Food Wars (Parents vs Children)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I have some simple rules for my kids.

  1. One bite is required unless you have a documented allergy. Failure to take at least a single bite will lead me to assume you are ill, and to act accordingly.
  2. This is what is for dinner/lunch/breakfast. If you desire something else, make a request for the next dinner/lunch/breakfast.
  3. Three full bites of each thing is required for any after dinner snack, except for dinner leftovers.
  4. Whether you like it or not, you will find something nice to say about it, and thank the person who made it.

Number one is an issue because sick kids don’t do neat things like go outside to play or get on the computer. Interestingly, it has led to sick children forcing themselves to eat in order to “prove” they’re not really ill, even when they are coughing/sneezing and running a fever. “I had a bite, Mommy, so can I go outside with <friend>?” That last one has gotten some really interesting results too: “These peppers are more red than the last time, Mommy! Thank you!”

22

And Irving Berlin wrote a song based on that cartoon.

I recall one time as a child being required to sit at the dinner table until I finished some vegetable. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the vegetable, I think it was something like string beans or something, but that they had gotten cold. and I didn’t want them. Eventually I managed to choke them down. My parents were very much the winners any time there was even a hint of a battle of wills.

Our house rules were: you had to eat whatever you put yourself on your plate*; and what was on the table was all that was available to eat, and if you didn’t eat it, you were welcome to go hungry. Neither my sister and I were ever picky eaters, I would generally vacuum up anything that was available. The only thing I didn’t like was bananas, and when we had fruit salad I was forbidden from picking out the non-banana parts from the serving bowl, so I choked those down as well.

*Occasionally, in parental violation of this rule, which did not go un-remarked-upon, my mother would occasionally add some more of something to our plates if she thought we had not taken a full serving, or if she wanted to not have leftovers. Wasting food was the worst sin, so if we didn’t eat something it got saved for someone’s lunch or another meal.
Roddy

23

My parents divorced when I was around 5 and my father remarried soon after.

When I went to live with them I was food shocked (among other things) for sure. I was used to eating Korean food and my new mother only made bland Midwestern food. I spent many evenings sitting in front of plates of food that I found confusing and gross. Even when we moved to Hawaii a few years later she refused to purchase any of the foods there that I would be more used to.

Yes, I am bitter.

24

My 8yo Number One Nephew has utterly seized control of his eating from his parents, and is now down to about a half-dozen acceptable foods – pasta, bread (if not-too-unusual), mac & cheese (Kraft only), chicken fingers or chicken nuggets (no other forms of chicken), cheese or pepparoni pizza, McDonalds or Panera, and sweets (no chocolate). I think there’s maybe a vegetable he’ll give a token nibble, too.

He has arrived here because every time when he was growing up, if he pitched a fit, he got his way – excused from eating [whatever], or whichever grandmother would hurry to make some substitute. No one wanted to fight the battle of wills, and so they’ve trained him on how to get his way.

Then, he taught his brother, Number Two Nephew, the same. He’s amenable to being praised, though, and so that damage may be reversable – since his little sister, Only Niece, will eat anything and gets attention for it.

#1 won’t try anything outside his comfort zone… and it’s already affecting his social life. He pitches fits at friends’ parties, and there’s just no way he’ll make it though eating over at someone’s house. I’m sympathetic – I hated lots of food growing up, was forced to eat it, and turned out to be mildly (now moreso) allergic to most of that. #1 is allergic to almost all the same stuff as I, so forcing him to choke down stuff isn’t a solution. But the poor kid is going to make himself miserable with this.

Since I’m just the uncle, I can keep out of the drama, although I can occasionally amuse him into trying something new. But, oy!, what a mess.

25

What on earth are you food nazis worried about? I haven’t seen any recent reports of children starving to death because they didn’t like the food. But if you want your kid to hate you, this is a good start. To guarantee it, don’t let them wear the clothes they like, or choose their own friends, or decide their own tastes in music, or anything else.

How inadequate do you have to be to force a child to do something to satisfy your own irrational needs?

