But Bricker Jr. never ran away. And I ran away, but what was spanking going to accomplish when I was basically already weak from hunger? And don’t get me wrong, I got spanked a handful of times as a child, but I don’t think refusing to eat is the right reason.
<histrionic anti-corporal punishment voice>
Spanked?? Spanked!!??? Your *poor * bruised psyche.
Please let me know when your shooting spree is scheduled so I can be elsewhere.
</ha-cpv>
Which means your mom wasn’t giving you a wide enough variety of choices.
Why we in the US think kids only like salt and sweet is beyond me. I know people who literally say, “The kids can’t eat Chinese food!” and reach for the pizza menu when we decide to eat Chinese. WTF? “Can’t”? “Won’t”, I’ll perhaps give you, if you wait to long to try it, but “can’t”? What exactly do they think Chinese babies eat?
WhyBaby’s favorite flavor is spicy. Since she started eating solids at around 14 months, she’s been a fan of the spice. Buffalo wings, jalapeno cheddar potatoes, jalapenos in mac-n-cheese, jalapenos by the jarfull! She likes things much spicier than I can stand them! She also loves Indian food, Chinese food and barbeque. But the kid won’t eat ground beef, unless it’s very highly seasoned. She’s indifferent to rice, unless I put hot sauce on it. She won’t look twice at an orange, but loves lemons and limes. How’d I figure that out? By never saying, “Oh, you won’t like that until you’re older”, but by being creative and giving her everything I or her father eats (minus a few common allergens and choking hazards).
Yes, she chooses what she eats, because I don’t think, short of a tube and a milkshake, you can force a kid to eat. A kid has control over what goes into his body and when it comes out and that’s about it. You will not win those battles. But she chooses, of course, only from the wide variety of things I offer her and offer her often. It takes kids over 50 repetitions to learn something, or decide whether or not they like it. Offering an avacado twice and having it rejected does not mean the kid will never like avacados. Keep offering it, and don’t make a fuss when it’s rejected. Too often, I watch parents of “picky eaters” get more and more limited in what they offer the kids, figuring it’s not worth even offering.
It’s normal for kids to eat a limited diet. In The Wild, a cavebaby who ate any old thing was a cavebaby who’d likely poison himself out of the gene pool. But while limited, the kid’s diet should still be nutritionally complete if he makes his own food choices from a big enough selection pool. The Mac-n-cheese, brocolli, chicken finger, toast, oj diet isn’t all that bad nutritionally, as previously mentioned. It’s worlds better than the oatmeal diet, anyway! If your kid won’t even eat that much, then you need to offer more and more varied foods until you find the five foods your kid will eat. Maybe chicken shawarma instead of chicken fingers, maybe curry instead of mac-n-cheese.
My son doesn’t run away – he just refuses to eat.
I’m not one of these parents that says, “Oh, I’ll never spank a child!” I believe spanking is appropriate in some circumstances, but I cannot countenance the idea of spanking a child who refuses to eat.
Same would have happened to me, however my brother and I were human vacuum cleaners. We got hit for different things.
However, having dealt with a child with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), which is this type of behavior taken to an extreme, I learned that corporal punishment is useless in this situation. If anything, it makes it worse. You can’t beat out that kind of stubbornness. This comes from someone who is not against corporal punishment (but who recognizes the difference between punishment, acting out of anger, and abuse).
We had an excellent thread on childhood allergies in GQ a week or so back, I dug up a few great cites about peanut allergies. It should be safe to test a child who has *no known allergies * with a tiny taste- but going to the pediatrician and asking for an allergy test is OK too if you’re really worried about this.
Christmas!! I thought the phrase in the song was “beat your meat”, not, “eat your meat”. Wheeeeeuuuuu! Glad that’s over.
(I just wished the words were such, the song would be much cooler)
Bricker and An Arky
Since this threads been hijacked anyway, I am going to add my daughter to the list of Picky Eaters Anonymous.
She is almost 9 and will not eat meat. Of any kind. Period.
Same advice from doctor; “she’ll grow out of it.”
