Is guys that only eat chicken fingers a thing?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

My child is on the autism spectrum, and they (preferred pronoun, but otherwise female (probably)) is occasionally, but not always, a picky eater. Certainly not as much as others have described in this thread. So obviously, with one example, I accept your hypothesis. They can sometimes be quite adventurous, and then go through long phases of great preference for one thing.

There are other aspects of their behavior, which may be autism related, or just child related, which are very easy to confuse with picky eating. For example, “I’m full,” “I don’t like this,” and “what is for dessert” are all synonyms. The literal meaning of any of those statements could be what is actually meant at any given time. This I think can be dealt with by parenting.

My kid went straight from a liquid diet to a chewable solid foods. They mostly refused to eat mashed up baby food, so we stopped offering it after about two weeks. I think the transition was around 9 months.

This so much. It makes it very difficult to plan ahead. Hot dogs were a winner for a long time, and then one day moved to the hated food list. Similar with chicken legs. Pizza went the other direction, and after being refused for years all of the sudden was a favorite (pepperoni, black olives, and pineapple).

So much this, also. All of the “consequence based” parenting techniques become worthless when your kid has an executive functioning deficiency, and doesn’t properly understand cause and effect. If you leave your gloves at school, then your hands will be cold the next morning, but a winter of cold hands does not create the organizational skills necessary to remember to bring them home.

Similarly, not eating what is being served leads to hunger, but only serving non-preferred food to a non-neurotypical child may be the equivalent of only serving piles of shit to a typical adult. No matter how much shit you pile in front of me, and how much you yell at me about it, I’m not eating it.

Taste perception varies between people, and has a genetic component. To many people, cilantro tastes like soap. There’s a gene for that. Other people may be extremely sensitive to bitter tastes. “Picky” can be understandable when all Tex-Mex food tastes like the sauce is made out of Dial bars.

102

I think about you and your son alot. I can’t think of a more difficult thing to go through in parenting, except maybe a dying child.

I have a “difficult” grand-daughter. She’s been tested and re-tested to no avail. She’s just different. It’s been very trying for us all. My Son and DIL fight it everyday. And it is a tiny war in the family.

This child could be a picky eater she’s picky and tearful about just nearly all other things. If she veers into griping about eating they just let her get up and go play. I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do. I don’t think there’s much else they can do. Sit there and eat and let her scream or just give in. She’s not nearly in a starving state so at the moment I guess it’s ok.
She’ll grow up and we’ll see what happens.

I wish you every success with your boy.
You seem to be on top of the therapy he needs. Just love him.

103

Just a note to picky eaters without “legitimate neurological food issues”, from a fellow ‘pickster’:
Eat a healthy diet, no matter what.

A doctor told my parents “Give the youngster what they want. Eventually, they’ll choose healthy food.” Ha, what a load o’ crap. I ate nothing but burgers and sweets and never grew out of that.

Until one day I realized “I’m going to end up fat and lazy.” And made myself eat … [cue scary music] … a salad.

Decades later, I’d still like to subsist on burgers and pizza and chicken fingers. And I still have to make myself eat vegetables.

But I’m crunching on a carrot as I write this, because I’m an adult without food issues, and I can be tough with myself. Who cares if I hate a healthy food? I can still eat it.

Sorry, but this subject really hits a chord with me, as the only non-obese member of my family. The rest are still eating only within their comfort zone (which means a ton of carbs, and almost zero vegetables).

By the way, if I eat enough healthy stuff, I get to stop by the neighborhood donut shop…

.

[Spicy Weasel, please ignore this. None of this applies to your son… who I, too, think about a lot.]

104

We are doing everything we can, and at least for right now, he is putting on weight again. One of his big issues right now is his attention is all over the place. I can’t get him to sit down and focus long enough to eat half the time. He wants to be doing something else, usually spinning in circles. But a general lack of interest in food is also a sign of ARFID. Sometimes he does want food and eats a lot. Recently I had some progress with fresh shredded carrots. He will eat a certain number you designate in exchange for something else he wants. But I tried the same trick with cucumber - no dice. He was horrified by the cucumber. He couldn’t even look at it, just covered it up with his plate.

I love him more than I ever thought it was possible to love. Every time we have to do yet another intervention, I’m like, it’s too much. And I’m tired. But what else are you going to do? We have to give him the best possible shot at life, whatever it takes. I’m cautiously optimistic that a lot of work done early can save a lot of work in the future, so maybe it gets easier with time.

105

My kid sometimes does this. They’ll take a bite, jump up, run around, then come back and take another bite. Often while running around they’ll get distracted by something else, and forget to come back and eat some more. It didn’t occur to me, until somebody pointed it out, that this is stimming behavior. That actually let me relax about it a great deal. Unless we’re in a restaurant, I just let it happen, and worry about getting enough food in to avoid a hangry spiral, rather than get all upset because the kid isn’t in the chair.

