How do you handle a child that is a very picky eater?

In My Humble Opinion
61

My nephews went through the “picky eater” stage. Actually it was the vegetarian stage. My sister had them convinced after that, that there was a hot dog tree, and a hamburger tree.

When we were kids though, we couldn’t afford to be picky eaters.
Ma would put a plate of food in front of you
You say: eewww, whats this?
Ma: Its food,shut up and eat it

If you refused, (which you never did) there literally wasn’t anything else to eat. :frowning: Everything was cooked from scratch, so you had a choice of raw meat, uncooked rice, beans in a can, and that can of beets that nobody ate but we carried around to every apartment we moved to, cause gosh, can’t throw food away. Not much selection.

The only thing I totally refused to eat was liver, I would starve first. They tried to make me eat it but I became totally skilled at cutting it up into small pieces and pretending to put it into my mouth, and dropping it under the table where the dog would get it.

Now with the kids, if they don’t like what we make, they can make themselves a sandwich.

62

My parents (and I, now that I’m a mother) are firmly in the “you don’t have to like it, you don’t even have to swallow it, but you have to taste it” camp. I also believe that forcing a child to clean their plate is asking for trouble…it’s perfectly acceptable to stop when you’re full. Why would being taught to overstuff yourself be good?

My daughter (five) is somewhat picky but has gotten much less so. She went through a period when the only vegetable she would eat was frozen peas, still frozen! Who cares…she having a veggie! Point is, be somewhat flexible. Be creative. The goal is nutrition, not form.

Like Cranky said, she’s more likely to try things if she helps in preparation. Also, I’ve found that she likes more exotic things if I break them down. For example, she “hated” Chinese food despite never having it. In a fit of inspiration (for me) I ordered Lemon Chicken with the sauce on the side. It’s essentially sliced chicken fingers…and now kiddo happily dips her “Chinese chicken” into the “Chinese sauce” and eats the rice on the side. I figure eventually she’ll streamline it.

The point is: Tell your friends to stop catering to him, stop sweating it, and stop letting their child hold them hostage.

As for me, I was a picky eater but am quite adventuresome now. My favorite food indulgence in the world is foie gras. Yes…duck liver.

63

I’m with the folks who say this has turned into a power struggle, and the child’s wining.

FWIW, my family had a few very simple rules:

  1. Try at least one tiny taste. We never had to eat anything we disliked but we had to at least try it before deciding.
  2. Portion sizes were small but seconds always available. If we didn’t like something we could have extras of other things but we started out small. That way we could easily finish what was on our plates; no hassle, no issue. They never made a big issue even if we left food uneaten though. (The family tag line was an understanding, “Your eyes were just bigger than your stomach.”)
  3. NO COMPLAINING, ever! Rudeness would get us either rebuked or sent from the table in disgrace whether we’d finished eating or not. It was perfectly fine to dislike something but we were not permitted to make a production of it. A simple, “No thanks” sufficed.

Corralaries:

  • Eating together was a shared thing so common sense manners applied. Not fussy stuff for everyday, but basics like chewing w/ mouths closed, offering to pass plattters, etc.
  • My folks showed us how to unobtrusively remove food stuff we didn’t like, e.g. tomatoes from salad, mushrooms, etc. (I adore both now but hated 'em when I was young.)
  • They also showed us how to handle being served something we disliked at somebody else’s house. Choke down a few bites–it won’t kill you–for the sake of courtesy, then shuffle it around the plate.
  • Soft drinks and sweets were treats. To solve squabbling between us, the one who poured/divided had to let the other one choose first. We could divide soft drinks and desserts down to microns.

Maybe this sounds complicated but I remember dinners as very calm, happy times. Maybe it’s because my folks started so early but eating–dining–was so matter of fact. A few rules, then no hovering or fuss, bing-bang, and we were happily eating in good restaurants before we started school. No insecurity, no stress, no problem.

It sounds like this poor kid is systematically making a mess of himself, and his parents are letting him do it. He’s looking for limits without finding any, so he just keeps flailing away. Eating shouldn’t be associated with that kind of stress. My opinion? He’s old enough to understand some flexible, common sense rules. Lay 'em down, calmly enforce them and don’t cater to him, emotionally or otherwise. He won’t starve and he won’t be traumatized. He behaves or he leaves the table, for somewhere he can’t play/enjoy himself. Negative action/negative consequence. He’ll have another chance to act like a big boy and eat with the family at the next meal.

64

I’m another one in the “ignore it” camp. IANAP, but I was a picky eater as a child. I missed the age of the child in the OP, but I knew how to make my own peanut butter sandwich by the time I was 4, and that’s what I did if I didn’t like dinner. My parents would not make a separate meal for me, but I was welcome to make a sandwich if I liked.

