I wonder what pancakes Jump is eating that can be prepared in only two steps.
While I do think you need to exert some pressure in the direction of healthy eating, I urge you to be gentle. Some kids will truly starve themselves to the point of malnutrition before eating something detested. Some kids, despite being on board with trying something in return for dessert or another reward, will gag and vomit. It is simplistic and brutal to say, “deny them food until they eat what you want them to.”
Not that it would necessarily be out of bounds for a kid to skip dinner and be hungry at night, as long as you’re serving them something they will eat for breakfast or something.
I recently got a book called Food Chaining, which has been interesting. The bulk of it is about the possible medical issues involved, and which experts to see, starting with the pediatrician, and including a (real, not crunchy woo woo) allergist, and occupational therapist. Issues can range from sensory integration disorder and swallowing problems* to oral aversion and food aversion (things like aggressive suctioning can cause babies to refuse the breast and have later feeding troubles, as mentioned above getting violently ill or choking can make a kid avoid certain foods, or only eat foods or in settings they consider “safe.”)
Anyway, if you’re pretty confident that there’s no medical problem, you can try some amateur food chaining. For instance, restaurant chicken fingers –> Tyson chicken fingers made in the oven –> homemade breaded, baked chicken fingers –> homemade breaded, baked chicken breasts –> more lightly breaded version –> baked/ sauteed (unbreaded) chicken breast.
Or another chain off of chicken fingers would go through tempura vegetables and eventually to steamed vegetables.
I’m currently trying to move my 6yo from pasta with butter and parmesan to tomato sauce, via a white sauce that starts as mostly butter and parmesan and hopefully will become pink sauce, then straight marinara.
Having a picky kid is tough. It requires a balance between stern behavior modification and loving empathy. It requires more work and attention to preparation.
I wish you luck!
*my friend’s son wasn’t eating much and was picky about what he ate. It turns out he has Chiari malformation, where the cerebellum bulges into the spinal canal. It causes swallowing difficulty.
Anything can be prepared in only two steps:
- Cook
- Serve
Of course, how many steps a recipe involves depends on how you define your steps 
open box from freezer, nuke/toaster
dump mix in bowl, add water, fry
OK that is 3 unless you assume makig mix [open box, dump ingredients in bowl, mix] is one step
Though to be honest, the only bad thing about pancakes per se is all the damned sugar/HFCS in the almost maple syrup. If you can get the sprog to consume them with a fresh/nonsugared frozen strawberry coulis instead of synthetic sugar flavored sort of maplish, sprog would actually be getting flour, egg, milk and fruit with a limited amount of parental unit added sugars.
How about trying the sprog on actual fruit as part of the meal? canteloupe is soft enough to gum, and tasty, and has fiber in it. Strawberry quarters, bits of seeded watermelon, mmmm mango =)
And if they do, they will be even more reluctant to try that food again in the future. If you got sick after eating a certain food, would you want to try eating that food again? Most people and animals wouldn’t. It’s an evolutionary trait for learning to avoid poisons that has been found in a lot of different animals, all the way down to microscopic nematodes.
Ooookay, now that you have established that you have no children, know no children, and don’t recall being one, I for one would like to thank you for sharing.
My own child refused to eat chicken nuggets or hot dogs because he regarded them as suspect. (Also hamburger) How do you know what’s in there, really? Could be anything. Rat. Fish. poop. spiders. Or so I was given to understand. Anything not on a bone was immediately rejected.
Pancakes he did like.
Parents do influence what their kids eat to the extent that picky eaters can only limit to things they have seen. But your characterization of the problem sort of misses the boat. Also, the marina.
Bless your heart.
My sister catered to her picky son. He’s now in college. He’s still picky. She still caters to him, as does my mother (the same mother who raised us with “take it or leave it” :rolleyes: )
For what it’s worth…
As a behavior therapist, I’ve run a lot of feeding programs, and they generally go like this, if you want to give it a try:
The meal consists of at least two highly preferred foods, and one non-preferred food. Hypothetically, you give the child a hot dog and fries (preferred) and carrot sticks (non-preferred).
Let the child have a few bites of his preferred foods, and then remove them.
Tell him he needs to take a bite of carrot before he can have more hot dog and fries.
Once he takes the bite, praise and immediately give back the preferred foods. Rinse and repeat.
You can start with a goal of one bite of carrot, and gradually work your way up to several carrot sticks over the course of several meals.
This method uses positive reinforcement (the preferred foods), avoids any sort of pressure to “clean the plate,” ensures that your child will have enough to eat, and does not allow him to escape non-preferred foods.
Troubleshooting hints: After explaining the contingency (first carrot, then hot dog), don’t continue to cajole or pressure the child. Just continue with the meal. Don’t try to feed the child the non-preferred food, allow him to pick it up and eat it himself.
How easily and quickly this works really depends on the kid. I’ve had a child cry for 15 minutes before giving in and eating the food, and I’ve had another kid (who I thought was going to be a major problem due to his aggressive behaviors in other contexts) immediately scarf down foods he had refused all his life just because he wanted the preferred food so bad.