was that age - I've always had a tiny appetite and prefer to graze rather than eat big meals. Is it possible for her to have the piece of fruit as a breaktime snack instead?

Steve Biddulph wrote a fantastic book called the Secrets to Happy Children. I do recommend this to you.