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.

3littlefrogs, that is interesting thank you. I know dd would like to have had a sister but these things cannot be engineered (well, not usually anyway). She actually gets on brilliantly with her brothers and is immensely popular with both boys and girls at school, and I am sure her popularity with boys comes from the fact she knows how to be with them. I am convinced that when she comes to having serious boyfriends, she will be at a great advantage over other girls! But of course she would like a sister. It doesn't help that I am not a girly woman either.

Pointydog, I did not give cake to the others and not to her. We all had it for pudding tonight. That said, I have to admit, I would not have any compunction denying any of them pudding if they had refused their dinner. I don't believe in treating children the same; I believe in treating them fairly.

does your dd like fruit juice? that could help to the 5 a day.

i'm with you on a lot of this,DG. dd is only 5 but vv fussy & gets incredibly so if stressed/unhappy about things.

forcing her is not an alswer, but like you, it's often the healthy option or nothing. not in the least cruel if there's dinner later.

for long term, how about some 'positive' food experiences? e.g. a girls trip somewhere & the two of you have a snack/meal. with summer coming, could be a home made picnic somewhere nice so doens't have to be expensive?

because dd's food issues get so much worse when she's stressed (we recently moved, and was down to eating 1 food that week!) i know that upsetting her about it is not the answer, although i have got very cross about it at times. she also does annoying humming if not happy. lovely - humming child glaring at food & refusing to stay in her seat!
your principles are good, try to keep a cool head & look at long term strategies. i think turning the brownies into desert is fine. if dd didn't eat her main course, but then wanted brownies, i'd make her eat 2 more mouthfulls, then relent. compromise can be an answer

ah, ok. We are in different camps when it comes to food.

You'll just have to accept that food will be a battleground. Maybe a bachs remedy would help if you just want to calm down rather than avoid.

Also meant to say, that a good breakfast, a snack at home time and a good dinner can make up for a tiny lunch. Would that defuse things a bit??

DG I think you[ve had a hard time on this thread!!!

esp all the bovril comments, i mean what's wrong with bovril??

aaaaanyway, I am a fairly liberal unconditional type parent, and I would still have told her to eat the banana if she was hungry.
so please don't listen to all the people saying you're dictatorial blah blah blah.
I might have offered a different fruit if the banana was particularly squashed or whatever, but hey, it'd have been fruit and nothing else.

putting on my more UP hat though, I would def sit down with her at a time when you're BOTH calm and have a talk about stuff she might like in her lunchbox. I realise she has the choice, and that's fine, but clearly it jsut isn't working. so maybe now's the time to come up with some alternatives? and the key is to encourage her to think of things she might like too, not just suggest stuff to her.

but maybe, as you make your own bread, she could give you a hand and you could make some little rolls or something, just for a change?

(going off on a slight tangent here) does the school let them go out to play as soon as they're finished or do they have to wait for everyone/a set time before they're allowed out?
if the former that's stupid, because they'll all want to eat as quick as possible surely?? might be worth finding out from the school how this si worked?

anyway, things that are quicker to eat might help? a yoghurt in a pouch rather than a pot? a little tub of fruit salad rather than an apple/banana?

do some schools keep kids in for a set time? bloody nora, nightmare

sorry just backing through thread which i had only skimmed and fruit salad a no go!

actually fwiw i think fruit is a bit overrated generally. the veg aspect of the 5 a day is much more important IMO.

but, would she drink a smoothie or something?

i dunno, ours did, but that was some years ago now!
we had however long for lunch break, if you finished really quick you just sat and chatted with your friends until they'd finished.

which, actually, i think is quite civil. and also avoids the problem of children not eating properly because they just want to get down and play

Nearly all teh schools I work have to operate a Sittings schedule for dinners. Dining halls are usually very busy and very noisy places, not civil sitting having a quiet chat places.

You see, it's funny, I don't see dd as having food issues. I see her as a fussy eater.

And I don't see that I am setting myself up for continual confrontations. Maybe I have not painted a full enough picture. Most of the time I avoid confrontation over food by giving my children what I know they will eat. I had years and years of very messy confrontations when my oldest 2 were little - long before dd was old enough to be a fussy eater - and the confrontations wore me out so I drew up a list of meals I knew everyone would eat and moreorless stuck to those for years. More recently, I have extended the list and now I am trying to extend it further.

None of that though is really what today was about. Today was one day in a long line of days in which one of my children (usually dd) did not eat the tiny lunch she chose to have. It was about her trying to eat something unhealthy instead. It was about me losing my rag. I am even prepared to say it was about me not having enough positive feelings about my dd to prevent the row occurring.

Anyway, it has been interesting seeing how others view this. I asked about the school lunchtime arrangements btw. Apparently everyone has to wait until 12:30 before they are allowed to leave the dining hall. So that means quick eaters don't leave the minute they have finished, but alternatively, they are not all waiting for every last child to be finished. That sounds reasonable imo, especially knowing how slow children can be to finish a meal!