I would say there were several years when about 80% of my diet was peanut butter sandwiches. The other 20% was probably French fries and Sweettarts. It drives my mom crazy when I tell people this for fear she will look like a bad parent (so let’s not tell her I posted it on the internet) but having been the child in question, there was no way I was going to eat anything else.

For dining out/dining at other people’s homes, the rule was that I could politely decline food by saying “no thank you, I’m not hungry right now” and wait until we were home to make my own sandwich. I never got in trouble for declining food, the only issue was rudeness/making comments about the grossness of said food. Picky eating aside, I was a fairly polite child so that wasn’t really a problem.

I grew out of this on my own. It started when I would eat at other people’s homes without my parents. I liked being treated like a grown up who could go visiting on her own, and part of that seemed like eating things even if I didn’t especially like them. I remember my mom ran into the mother of a friend of mine, they were Korean-American, and cooked very traditional Korean meals. Mom apologized for my picky eating, and my friend’s mom was confused, because I ate everything I was served in their house. Poor mom! She was stunned.

By the time I was in high school, I would try anything and liked almost everything.

65

“That’s unfortunate. Maybe you’ll like what we have for breakfast in the morning.”

Repeat liberally.

66

I looked up this thread because my neighbor J. was just telling me that her 5 year old grandson, B, is a very picky eater. Now it’s at the point where he won’t even eat most of the foods that he was willing to eat because he’s gotten tired of them. He will still say “I don’t like it” about things he has never tried.
The other night, his mom promised him a surprise if he took a tiny bite of cheese quesadilla. He barely touched his lips with it. I hope he wasn’t rewarded for that.
When his teacher told his class that they didn’t need to bring lunch the next day because foods would be provided for them, he started crying because he didn’t want to eat what the other kids would be eating. His mom assured him that he could bring his own food.
J. herself has admitted that she did the same thing when her daughter S. was little. She just kept giving her the foods she liked because she knew S would eat them. It turned S into the picky eater that she still is at age 32.
I couldn’t resist teasing J. about her own food attitudes. I will describe something to her, like Thai food or oat milk or something, and she will say it doesn’t sound good. She said she doesn’t want to try new things because she’s afraid she won’t like them. So she and her husband just keep going to the same few restaurants and eating the same things all the time, although they often complain that they don’t know what to fix because nothing sounds good.

Sure sounds like a generational thing to me.

67

I hate, hate, HATE this topic. From my experience the label “picky eater” is often used to judge people for not liking what you like so one can feel superior and cultured. Many parents are narcissists that take what their kids like personally as a reflection of themselves and thus they get super upset if the kid doesn’t like what they like. It’s like a rejection of them as a parent and they get their feelings hurt. So many parents are trying to force their kids to be like them instead of letting the kid be themselves. I get wanting to help your child have a balanced nutritional regimen, but it often seems like much more than that.

Some would call me “picky” because it makes them feel better about being so cultured and amazeballs. In reality I have a few sensory issues. I have textural issues with food. I also have misophonia and hate eating around other people. My tastes skew strongly toward the sweet and I taste the slightest bitterness in things. I was made to eat things I gagged on and anyone doing that to your children can gfy. It took me decades to try meat loaf again and I love it. I probably could have loved it for years if my mom wasn’t such a terrible cook and if I wasn’t forced to eat things that were terribly cooked.

Maybe the child isn’t picky so much as you’re a bad cook or they have some sort of textural issue (can even be visual and yes I have those issues too) with food. Does your child ever sit at the table with their hands balled up in fists? Maybe they want to leave dinner because they have misophonia (found that out much later in life too) and want to murder you because you have the table manners of a chimp. Food is a great example of people liking what they like and other people judging them. Obviously it’s not all or nothing but there are a lot of people operating at extremes on how they treat someone different than them. Challenging a child to try something isn’t the end of the world but the forcing of kids to eat things they gag on or throw up is messed up. Hey little Johnny, just know that you have autonomy over your body, but put this in it or you’re a loser and we’ll badger you forever and label you. How anyone thinks that is okay is beyond me.

68

The rule in our family was, “If you complain you get another serving”, so we’d say things like, “Oh boy! Okra!” Our mom (who knew well what we were up to) would say, “I’m glad you like it, take lots!” and we’d reply, “Oh, but I would hate to deprive anyone else of their share of this marvelous stuff.” Then we’d take a small amount and everything remained civil.

