Maybe cats in China could be of aid to the starving children there.
I was never shamed, either. We had a 3 bites rule, then we could go heat up pizza bagels for ourselves or something. And we each got an exception–on spaghetti nights, my mom would fix me a different entree and on fish nights, my brother got something different. Because we each hated those things that much. We can tolerate them to be polite now, so it didn’t so any damage.
Although my mom used those expressions on us, it was more to get us to finish our plates. She rarely cooked “challenging” foods. The rule was that we had to finish our plates, though. Which many years later has been proven (by Weight Watchers and myself experientially) to be the source of bad eating habits that lead to a lifetime of being overweight.
She once tried to get my brother to finish his plate full of Cheeseburger flavored Hamburger Helper - something he liked but he had served himself too much. He stuffed it down as he cried, and then puked it all up again. She never did that again.
We also had the rule that we ate what she served us and she was NOT going to make special food for any picky eaters. As an adult now I like that rule although it caused friction between me and ex hubby who was a super picky eater (nothing green).
If my kids had a problem with dessert, I wouldn’t use it, believe me :). The problem is completely in the opposite direction.
As for food-as-reward, I don’t really have an issue with that. We have a complex multilayered relationship with food in our house, in which both my wife and I love cooking and baking, and teach our kids to do it as well; the treat-after-nutrition neatly parallels a lot of other stuff in life, and I’m fine teaching my kids that sometimes the fun stuff comes after the less-fun stuff.
I really like this approach. I think other approaches like shaming or forcing to eat tend to cause bad eating behaviors or disorders that can last a lifetime.
I’ve also read that kids need several “encounters” with a new food in order to decide if they like it. The suggestion was to perhaps use your approach above for the first couple of meals, then for the next put the food on their plate but don’t say anything whether they eat it or not. Make no Major Issue if they refuse to eat it because sometimes it’s the conflict that makes them refuse to eat.
My parents never got upset about us not eating. They figured we’d get hungry sooner or later, and they’d intercept any attempt to go after snack food. We were also told that if we didn’t like what was on the table we could make an alternative for ourselves as long as it was “real food”. And, finally, we never had to eat food we didn’t like. TRY it, yes. “You aren’t allowed to say you don’t like it if you’ve never tried it”.
Got into a couple fights with babysitters who didn’t share this philosophy and would not let us leave the table until we ate what was put in front of us. Not the parents though.
I have pretty good eating habits as an adult, although probably a bit too much saturated fat and maybe too much food overall. Lots of variety, good balance between vegetables of different sorts and proteins, moderate amount of carbs.
Yeah, Biafra is what I heard as well. Were you a kid in the 60s? Never knew exactly where the hell Biafra was!
Tho my mom would say that, she never really followed through other than if I didn’t eat, I didn’t get dessert and could go hungry until the next meal. Which was usually cold cereal for breakfast, which I loved.
On occasion, my mom would make Cream of Wheat. But not everyone got up at the same time, so she would make one batch, which was warm and creamy for the early risers, and cold, lumpy, and skinned for me and the other late risers. Not sure how long she made me sit at the table that one morning, probably wasn’t that long, but damned if I was going to eat that!
My kids went through various phases. We didn’t fight them too much on it. But we didn’t make special orders either. The one that defeated us was when one of my kids decided she didn’t like Mac and Cheese. What kid doesn’t like Mac and Cheese?! So we threw in the towel, and said we were going to cook whatever WE wanted to eat, and anyone who didn’t like it could make themselves a PBJ.
Each of our kids had a “gag” food they insisted they could not stomach. For one it was brussell sprouts. For another, asparagus. We were fine with that, so long as they ate some other green veggies on some other occasions. We tried to keep an eye out that their diet was reasonably balanced over time, rather than each particular meal. And we gave them chewable vitamins to try to make up for deficits.
On edit - just looked up Biafra. Apparently only existed from 67-70, and it was nowhere near where I would have guessed. I would have thought Saharan/sub-Saharan, more like Chad.