I think this is a "pick your battles" situation. You're not going to make her grow up eating a wide range of foods if you lock horns with her now - she'll just dig her heels in and probably restrict herself even more.

My mother says "It's a parent's job to provide healthy appetizing meals. It is not a parent's job to make anyone eat them"

If a child is healthy, with plenty of energy then they are getting enough food from somewhere. A normal child won't starve themselves to death, and can thrive on what seems like a ridiculously small amount of food for a very long time. I suggest you back off completely. Never mention what she has or hasn't eaten. Offer her the same as everyone else (including brownies - a homemade Brownie isn't a bad thing for a child - they need more fat than a grown up) Make a pact with yourself not to mention food to her for a month, except to offer what's available. Not a word about what she has or hasn't eaten. I am willing to bet the situation will improve by itself if you can do it!

The yoghurt was in a pouch btw.

And no smoothies would probably not be a go-er (unless I struck on a happy mix and she did not know what was in it).

But, to prove I am not all negativity, the bread roll is a good idea. I made some last weekend and they were mainly all eaten at the weekend, but there were a couple left over by Tuesday and she chose it over sliced bread. I am going to make some more this weekend.

oh she totally doesn't need to klnow what's in the smoothie.
and you could add yoghurt to it as well and just say it's a milkshake.

sieving can help too, if she has any issues with texture? my brother was/is incredibly fussy and nearly everything he won't eat is because of how it feels in his mouth

Yes I hear you, but she is 9 now, not 4. She will guess, won't she?

I used to tell ds2 when he was little that pastry (ie on quiche) was biscuit and he would eat it. He also liked fishfingers so then breaded turkey escalopes became "turkey fishfingers" - just to get him to eat them! But that was when he was 3 or 4.

Any smoothie would definitely have to be sieved btw. She won't even eat yoghurt with "bits".

I do not understand this thread. Apart from the shouting which you wouldn't normally have done you said "no cake as you haven't eaten your lunch, have the banana you forgot to eat."

I see no problem with this

Would anyone really say to their kids they can eat what they like and not be arsed to parent them properly?

Yeah, don't shout at her, don't get into battles over food etc etc but still turn round and say calmly 'eat your banana and if you're still hungry you can have a brownie'

What about Humzingers instead of fruit?
www.humzingers.co.uk DS loves these as part of his lunch.

Boak at bovril on a sandwich, i have never heard of anyone doing that ever.

What on earth are humzingers? Are they like fruit winders? I am prepared to consider them as I used to buy winders sometimes (bowing to pressure from ds1) but what are they?!

Click on the link, they are 100% fruit bars, come in loads of flavours and are according to my lad yummy

5 a day doesn't have to be half fruit and half veg - if she prefers veg, that's fine. (Obv. this is not helpful if she won't each much veg either.)

loui the op's dd LIKES and chose a bovril sandwich.

mrsblanc, yup i am quite aware of that thanks, I have actually read the thread. I was just commenting that I had personally never heard of anyone putting it on a sambo before regardless of how much they like Bovril.

i actually would never say you can't have x because you didn't have y. a brownie is not unhealthy. by relaxing about such things you don't make food a battle and cause it to be such an issue of treat food, healthy food, undesirable food etc. it's all just food.

It's very frustrating when Kids don't eat their lunches....and DG, I can really empathise with you....
my ms especially seems to rather want to play than eat his lunch, and it does worry me....because it seems a long time to go with little food....

Also, people seem to be very uncomfortable with "making" Kids eat....and whilst the philosophy behind their thinking is lovely and could work...sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do...I got a right pasting when I admitted that I made my ys try everything on his plate...(try, not make him eat it, if he was gagging whatever, he was free to spit it out....)...but at the time he was not eating very varied diet(basically a staple diet of Toast/Bread, cooked but sauceless pasta and cucumber & carrots oh and cereal)...he would refuse to try anything else...so...he was made, not allowed to leave the table until he had, etc....it was horrible, it did feel wrong, but it worked...and whilst he isn't eating everything, his diet has become a lot more varied and he will try everything...anyhow....not really your issue...

I suppose I just wnated to demonstrate that sometimes you hvae to change tack...

Not sure what to suggest to you, DG....presumably there isn't the option that she has to come home for lunch...?

However, if she isn't leaving it everyday, just the odd days....maybe just sort of make note of what she has eaten/what she hasn't and see how it averages out?

but ruddy if I took that view my kids would never eat bananas , only brownies.

In a scale of healthiness a banana wins over a brownie.
And my children would ALWAYS choose the brownie.

who the fuck wouldn't choose the brownie

maybe we've finally found that mum who puts coke in babies bottles on this thread