Is it me or is it highly irritating when playdates...

[emkana]

...are difficult about food.

dd2 had friend here for lunch. I had put a sandwich and some cucumber on her plate.

"I don't like cucumber."
says friend.

"Okay" says I "what about cherry tomatoes?"
"I don't like cherry tomatoes."

"What about apple?"
"I don't like apple."

"What do you like then, what can I get you?"
Silence....

I had some vegetable soup and she asked if she could have some. Yes of course I said, put some in bowl for her. She poked around it. "What's the yellow stuff?" "Sweetcorn." "What's those lumps?" "Potato." She put some in her mouth then spat it out again... and declared she didn't want it.

Grrr.

Im not bothered about it as such...

guest have the same rules as my charges

eat what i put in front of them or starve. i wont give in a give them processed crap mainly becuase we dont have it in the house in the 1st place, but even if we did i wouldnt bend over backwards to offer them anything else. (my charges wouldnt get anything else so would be unfair on them if the guests did!)

hungry children eat... if they wont eat then they arnt that hungry

this is about more than processed crap though isn't it, its a certain type of smugness where we all can look down on those terrible kids with terrible parents who won't eat my food.I was a fussy child I had real texture problems, consequently I dreaded being invited for tea at other kids houses, I would hate another child to feel like that in my house.

eat or don't

do not be rude if you don't like something you may say but then just leave it on your plate and eat the rest

you must try everything

thank you quadrophenia - you said what I was thinking> I mean it is meant to be a playdate not a dinner party!

Well said NannyL.

I find picnic teas to be the answer to this problem!

Mini ham sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, jam sandwiches, carrot sticks, humous, cucumber sticks, cheddar cubes, cherry toms, bowl of wotsits- bung it all on plates in centre of the table and let them choose what they want!

Pudding is usually a large platter of chopped up fruit with a bowl of yoghurt to help themselves from.

Then a fairy cake once all that has been polished off!

after thread title i wanted to put ....turn up

get what they are given in this house - no effin about hard hsit if they are hungry later.

becuase it shows my kids the power it has over an adult - and i can't have that

DD has a friend coming on Friday after school. I asked her to check with the friend what she would like to eat (along the lines of pasta with tuna or tom. based sauce or cheese sauce type things). DD came home today and said that X would just like plain pasta, she doesn't like any sauce/veg/fish etc .

This is the latest in a series of after school fussy eating playdates -it makes me realise how good my two are with regards to food TBH.

One of dd's friends always gets fish fingers because I know they'll be eaten.
Another one though will try all sorts. I remember the first time she came I said "X, do you like chicken?" "Ooh yes!" (no what sort or yes I like chicken nuggets, just yes!) So then I said "do you like pesto?" and she made a kind of groaning noise (bang goes my new recipe I thought!), and said "oooh I LURVE pesto"
She can come round anytime!

I have a friend whose dd won't have any food touching eachother on the plate, yes its a pain, yes my kids are great am I going to make her food touch, no.

btw soapbox i often do picnic style teas to, it is easier that way.

Jeez,who has the time or energy to pander to the little sods?
If they don't eat,who cares?
Not me that's for sure.

I don't pander to kids, really i don't but I do my best to find out what they like and accomodate them before they come. I wouldn't start fannying around once they have arrived and then decide they don't want it.

Where we last lived dd1 had a good friend, a lovely girl, who lived on processed rubbish and sweets. (You may remember a thread I had where she came for a sleepover at our new house and brought a carrier bag full of sweets with her). She didn't like anything we ate - at all - except pasta with grated cheese and ketchup. So that's all we had when she came for tea, for about a year! I agree, playdates should be about fun, not pressure to eat. However, after about a year she said, "why do we always have pasta and cheese for tea?" So I explained (tactfully!) and she suggested we might try something different next time (!!). By the time we moved house she was happy to eat our home-made pizzas and our bread (home-made malthouse blend, when she has only ever eaten white-sliced). Whilst I don't consider it my job to re-educate her pallette, it was really nice to see her try some different things.

I always check with a parent that they like sausages or pizza or whatever

but IME parents always say oh yes when you say does little johnny like sheperds pie. Then poor johnny looks gutted when its on his plate

I don't like my food touching on a plate. but have never refused food if it does touch tho.

dinner is dinner
whats on offer
its not a cafe imo

Oh I do try and do something else even if its just a sandwich

they are guests after all

Making Spag Bol with Creamed or sieved Tomatoes (as come in cartons rather than cans) has always worked here as no lumpy tomatoes to pick out!

DS had one friend who ONLY ate sausages. We persuade him to try spag bol once, having promised sausages were ready to grill. He LOVED it & his mum was wel impressed. Next month we got him onto Chicken Korma. His mum decided he would only try new food at our house

quadrophenia - my ds1 won't eat food that is touching on his plate either - and he eats all of one food type before moving on to the next. I believe that this is not that uncommon

ds2 is normal though - thankfully

I always ask the parents if there are any likes or dislikes. I then cook one meal and one meal only. They eat or they don't. I always make sure the parents know how much they ate, so they can decide it they need something extra for supper or whatever at home. I do find that often on playdates children don't eat as much as normal anyway - presumably as too buy wanting to get back to play.

A firm favourite at the moment for DD and her friends is homemade breaded chicken strips, homemade wedges and baked beans.

hula - my ds1 would eat that - provided that the beans didn't touch the other food ( I put the beans in a ramekin on the plate)

Oh dear, I am going to appear very unfashionable then. If I have a guest (child or adult) and they don't like what I have provided them to eat, I will generally offer them pretty much anything I have in the house. Feeding people is sort of important to me I suppose. I would hate to see a guest go hungry because they disliked what I had cooked. I don't extend the same courtesy at every meal to my own children, because generally I know what they like/don't like (although if I make something new, and one of them really turns out not to like it, I won't do it again without offering them the option of something else).

So I'm a mug!

I agree with you Greensleeves