69

There’s a commercial for Kraft Mac and Cheese running right now that I totally hate. OK I hate all of their commercials but this one really pisses me off. It starts with the mother running after the kid screaming “You’re going to have one more bite!” as the kid is running away screaming “No! I’m not hungry!” Way to give your kid food issues! :rage:

My ex husband is the pickiest eater I ever met but his parents were tyrants about food. About everything but especially food. He and his brothers were punished if they didn’t clean their plates. If they tried to hide or throw away food they got double punished for wasting food and then had to eat the stuff even if it was already in the garbage! :cold_sweat: As soon as he was big enough he started doing odd jobs for his neighbors just to earn some pocket money to buy food he liked and taking any excuse to be out of the house at mealtimes. He’s had weight problems and problems with binge eating most of his life and has a list as long as your arm of stuff he won’t eat. Even a cheerful “try it, you might like it” upsets him because it’s no different to him than his parents saying “eat it or else.”

No surprise that the kids picked up on Daddy’s pickiness but fortunately there were always enough things they’d eat that I could work things out.

70

Wait a minute - are you one of MY kids? :smiley:

Because that’s exactly what we did. I remember trying to try to mainly fix foods the kids liked, until one day they decided to turn their noses up at mac-n-cheese of all things! From that day on, we said we’d fix one meal, and anyone who wanted was free to make their own PBJ.

Something similar happened when - at a VERY young age - they objected to some aspect of my wife’s school lunchmaking. Guess who learned how to make their own lunches (out of the healthy options available.)

There was an article related to this in a recent Atlantic - I believe the article was about child anxiety. They urged parents not to cater to excessive pickiness - I think they described one kid who would eat NOTHING other than turkey loaf. I think they said to put the food on the table. Don’t expect the kid to eat EVERYTHING, but that was the food available for them to choose from. I would be extremely shocked to hear of a kid starving themself (absent anorexia or something.).

71

68 posts, and not a single mention of ARFID. From the subreddit:

“In general, an ARFID diagnosis means that large categories of food are considered unappealing and inedible and can trigger strong adverse reactions due to taste, texture, sight, and/or smell. This is commonly in conjunction with anxiety surrounding social situations involving food, general anxiety, and/or depression.”

Unpopular opinion, at least on the SDMB: it’s a real thing. It’s in the DSM-5. I have it. My diet has grown to the point where my list of “nope” foods is very short. However, there’s still some cuisines I can’t eat, because most items will have one of the “nope” foods that triggers my gag reflex.

For those with ARFID, it’s not “I don’t want to eat spinach, because it’s not as yummy as pizza” kind of thing, but rather “I can’t eat spinach, because I’m absolutely, positively terrified of it, it smells offensive, the one time I tried I couldn’t keep it down, and it’s as repulsive to me as the idea of eating a fresh, steamy dog turd to you.” It’s brain wiring, not preference or immaturity.

Tell someone with ARFID to eat what’s on their plate or go hungry, 1950s style, and they WILL go hungry. They would sooner end up in a hospital bed on an IV than eat a plate of Brussels sprouts or a mystery sandwich from a box lunch. If you’re in a larger city, there may be medical and mental health professionals that deal with ARFID, and offer treatment. It will be slow. If you’re in a smaller city or rural area, you’re going to have a much harder time finding help.

Helpful hint: Green Machine is a good substitute for crucifers, a “no go” category of food for many with ARFID. Many with ARFID expand their palette by finding they like salsa or sauce that has limited or non-discrete quantities of one of their “no go” foods in them. Some will enjoy a type of food in one form, but not another that might trigger their gag reflex.

In the end, though, if your child is getting the right amount of nutrition, and is otherwise healthy, why worry?

72

Also, they’re running after the kid with broccoli, but mac&cheese is an okay compromise? If you don’t care what the kid eats, but it’s healthy enough to run away from you, just forget the whole thing.

Don’t even start me on those Ore-Ida “potato-pay your kid to eat” commercials. :roll_eyes:

73

I was that kid.

It was only a few foods in my case (though at least one, tomato sauce, shows up in all sorts of things.) But I wasn’t doing it deliberately. I hated puking. (Still do.) The taste of the stuff in my mouth made me immediately so nauseated that I couldn’t help it.

My parents never tried to force me to eat stuff I couldn’t stand. I ate plenty of other things, and now love tomato sauces. I very much doubt that I’d like them now if people had tried to force them down me when I was a child. And it wouldn’t have worked. It would only have made lots of mess all over the table; and would effectively had turned meals into a torture chamber for me.

74

The first time I saw that commercial I actually yelled at my TV. “Bribe your kids to eat! Healthy foods are gross and the only way you’ll get them to eat them is by chasing them down with greasy fries!” Great message there!