26

Lightray,

I have a friend with a nephew who only eats half a dozen things which meet the Pollan definition of food - and junk food. And its a HUGE problem. He’s a long way from starving himself because Mom is a pushover. The kid is 12 years old and morbidly obese, plus a type ii diabetic - although his mother says he doesn’t “eat anything” - his aunt (my friend) says he has the contents of a 7-11 hidden under his bed in Hostess Twinkies and Doritos. He’s anemic and ill. He has vitamin deficiencies. He has bad teeth. His mother is a complete pushover and blames ‘genetics.’ When convinced to stop bringing junkfood into the house, the kid started stealing it.

Plus, the little brat is intolerable. OK, he’s actually gotten better, he used to be intolerable, now he is barely tolerable to adults willing to be civil for the sake of the relationship.

27

Dangerosa, how will forcing this kid to eat brussel sprouts alleviate this problem?

28

As a young kid I bit into a gristly piece of minute steak. I wanted to spit it out but my parents said I had to swallow it. They thought I was being a picky eater.

I couldn’t swallow it and wasn’t allowed to spit it out. The folks sent me to stand in the hall, away from the table. I’m not sure what happened but it must have finally disintegrated. I hate minute steak to this day.

29

Fortunately, Number One Nephew isn’t a brat. Just stubborn. He’s healthy, not overweight, (kinda small, actually). Just picky. So the problem isn’t how it’s affecting his health, it’s how it’s already affecting his social life.

I’m envisioning him being the kid with the long list of requirements and demands that have to be communicated to the other parents every time he stays overnight at a friend’s. (“He’s allergic to nuts. And he’ll only eat McDonald’s chicken nuggets or Kraft mac & cheese…”)

Yeah, you’re pretty much projecting what you want to see into this thread. Everyone here has said that they don’t force their kids to eat stuff that they don’t want to eat. The only food nazi for you to strut your superiority to here is June Cleaver.

30

I don’t bother. I try to give my kids healthy options to choose from. But I can’t force them to eat what I serve. I do try to enforce a “no-thank-you” bite, but that doesn’t always work. If they don’t want what I have to offer, we always have string cheese, fruit, pb&j and other stuff.

31

Who are the “food nazis” you’re addressing?

32

I don’t think this is really a valid concern. My youngest brother is super-picky, although he’s growing out of it somewhat now that he’s in his teens. He was your classic “I will only eat one of five preselected items, two of which are McDonald’s cheeseburgers and frozen pizza” kid. But if he is visiting somewhere else where food is served and he doesn’t like any of it, he just quietly doesn’t eat. There are no requirements or demands or whatever.

I mean, I found his pickiness annoying just on general annoyance levels (because, y’know, he’s my brother) but it doesn’t seem to have impacted his social life in the slightest.

33

I had something of a fight with my 2-year-old daughter today. I asked her what she wanted for lunch. “Noodles! And broccoli!” she said. I agreed (why not?) but figured I’d dress it up a little.

“Hey, what if I made some cheese sauce?” I suggested, thinking I’d been wanting to practice bechamel sauce.

“Noooo! Cheese sauce is too spicy! I don’t want cheese sauce!”

Whatever. I got home and started cooking. “Daddy, what are you making?” she asked.

“Cheese sauce. Wanna see?”

“But I don’t like cheese sauce! I! DON’T! LIKE! CHEESE! SAUCE!”

“Honey, do you want to know why I think you like cheese sauce?”

“NOOOOO!” She fell on the floor, sobbing.

I waited a few moments, stirring the roux.

“Who likes macaroni and cheese?”

“Meee!” she said, sitting up and raising her hand.

“Do you know what’s in macaroni and cheese?”

“What?”

“Cheese sauce.”

She stared at me for a good ten seconds, then said, “Can I have some?”

The cheese sauce was a hit.

And that’s how the battles tend to go. At two, the girl is a very opinionated eater, but her opinions often have no factual basis at all (i.e., she’ll declare that she hates something without knowing what it is). I don’t ever force her to eat anything, but often I’ll pressure her into trying it, because I know that once she does, she’ll probably love it.

34

I am mostly referring to parents of posters. But…

If you didn’t have the 3 bite rule, they’d taste it on the first try. I don’t need 3 bites to know if I don’t like something.

