They have to eat something

[grey12]

Am I the only one that doesn't do this?....

I have been watching the new season of the BBC's eat well for less show and in every single episode there is a parent making a separate junk meal for their child because "they have to eat something". DH says the same thing, but he's not around all the time.

Let's be clear here: my kids are healthy, they have a healthy weight/body composition/look (neither looks too skinny or too big), great energy/physical activity.....

If they ate breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, fruit, wtv and are complaining about dinner then it's their choice if they want to go to bed hungry!!! (they are not starved, they are just peckish if that)

It has happened once that I took them to bed and they said they were hungry and wanted to eat their dinner. And they did! And had a celebratory treat afterwards. Yay! Win! Most days, they either just go to bed and don't complain or do accept eating a few spoonfuls of the food. Usually helped by some bribery with treats afterwards.

Am I wrong?..... is this a UK thing? (I was born and raised elsewhere)

I think we all try our best to feed our DC and generally speaking they grow to adulthood healthily on any of the different modes.Some DC are more conservative in their tastes than others.
My management of this fwiw was for everyone to eat the same when possible with parents getting home time being the factor that stopped this every day.
If a DC had a real aversion to a specific food, not a food group, I would work around 2-3 of these.
If a DC said they didn't like something eg one of mine would always say this about fish and potatoes, I would still give the said foods in small quantity but make sure there were plenty of vegetables or some bread to fill up on.
They all gradually started to eat everything. Like anyone they have the occasional preference but they can manage that themselves as adults.
We never had 'kids' food' as such.

My dd has sensory needs and she would actually choose to not eat over having to eat something she doesn't like. Luckily her chosen foods are healthy but I don't know what I would have done if she'd only eat crisps and plain pasta.

Let's be clear here: my kids are healthy, they have a healthy weight/body composition/look (neither looks too skinny or too big), great energy/physical activity.....

I think that’s your answer OP. When you have a child with ASD and huge anxiety around food who is underweight, then getting them to eat anything feels like an achievement! I don’t get why this is so hard for some people to understand, unless they’re like the fellow school mum who once told me “we don’t have autism in my country” 🤦🏻‍♀️

I don't think there's anything wrong with missing the occasional meal. I am sure many of us (certainly I do) eat because we fancy something 'nice' rather than because we hungry. I am genuinely irritated by the frequent threads on here commenting on children being 'starving' .... . I think that's a huge exaggeration.

But, having said that, my DC was never a fussy eater, we always ate the same meal ... maybe if he had a lot of likes and dislikes it would be different .

@TealGuitar i love your stories about your mum and the cornish pasties and the friend coming round to tea. What a lovely mum!
My mum was the same - I was fussy about eating meat and she would just put a piece of cheese on my plate instead of the meat if I wanted. It brings tears to my eyes to think of how kind and loving she was, because at the time the standard was, as you say, that children had to clear their plates.
At the same time our food was extremely healthy... I remember having watercress sandwiches and dried apricots and nuts in my lunchbox (and liking it) - and this was in the eighties! I eat a very wide variety of things now.

I don’t think food should be used as bribery or as punishment. If somebody else cooked your meals every evening I’m pretty certain sometimes you’d get something you didn’t like - if they forced you to eat some or you go to bed hungry how would you like it?

whilst I don’t think you should cook several different meals every day I don’t see the problem in cooking stuff you know the kids will enjoy? If you know they hate a certain meal, why cook it and force them to eat a few spoonfuls, just so you can claim ‘yay! I win!” 😵‍💫