I remember my grandmother trying “There are starving children in Africa!” on me twice. The first time I didn’t say much of anything, because I was trying to make sense of it. The second time I responded with “Well then send it to them! I’m not going to eat it!” Seriously. I don’t know what you want from me lady. Anyway, that was the last I heard of those kids. Hope they got the ramen noodles or whatever.
Yes, it was the 1960s. I never knew where Biafra was either–just that it was in Africa, and its children were starving. Nowadays, Wiki tells me that it tried to secede from Nigeria, but I didn’t know that at the time.
I hear you. My three-year-old has been an indifferent eater for a long time. We have given up on trying to insist that he eat, but if he does eat, it has to be at the table, and certain privileges are only available upon making a solid effort to eat.
In my house, it was mostly threats. I personally have always been happy to eat a few bites of anything without complaint. Even things I don’t particularly like are still good enough to eat a few bites of. My brothers had some pretty big fights with my parents over the particular things they didn’t like, and my brothers still won’t eat all kinds of things. So obviously it didn’t work.
The thing I don’t understand are parents today (maybe not *just *today, but my case study is a modern parent) who don’t force the kids to eat everything, but also seem to have no problem with a kid leaving the table because he’s “too full to eat another bite” but he grabs two cookies and a bag of chips on way back to his room. Tolerating that is just complete BS. He’s not full, he just wants cookies and chips instead of salad. If you’re not going to parent them based on the dietary issues, at least parent them based on an outright lie.
When I hear Biafra, I think of jello. So they apparently had dessert, anyway.
Does your three-year-old act like a tiny demon if he doesn’t eat? That’s the thing that a lot of folks are missing, I think, is that a kid who doesn’t eat can end up being impossible to live with, compared to the same sweet child with some food in their belly.
My mom learned the hard way that I could out-stubborn anyone. I don’t remember what it was, but after a bout of “You’ll sit there til you eat it” lasting til midnight, she tried other tricks.
poster china guy who lives or lived in china used to say that Chinese moms would tell their kids “theres starving kids in America” when hey wouldn’t eat … think the thread was "starving kids in china… what do Chinese moms tell their kids ? "
My parents tried that a few times, but it didn’t work. Our main dinner time fights were because I didn’t eat enough for them, though. I was small enough that people often mistook me for five or six when I was ten, which irked my mom, and I had a small appetite to match my height and frame. It just hit me today that they were probably worried that I was malnourished.
That actually describes his sleeping habits more than his eating habits, but I certainly know what you mean.
The children were starving in Europe in my childhood. Post-Marshall Plan, you know?
The last time my Mom tried that on me I was 17 or so. She knew I didn’t like peas and didn’t eat them. But she just had to try to guilt me into eating some, I don’t know why. So I left the table, got an envelope, wrote “To The Starving Children In Europe” on it, brought it back to the table, spooned my peas into it, sealed it, and slapped it on the table and told her “Here. Mail it to 'em.”
It was dicey for a few seconds, then Mom broke out laughing.
I don’t think “food as a reward” is ALWAYS bad. It’s bad when it’s used all the time. But once in a while, it is totally okay.
I also don’t think that allowing dessert as long as vegetables are eaten (or at least tasted) is really tantamount to rewarding a kid. To me, it’s making a deal with them–a minor one if we assume that dessert is a regular offering and we’re talking something small, like a cup of pudding. It would be a reward if the picky eater is given chocolate cake while everyone else is eating apple sauce.
I would have much preferred the “no dessert” tactic over “eat every single green thing on your place and you had better be happy about it!” one. For stuff like brocolli, I probably would have bitten the bullet if I knew the dessert was riding on getting it down. But I would have gladly sacrificed dessert for shit like canned asparagus, and I would not have shed a single tear over it. Kids gotta learn how to pick their battles at some point in their life.
Of course, this doesn’t apply to the kid who couldn’t care less about dessert.
Food battles were pretty bad when I was a child.
I still feel sad and angry.
I was very short and quite skinny, and I’ll wonder at times whether it all managed to stunt my growth a bit because I’m somewhat shortish compared to my relatives.