Why can’t they have anything else to eat until the next meal? Would you abide by that rule if your kids decided what to eat?

Why the battle? If she doesn’t want to eat green beans or chicken, what difference does it make.

This one is really weird. Most kids don’t eat because they don’t like the food, or don’t feel like it. Illness usually exhibits clear symptoms besides a lack of appetite.

35

LHOD, for me that would have gone like:

Me: “I’m making cheese sauce.”

Kid: “I DON’T WANT CHEESE SAUCE!!!”

Me: “Fine, don’t eat it then.”

Me: [sits down next to kid, eats same food he is eating, except mine has cheese sauce]

Kid: [gives me hairy eyeball]

Me: [presents forkful] Want some of mine?

Kid: OK.

I mean, not that my way is better. Just two roads with the same destination. :slight_smile:

36

That’s kinda what I’m holding out for. He’ll probably grow out of it, provided it is not made into some giant drama thing. (his parents won’t; the grandmothers, though…)

37

The Nephews will eat anything so long as:

  1. It’s smaller than their appetites,
  2. it’s not moving by itself,
  3. they’re not getting sick.

It took us a while to get their parents to understand that “a portion twice as big as what their mother is getting is way too much for toddlers”, we’re still working on getting them to understand “you know, pretty much any time you complain that ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with the kid today, just won’t eat’, next day the kid has a fever”.

Food wars I’ve heard of or taken part in as a child often involved parents insisting that kids eat things to which the kids were allergic or had a bad reaction such as throwing up - I think it’s important to understand that “you should eat all kinds of food” does not equal “you must eat anything anybody has ever thought of cooking”. My take is “that’s what your mother left, if you don’t eat it, next meal is [this far].” If the kid still isn’t interested, well, next meal is at its appointed time (i.e., skipping half your lunch doesn’t mean you get to eat a snack between regular meals) and it’s what it would normally be (I once didn’t eat for a day and a half because what was to eat was liver - it made me throw up and The Doctor had said I did not have to eat it damnit, but the person who was taking care of me for that weekend said that was it, period).

38

Ah, well, yeah. My mom was a food nazi who made me eat stuff I didn’t like that it turned out I was actually allergic to, thus advancing the severity of the reaction.

But then, she thought June Cleaver was the model of a good mom.

39

<raises hand>

I am a food nazi. Our children must eat (a small portion) of whatever is served. They don’t eat it (in a reasonable period of time) they keep getting it until they do.

But, why, why? you say. You are scarring your children for life. That’s cruel, yadda, yadda.

I have two children and one would eat your socks if you cooked it for her. The other, is a bit of a challenge and it’s not just with food. Anything ‘different’ will be rejected. Could be brushing your teeth before getting dressed in the morning. Could be walking a new way to school. New things just challenge the kid.

So, as parents of a kid who is scared to try anything new, we can either constantly worry about doing everything in the exact same way, same order or we can try to mix it up.

You don’t have to like it but by the time he is out of grade school, we hope he will like a wide range of foods and activities. We are well on the way.

(For the record, I also choke down food I don’t like for their benefit. We teach that it is appropriate to explain what you don’t like and why and that we will make meals for the benefit of as many people as possible. This means I have to eat chicken nuggets and PB&J and they have to eat fish sometimes.)

40

Well, you know your own kids. I was just thinking the other day, though, about how I am generally an adventurous eater these days, after a moderately picky childhood. There are very, very few foods that just absolutely turn my stomach. And of those foods, most of them are ones that I was forced to eat as a child against my will. Nothing will put you off a food quite as much as being forced to choke it down that way.

Now, the good news is that my mother was a terrible cook and tended towards instant prepackaged foods, so the foods I was put off in this way are things like shell macaroni and cheese-filled hot dogs. No great loss there. But it certainly didn’t help me become a more adventurous eater.

Edit: To be clear, that’s cheese-filled hot dogs (item 1) and shell macaroni (item 2). I realized the way I put it made it sound like there was a hot dog stuffed with macaroni and cheese. Which also sounds gross, FTR.