This behavior has decreased as they’ve gotten older. It’s either that or allowing eating with a tablet has decreased it.

This, too. It took years to break them of the habit of shoving non-desired food off the plate and hiding it. “Done” was usually followed by wiping everything off the plate, and then tucking it under the plate.

106

Well, that’s reassuring. Yeah, I just need him to focus enough to get some food in his gullet. Spinning around is a stim he picked up recently, but it seems like maybe a choking hazard, so I try to discourage it while eating.

One thing we are trying is a time timer visual clock (can’t be digital - he is obsessed with digital timers) just setting it for five minutes and asking him to sit still and eat for that long, then he can spin to his heart’s content, then back to the meal.

I do want to clarify that my kid hasn’t been diagnosed with ARFID yet. He was diagnosed with general pediatric feeding disorder. It seems like one of those possibly borderline cases of ARFID so we have a medical assessment next week which will include an ARFID eval. I’m not sure how they make that determination, if restricted food intake is sufficient or there have to be signs of malnutrition to qualify. While he lost weight in the past, ever since we’ve been able to pack a meal for lunch, he seems to be a healthy weight. It’s kind of amazing what little food a small child can thrive on.

107

Really common training treat: sliced up hot dogs. I never owned a dog who would eat one. They eat cheap cheese though.

108

In my house, this would be referred to generically as “cat tuna.”

109

Sometimes, you just have to pick your battles.

110

I doubt it. In terms of cooking skill, steak, shrimp, lobster and many other things are pretty easy. It’s hard to mess up a club sandwich. But French gourmets often consider roast chicken to be a real test of cooking merit. Chicken fingers? Not so much.

111

I first heard of FODMAP when I saw a brand of spaghetti sauce called Fody’s, which was labeled as something like “FODMAP compatible.”

112

Wow. Just. Wow.

Why bother going out to eat, and that’s the least of their problems?

113

I usually see kids order chicken nuggets.

I’ll order chicken tenders if they’re quality pieces of chicken. The tender is a flap on the underside of each breast.

But I eat a variety of beef, pork and chicken.

114

Yes, any restaurant that can competently operate their deep fryer, and buys half-way decent frozen chicken fingers from Sysco or wherever, will make pretty good chicken fingers, nuggets, french fries, etc.

I’m sure we’ve all eaten at places that break either or both of those two requirements, but add some sauce, presumably ranch, and ordering the chicken fingers is going to be a safe and predictable bet.

I’m always relieved when I see them on a kids’ and adults’ menus because I know there is at least one acceptable fall back option for any picky eaters I might live with.

115

To be more specific, the “tender” is the pectoralis minor muscle, underneath the pectoralis major muscle. I learned that while dissecting a pigeon in college biology, and have never forgotten it.

My city has an Ethiopian restaurant, which I’ve never eaten at but I have seen their menu, and guess what they include? Burgers and chicken fingers! However, beef and chicken are also part of Ethiopian cuisine, so it’s not that big a deal to make some of their own.

116

I’m in my 50s, and still occasionally order chicken nuggets in a fast-food setting. Places above that typically have options that appeal more to me. :slight_smile:

I have what I like to think is a reasonably varied diet. Like most humans, I do have some dislikes (e.g. bell pepper, organ meats, grapefruit, sauerkraut, and I apparently have the “cilantro tastes like cleaning chemicals” gene), but I’m not locked into a single-digit number of acceptable foods and in fact crave variety in my diet, such as not having chicken for both lunch and dinner on the same day.

117

Never thought I’d ever say this, but I go to a place (by myself) every weekend where Chicken Tenders is the best thing on the menu.

[ insert “hangs head in shame” emoji ]

I watch all the Sunday noon NFL games at once, at a bar that has twenty screens… and crappy food.
No grill, just a deep fryer. But Tenders ‘n’ Tater Tots hit the spot, and have become comfort food (but only at noon on Sundays).

118

Mmm, pigeon tenders…

119

Only under glass, tut tut

120

And there are (at least) two separate issues here:

  1. What food limitations does the individual have, and how intractable are they? and
  2. How well does the individual manage the impacts of their food limitations in social settings?

In the case of racerback72’s grandson-in-law, ISTM that the problem isn’t so much that this very food-limited individual couldn’t find something on the restaurant menu that he felt he could eat, but that he then broke up the family dinner outing to make a solo trip to a different restaurant.

If you know that your potential menu choices are very restricted, and you’re a competent adult, then it’s on you to figure out how to manage the occasional restaurant outing without causing a big hassle and distraction from what’s meant to be a social event. Eat something before going to the restaurant, slip a couple of protein bars in your pocket that you can discreetly nibble, whatever. But don’t make your dining companions and the restaurant staff stage a whole re-enactment of “Little Johnny is a Fussy Eater: Episode 7,316” on your behalf when you could all be enjoying each other’s company in a more pleasant and interesting way.