75

I think they meant that commercial to piss people off.

76

I was a tad of a picky eater. But my parents had an effective philosophy for that:

Never ask a child what he wants for dinner unless he’s buying.
Never force a kid to eat something they don’t want to. Don’t like it? Don’t eat it! No argument.

But you’re not making something else and you’re not snacking later.

Don’t worry, he isn’t going to starve to death. I didn’t.

And neither did my daughter when she was pulling this. Not being allowed any of the snacks the rest of us were enjoying during TV time and going to bed with an empty stomach and I/she knocked this horse shit off in under 2 weeks. Suddenly we were eating a serving of most of what was made for supper, lunch, etc. still allowed to not eat food we absolutely hate, like freaking brocolli.

But you have to stick with it and not relent, i.e. be a parent.

77

At the moment, my 2-y/o granddaughter eats just about everything. She loves green beans and squash and broccoli and most fruits, and she’ll eat meat if she has a sauce to dip it into - like BBQ or ketchup. We’re all waiting for her to declare she doesn’t like these things that she’s been snarfing down since she started solid food. But her parents are in agreement that she won’t get any special catering. If she doesn’t eat what’s served, she doesn’t eat.

And I definitely won’t be the grandmother who sneaks her a favorite treat - I have little patience with arbitrary food dislikes. If you liked spaghetti last week, you still like it this week, despite your tantrum.

78

You took the words right out of my mouth: “You don’t want to eat dinner, no problem, you can go out and play. Next meal served will be breakfast. There’s no snacking between now and then. Your dinner will be on a plate in the fridge, let me know if you get hungry and I’ll heat it back up for you.” Guess what, after they saw were were serious, (no snacks, meant no snacks), they always ate their food. Picky problem solved.

We were told early on by a child psychologist friend that the best cure for picky eating is hunger. Picky eating in 99.9% of kids is about power and control. This is basic parenting, no different than older kids not sleeping in their own beds or kids having tantrums in stores etc.

As far as some of the posts from adults justifying why they’re picky eaters, this thread is about most kids, not the rare group with DSM related issues.

79

My second is a picky eater. Not like the one in the OP, but there are very few fruits and vegetables he will eat by choice, and I would say that about 75% of things I make with interesting flavors (i.e., that the rest of us actually think are interesting to eat) he doesn’t like.

I am not capable of doing the “then you’ll just have nothing to eat for dinner!” thing. It’s not that I think it hurts him to go hungry. But my sweet adorable child turns into a total hangry monster when he hasn’t eaten for a while. Usually he’s quite even-tempered but when he’s hungry eeeeeverything sets him off and it’s just awful. (I do this too if I don’t get my food on time; it’s not on purpose at all.)

But (a) I do say he has to try two bites of what I serve, and (b) I do offer the rice and beans option if he really doesn’t like what we’re having after the two bites. (Literally beans from a can plopped on rice from the rice cooker and heated in the microwave. He will eat that!) I haven’t made him make his own rice and beans… yet… but I think pretty soon he will be at the point where he will make his own dinner if he doesn’t like what I’ve cooked. IDK, I guess we’ll see how it goes.

80

OK. Some of what’s being posted in this thread is pushing a lot of my buttons and I’m going to come back and say some more:

May well work that way for some kids. Didn’t for me – tomato sauce and pasta were repellent all the way through my childhood; and the only thing that I recollect developing that repellence to that I had once liked was the stuffed cabbage leaves we’d had for dinner right before I came down with the flu and spent all night bringing them back up again.

That’s pretty much how my parents handled it. Worked just fine.

What else works is if the parents genuinely enjoy a lot of different foods, and make that obvious. People raved over my mother’s eggplant casserole. Every once in a while I would ask just to taste it. Nope; still didn’t like eggplant – but every time I tried it I disliked it a little less. Everntually I wound up loving the stuff. I can’t imagine that ever happening if I’d been forced to eat it, even though it wasn’t one of the things that I absolutely couldn’t keep down.

I wonder whether it’s not getting worse specifically because it has turned into a power struggle – you referred in the first post to his throwing up when people try to make him eat something. Maybe if everyone would quit bugging the kid about it, he’d be able to relax around his food, and things would get better again.

That’s probably not too terrible if the food that’s offered is only very occasionally something they really can’t eat.

I genuinely couldn’t get down either tomato sauce or most pastas. My mother had no problem working around that for most meals (and letting me make my own sandwich when she did want to make either the main course.) But in some households, ‘eat tomato sauce and/or pasta or go hungry’ would amount to ‘most days you’re not going to get anything to eat.’ And that wouldn’t have made me able to stomach them; it was an uncontrollable physical reaction.