# Parents, do me a favor, quit raising your kids so damn picky! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 15, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347 "2010-08-15T19:04:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/121 "2010-08-17T15:22:14Z")
My kids have friends who are picky eaters. The ones that are polite about it, we have to dinner. Polite means they don’t say anything, or they give it a try. I’ll usually notice and make an offer of something else. Both my daughter’s and my son’s best friends fall into this class - although differently. She’s the one who will give it a try and say it “isn’t bad” and nibble on it (sometimes she eats it!), he is the one who doesn’t complain, but he’s been around long enough to live by the household rules “give it a try and make yourself a peanut butter sandwich.” They’ve also had friends who are picky and rude. Those kids don’t eat at our house. My kids CAN be picky, but they are pretty adventurous. My daughter likes calamari. They both eat sushi. He eats beets. But she doesn’t like spicy, and there are certain things he doesn’t eat (although, off the top of my head, I can’t come up with much - he is a twelve year old boy - if the cat stops moving he might eat it.) I HOPE they aren’t rude at the table at other people’s homes and from what I hear back from their friend’s parents, they aren’t. A friend has a nephew who is one of those “picky eaters to the point of bad nutrition” kids. And he is enabled. And rude about it. He will eat peanut butter on white bread. But he is ten and didn’t know how to make it himself. I’m not making a ten year old a peanut butter sandwich because he doesn’t like grilled cheese. And I’m not listening to him whine about how “you need to feed me” “you can’t let me starve” and “I’m hungry.” I may have been the first grownup who said “eat what is in front of you, or feed yourself.” ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/122 "2010-08-17T15:27:08Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > A friend has a nephew who is one of those “picky eaters to the point of bad nutrition” kids. And he is enabled. And rude about it. He will eat peanut butter on white bread. But he is ten and didn’t know how to make it himself. I’m not making a ten year old a peanut butter sandwich because he doesn’t like grilled cheese. And I’m not listening to him whine about how “you need to feed me” “you can’t let me starve” and “I’m hungry.” I may have been the first grownup who said “eat what is in front of you, or feed yourself.” See, this is the kind of thing that bugs me. While on the one hand I believe strongly that kids shouldn’t be forced to eat food they don’t want to eat, I also very strongly believe in not being a rude ass to your host or hostess when you are a guest. If you are at someone’s house and they are serving grilled cheese and you don’t like it, well, tough. You take a polite nibble and quietly leave the rest untouched. You do not go demanding a peanut butter sandwich. And I also have opinions about 10-year-olds that cannot make their own sandwiches. My mom catered to my youngest brother in this way and it used to make me mental. We’d have people over for dinner, and they would walk in with a bag from McDonald’s so that my brother (a preteen at the time) could sit and have his plain McDonald’s cheeseburger at the table while the rest of us had dinner. Although that actually only happened once because I talked to her afterward and told her that if my brother didn’t like our food, that’s fine, but I’d really appreciate it if they could either make sure he ate his McDonald’s food before arriving at our house or after leaving, because I felt that was really unbelievably rude. There was a small family flap over this but the behavior stopped, thank Og. ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/123 "2010-08-17T15:32:22Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > My little girl doesn’t like any of those things either. It’s a rule in my house that you have to try everything. She’s very picky and it’s so random. She loves spinach and broccoli but won’t eat most candies. She loves crunching on iceberg lettuce but won’t eat it in salad form. She won’t eat sweet potatoes or sweet carrots; she won’t touch corn. Loves beans but not the green peas or green beans. Hates any type of nut. She likes peanut butter but not jelly. Loves fried potatoes but won’t touch mashed. I guess maybe it’s a texture thing with her. > > She certainly doesn’t get this from me or her daddy, and we don’t encourage her silly little gagging displays. I can only hope she’ll grow out of it like her big sister did. > [@norinew](#): > > **Rushgeekgirl** , I may be mis-remembering something I read you post, but isn’t your daughter autistic? I’ve been told by many professionals that one of the major symptoms of autism is texture issue. One of my 10YO’s best friends is autistic. He will eat applesauce, but not whole apples. He will eat sharp cheddar cheese, which is “crumbly” but not American cheese, which is “slimy”. He cannot stand to wear certain fabrics. Etc. And believe me, his mother is _not_ the type to just spoil him and give into random demands. These are very real issues for him. > > As to the OP, if you keep track of which kids are so picky, next time those kids are invited over to play, you could ask their parents to please send a nutritious snack for them, as they don’t seem to care for any of the things you have to offer. > [@Unintentionally\_Blank](#): > > You seem like a real peach. > [@Unintentially Blank](#): > > Really, I am, it’s just the flash judgments folks make out of a three sentence post. Especially around here. 😉 Well, given that I’d recalled reading in other threads that **Rushgeekgirl’s** daughter was autistic, and seeing as how I’ve talked to a number of specialists regarding autism for a number of reasons, and given that I was _speculating_, I wouldn’t really call that a ‘flash judgment made from a three sentence post’. Would you? ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/124 "2010-08-17T20:08:25Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > Well, that settles it then, guys. White pasta doesn’t cause diabetes. End this debate right now. The vast majority of Americans who eat pasta eat white pasta. And the vast majority of Americans will never develop Type II diabetes. So yeah, white pasta doesn’t cause diabetes. A lifetime of white pasta might contribute to diabetes, but then, a lifetime of avoiding white pasta won’t help someone avoid it if their genes are programmed to one day tell their body “hey, that production of insulin? Yeah, stop that now.” We’re all probably better off if we’re a little less reductionist in how we approach the intersection of food and health. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/125 "2010-08-17T20:21:10Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#): > > > [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > > > Well, that settles it then, guys. White pasta doesn’t cause diabetes. End this debate right now. > > The vast majority of Americans who eat pasta eat white pasta. And the vast majority of Americans will never develop Type II diabetes. So yeah, white pasta doesn’t cause diabetes. A lifetime of white pasta might contribute to diabetes, but then, a lifetime of avoiding white pasta won’t help someone avoid it if their genes are programmed to one day tell their body “hey, that production of insulin? Yeah, stop that now.” We’re all probably better off if we’re a little less reductionist in how we approach the intersection of food and health. Yeah, thanks. I’m not completely stupid, I know all about correlation and causation. Clearly, my reply was not a direct and scientific explanation of the relationship between processed white carbs and various illnesses, but rather pointing out the absurdity of saying “I DO X AND Y DOESN’T HAPPEN, THEREFORE X DOESN’T LEAD TO Y”. God bless you, Straight Dope Message Board, fighting ignorance indeed. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/126 "2010-08-17T20:24:05Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > > [@tumbleddown](#): > > > > The vast majority of Americans who eat pasta eat white pasta. And the vast majority of Americans will never develop Type II diabetes. So yeah, white pasta doesn’t cause diabetes. A lifetime of white pasta might contribute to diabetes, but then, a lifetime of avoiding white pasta won’t help someone avoid it if their genes are programmed to one day tell their body “hey, that production of insulin? Yeah, stop that now.” We’re all probably better off if we’re a little less reductionist in how we approach the intersection of food and health. > > Yeah, thanks. I’m not completely stupid, I know all about correlation and causation. Clearly, my reply was not a direct and scientific explanation of the relationship between processed white carbs and various illnesses, but rather pointing out the absurdity of saying “I DO X AND Y DOESN’T HAPPEN, THEREFORE X DOESN’T LEAD TO Y”. God bless you, Straight Dope Message Board, fighting ignorance indeed. My dad’s smoked a pack a day (menthols, no less) for over 4 decades and doesn’t have cancer. This makes it obvious that smoking doesn’t contribute to lung cancer. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/127 "2010-08-17T20:25:58Z")
> [@zweisamkeit](#): > > > [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > > > Yeah, thanks. I’m not completely stupid, I know all about correlation and causation. Clearly, my reply was not a direct and scientific explanation of the relationship between processed white carbs and various illnesses, but rather pointing out the absurdity of saying “I DO X AND Y DOESN’T HAPPEN, THEREFORE X DOESN’T LEAD TO Y”. God bless you, Straight Dope Message Board, fighting ignorance indeed. > > My dad’s smoked a pack a day (menthols, no less) for over 4 decades and doesn’t have cancer. This makes it obvious that smoking doesn’t contribute to lung cancer. I’m overweight and eat fast food on the regular (for years now), but I haven’t had a heart attack. Clearly, eating fast food every day and being 100 lbs overweight is perfectly healthy, cardiovascularly speaking :). ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/128 "2010-08-17T21:29:27Z")
Teaching kids to “clean their plates” is not a good idea. It trains them to keep eating when they’re not hungry. That’s downright dangerous when restaurants are serving things like [these](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WellnessNews/story?id=7739766&page=1). > [@norinew](#): > > Are you my long-lost sibling?? 😉 Both you guys are certainly related to me somehow. I only liked rice in Chinese restaurants, as a kid. Turns out, I don’t like Minute rice, which is what my mom cooked at home. I didn’t figure this out until years after I’d grown up. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/129 "2010-08-17T21:46:41Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > …In second grade, a lunchroom supervisor decided he had enough of my pickiness and not wanting to eat string beans and basically browbeat me into eating them. > > I didn’t want to but did it and immediately threw up…with much volume… I did something similiar to my 2nd grade teacher. Only it had nothing to do with lunch; I wanted to go to the nurse, she thought I was faking, and I ended up vomiting on her blouse (in front of the class). :o I swear it wasn’t intentional. I didn’t get in trouble, but not once in the next 10 yrs of my school (all in the same district) did I ever have a teacher not send me to the nurse if I asked. And this was after she browbeated my parents into putting me on Ritalin against their better judgement, then turned arounded and _begged_ them to take me off (it didn’t have quite the effect on me she hoped for). ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/130 "2010-08-17T23:47:24Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > Yeah, thanks. I’m not completely stupid, I know all about correlation and causation. And yet you managed to miss my point by a country mile. To reiterate: we are being overly prescriptivist about the connection between food and health. But by all means, continue to snark. It’s so amplifying. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/131 "2010-08-18T00:15:36Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > I only liked rice in Chinese restaurants, as a kid. Turns out, I don’t like Minute rice, which is what my mom cooked at home. I didn’t figure this out until years after I’d grown up. I didn’t want to touch Chinese food until we started doing ethnic lunches at one company I worked for an I had a shot at a Chinese buffet. Now I consider myself deprived if I don’t have it at least once a week. Why did I fear and loath it? Because the closest thing to “Chinese” my mother made was craptastic “chow mein” over minute rice. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/132 "2010-08-18T02:06:35Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > I always got the sense that there are very few picky eaters like **DoperChic** ’s cousin in places like Calcutta or Sierra Leone. You might be surprised. Relief agencies have to be careful what food they send to famine-stricken areas; if it doesn’t suit local palates, it might not be appreciated. So cultural “pickiness” is certainly not restricted to the developed world. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/133 "2010-08-18T04:48:55Z")
> [@](#): > > You might be surprised. Relief agencies have to be careful what food they send to famine-stricken areas; if it doesn’t suit local palates, it might not be appreciated. So cultural “pickiness” is certainly not restricted to the developed world. I was brought up to consider (low fat) dairy products to be particularly nutritious. I try to remember that a lot of people in this world don’t have the capability to digest milk after a certain age, but it’s hard. And yeah, if you’re hungry enough you’ll eat [Dwarf Bread](http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Dwarf_Bread), but you do have to be literally dying from starvation before you’ll try things that your culture has always taught you are Unclean. I mean, I suppose that I WOULD eat rats, if I had to, but the thought makes me wince and shudder right now. ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/134 "2010-08-18T16:13:44Z")
> [@Hokkaido\_Brit](#): > > My son is a very picky eater. It extends to candies and cakes as well as regular food. As some have said here, it seems to be a texture thing. I think he has a very sensitive mouth. I learned not to push food on him the second time he gagged and threw up all over the table… We learned not to do the “You will not eat anything till you eat this” thing when a relative tried it and he went 26 hours without food passing his lips. He is at the point where new food on the table worries him. He will back away from it. > > Right now, I serve what we want to eat with a plate for him with broccoli, rice, carrot, egg or meat on it. No sauces, nothing touching or mixed (a throw back to people trying to hide foods by mincing or blending stuff). I make no attempt at all to serve him anything new. Occasionally he says he wants to try a bite of something with the promise that he can spit it out if he doesn’t like it. Ninety nine times out of a hundred, it gets spat out. It is heartbreaking. He’s very thin and doesn’t have good colour in his cheeks. This summer he has learned to like cucumber and strawberries. He adds about one new food every six months or so. It sounds to me like you’re doing a great job! It seems your kid developed a LOT of anxiety about food, having been pressured to eat despised things, and you responded appropriately. I’m very impressed that he’s adding new foods regularly. Oh, and FWIW, my kid is quite picky, eating no vegetables and only three fruits, but she is healthy, energetic, and downright stocky (not fat at all, but I look at some of the jeans in “her” size, and wonder if even her skeleton would fit in them!). So kids can do OK even on very limited diets - we don’t have to panic about it. I agree with everything Ms.Whatsit has said, so no reason to reiterate. I’m really shocked at how venomous people get over food issues. Fat people, picky kids, and vegetarian/vegans get a shitload of vitriol, and I just don’t understand it. Anyway, after the last thread a Doper kindly pointed me to [How to Get Your Kids to Eat (But Not Too Much)](http://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Your-Kid-Eat/dp/0915950839). I find it incredibly valuable. It has prompted me to give my child the opportunity to try new foods without triggering too much anxiety about them. Before that I just didn’t know what to do - the options seemed to be cruelty or capitulation. Oh, and I’m another one with one picky kid and one Hoover. The baby happily ate spicy peanut noodles for breakfast the other day, and often finishes her vegetables first and asks for more before eating anything else. But it goes with their general personalities: Chloe is naturally quite anxious. Claire is much bolder. (And I certainly hope the OP is done having kids, because otherwise the Bastard Gods of Contrariness will certainly bless them with the pickiest child ever with their next one!) ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347/135 "2010-08-18T16:38:26Z")
> [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > Oh, and I’m another one with one picky kid and one Hoover. The baby happily ate spicy peanut noodles for breakfast the other day, and often finishes her vegetables first and asks for more before eating anything else. But it goes with their general personalities: Chloe is naturally quite anxious. Claire is much bolder. Kids come with personalities. Parents don’t get to pick what kind of personality their kid will have. There are parents who have done all kinds of things to expose their kids to a variety of foods, and who still end up with picky eaters. I’m also anxious (I have a couple of anxiety disorders), and a somewhat picky eater. I wonder if anxiety and pickiness are connected. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parents-do-me-a-favor-quit-raising-your-kids-so-damn-picky/550347.md?page=6)