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

224 replies

Dumbledoresgirl · 08/05/2009 16:04

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.

OP posts:
seeker · 08/05/2009 21:37

Why is is so important that they eat more than they want? What is going to happen to them?

ChubbyMinge · 08/05/2009 21:42

not more than they want but banana first and then if hungry brownie after

or we'll just have kids eating mcdonalds and pizza's and nothing else.....wait, we do

FairLadyRantALot · 08/05/2009 21:48

hmmm...it's not so much about making them eat more than they want though, is it....op's dd was hungry, she just refused to eat the banana....and tbh, if that is the case, surely to say than, o.k. you can have the brownie instead is not really achieving anything positive....

ruddynorah · 08/05/2009 21:50

how would you know what would happen? you wouldn't try it. you wouldn't let your child decide.

the only thing i ever do in the way of coaxing is if dd asks for pudding i say we need to wait until everyone has had enough main. so she waits and invariably eats a bit more main. however, i also quite often give her her pudding anyway, and leave her main in front of her. so she has a bit of main, a bit of pud, back to the main, a bit more pud etc. in fact if she's elsewhere like in a restaurant she asks to keep each course on the table so she can go back to it.

no big deal. plus her puds are never anything major anyway, we're talking yoghurt, a jelly, maybe a small piece of cake. nothing to get het up about.

AnarchyAunt · 08/05/2009 21:51

I am also a bit lost at the way this has gone.

If DD(6) got in from school and said she was hungry I'd hand over anything uneaten from a packed lunch before handing out brownies.

Friend of mine once told me he had to take homemade bread sandwiches to school and hated them so much he used to bring them home and hide them behind the piano in the hall . Where his dad found about 2 years worth when the moved the piano...

FairLadyRantALot · 08/05/2009 21:53

rofl anarchy....did they never notice a slight stench of mouldy food or could they just not work out where it came from

stleger · 08/05/2009 21:54

My dd1 is 15 and a fussy eater, except for packed lunches where she has a wide variety of sandwich, salad, fruit, oaty things. And her snack of choice is a banana sandwich with salt and vinegar crisps on it. It would be easier if we all liked the same foods, but less intersting .

3littlefrogs · 08/05/2009 21:54

As I see it - and I am sorry to labour the point, I think it is perfectly fine to refuse cake/snack or whatever if dd refuses to eat banana, having not eaten it at lunch time. that is what I would do myself - I would insist that she waits till dinner.

What I think IS inappropriate is to escalate to a full blown screaming row over it. And to send dd to her room. I wouldn't expect to have to do that with a 9 year old. Which suggests to me that this is about control. Not food.

And I do feel sorry for Dumbledoresgirl and her dd because I find the whole thing very sad.

AnarchyAunt · 08/05/2009 21:56

IME homemade bread doesn't exactly go mouldy, just hard.

mrsblanc · 08/05/2009 22:00

dumbledore's girl accepts the screaming row was the wrong thing to do.
I accept it too, having done the same thing (often)

The point it it is SO frustrating to have fussy kids ( Not just toddlers ) who are still making a fuss over what they will and wont eat, claiming to be hungry between meals but throwing a strop when healthy snacks are offered.

Miamla · 08/05/2009 22:03

dumble I appreciate i'm coming to this late and i admit i've only read your posts and a few of the others but just wanted to add my 2p worth. Just because DD isn't fat doesn't mean she doesn't already have issues with food. I should probably namechange but sod it, I won't tell anyone if you don't I have huge issues with food and have done ever since i can remember. I'm probably technically underweight now but still use food as one of the few things that I can control when the shit hits the fan. so if i'm sad, i don't eat, its as simple as that. I'm not suggesting for a minute that your DD is a screwy as me but even if she's not fat, doesn't mean that she doesn't feel fat. Also, at 9 she's forging her place in life, especially hard with 3 brothers so perhaps food is one of the few areas that she feels she has any control over. I don't want to scare you, it may just be that she has a small appetite but alarm bells rang when i read that she eats more in the holidays. Could it be that there is something going on at school that's making her sad? even if its only a little thing it maybe enough
I truly hope i'm wrong but if i'm not, i hope the above helps just a little bit

mrsblanc · 08/05/2009 22:06

my eldest is 10 , a great boy and all the rest but STILL complains when he gets home from school, lunch half eaten , and I tell him the only thing available till teatime is fruit.

He Loves fruit.

He just loves white bread, sweets and crisps even more

FairLadyRantALot · 08/05/2009 22:12

we all loose it at times and well...we are only human surely...

anarchy, after 2 years even homemade bread must have gone mouldy, lol

pointydog · 08/05/2009 22:24

how many of you have recently finished off a lunch - which has been in a warm lunch bag all day - at 4pm?

My goodness. Good luck to you.

FairLadyRantALot · 08/05/2009 22:31

hm...but bananas are fine, aren't they...wouldn't want to eat a sandwich left in a lunchbox/bag that long, etc...but fruit shouldn't be a problem

pointydog · 08/05/2009 22:33

they really heat up in those plasticky lunch boxes. Suppose you could pop it in the fridge.

Oh I can't go on. It's a banana

jasper · 08/05/2009 22:38

pointy I always eat my lunchbox left overs at 5pm if teatime is a long way off!

pointydog · 08/05/2009 22:41

oh well, ok. The whole situation of arguing over not eating a banana is slightly ridivculous and the op and dd might both realise this tomorrow

FairLadyRantALot · 08/05/2009 22:42

lol pointy...get yer drift...suppose it alkl depends of ripeness of banana and bruising...bcause admittedly, I would not be able to stomach a oversweet ripe banana or bruised one, unless in a milkshake, lol

pointydog · 08/05/2009 22:49

adults can be fussy about food too, hey rant?

seeker · 08/05/2009 22:50

I repeat, why do we insist on trying to make children eat stuff they don't want to eat? And no, I'm not talking about them living on McDonalds - just on them not eating anything if they don't want what's on offer. So long as fruit, milk and plain brown bread is available they aren't going to waste away, and once it stops being a battleground things will change anyway.

seeker · 08/05/2009 22:52

I don't think it's fussy to have a few likes and dislikes. I don't like ripe bananas, or liver or mackerel. I don't think that makes me fussy!

FairLadyRantALot · 08/05/2009 22:53

but I tried it again and again...and decided again and again I don't like that flavour/texture...and that is all I personally expect..

h, if my kids want to go without, that is fine...but op objected, originally , against giving the treat which is kinda fine..

pointydog · 08/05/2009 22:54

if children aren't made to eat fruit and veg and all things healthy, they live off mcdonalds all day.

FairLadyRantALot · 08/05/2009 23:00

hm..but I also let them have a mac donalds at times....I just want them to at least try...they do not have to eat the whole thing and if they gag after one bite they can spit it out....that is fair enough...and you know what...my ys, who really had this forced non him, because of his eating habits, realised there were so many things he actually likes...he doesn't dwell on his dislikes...he stil dislikes a fair few things, and that is fine....

can only liken it to me really disliking celeray, the flavour of it, and then I went through a juicing craze, and I added a little bit more of disliked things each time and, well, voila I eat celery raw now....

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