A list of what she does eat (in its entirety):
Apples
Plumbs
Bananas
Watermelon
Orange slices (well she pretty much just sucks the juice and leaves the rest)
Yogurt
Cottage Cheese
Canned pasta
Plain cooked spaghetti noodles with butter
Grilled cheese (on white bread)
Toast (white bread)
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (white bread of course)
Pancakes (only the frozen “toaster” variety)
French fries
Kraft Dinner
Marble Cheese
Nesquick cereal
Chocolate pop tarts
Some crackers
Potato chips
Chocolate milk
Apple juice
Frutopia-type blends
Chocolate milk shakes
That’s pretty much the entire list.
How does this compare to your picky kids and do you have any suggestions?
Thanks for the info. She’s had peanuts in Thai food and they’re fine - I think I let her try them at 18 months. I won’t let her eat gobs and gobs of them, but we don’t avoid them like they’re typhoid. Same with strawberries and citrus. Whole peanuts, jelly beans, raisins and whole grapes are still off her diet due to choking hazards, and we haven’t done honey yet due to botulism risk, although she has had the Chinese Buffet’s “Honey Chicken”, but I rather doubt the existence of actual honey in it.
You forgot Ice Cream!
I think you just listed the average childs food choices. My children will eat just about everything on that list and you can add Cheesbugers, a variety of soups, raviolli, beef stew, chicken bakes, broccoli, carrots, raisins, any type of cookie, and an assortment of cereals.
They, however, don’t like Oatmeal.
We stay away from the pop-tarts and chips due to the Hydrogenated oils. We look for organic equivolents.
Bricker Jr’s list is interesting:
Chicken nuggets
Broccoli
Bread, various kinds
Potato chips / corn chips
Pancakes and waffles (frozen or made normally)
Grapes
OJ (we do buy the calcium-fortified)
Shredded cheese (he’s fine with cheddar, mozzeralla, Monterey Jack - just MUST be shredded)
French fries
Oreos and sugar cookies
White rice
Fried calamari
Note the lack of milk. He used to drink milk in bottles. When he got to be four, we tried to wean him off bottles and on to sippy cups. Another heroic battle of will: he’ll drink OJ, water or soda in sippy cups or regular cups or from straws, but not milk. Milk was only to be consumed from bottles. We took away the bottles. He switched to water.
We just had a pediatrician visit, and we were told he should be drinking milk. Now, bear in mind it’s been almost a YEAR since he’s had milk, nor have we discussed the bottle issue in the interim, although we’ve constantly offered him milk in sippy cups and regular cups. We tell him the doctor says he needs to drink milk. What does he say?
“Are you going to get my bottles back?”
I wish I had some insight or suggestions, other than continuing the strategy of offering food and waiting. But as you can see, this kid has an excellent memory and a will of steel.
That’s a list you can work with. I’m guessing they hate veggies too? Will she drink anything besides the juices/chocolate milk? Lot of empty calories and maybe she’ll eat more without the juices and shakes.
She might grow out of it, or add more as time goes on. I’m an adult and there are very few foods I eat. Mine has to do with textures. I hate how some food ‘feels’ in my mouth, like pasta, bread and bananas. She eats some stuff that I’ve never eaten, like cottage cheese and yogurt.
As a matter of fact I did forget ice cream!
At least you’ve got MEAT in the diet, and vegetables too. I would attempt cartwheels if she ate meat and vegetables, of any kind.
Yep. Veggies are out.
And texture seems to be a major issue with her too. Note, most of the items on the previous list are mushy-type textures.
You tried, say, soda bottles, Bricker? For the milk? Try, say, one of those Quik milkshake bottles, see if he’ll drink that.
Have you tried letting her help cook and plan meals? Often kids will eat what they made themselves even if they wouldn’t eat the identical meal if you made it. At 9, she’s old enough to start learning her way around the kitchen. She’s also old enough to start learning about nutrition, and that may change her attitude. WhyKid became unbearable at about 10 when his school taught them that fat is TEH EEEEEVIL and he would badger me about the fat content of every damn thing on his plate. But he also starting eating more vegetables!
For younger ones, presentation can be everything. What kid could resist Apple Butterflies or Pear Mice? I got my abysmally picky neice (2.5 years old at the time) to eat the peanut-butter-on-toast her mother was fighting with her about simply by asking her if she wanted to try “Toasty Hearts” and cutting the same exact piece of toast with a heart shaped cookie cutter. She watched me do it, knew that it was the same piece of toast, but said it tasted better as “Toasty Hearts”. :rolleyes:
Toddlers and preschoolers love to dip. Thin out peanut butter with a little water and let them dip celery and apples. Ranch dressing for carrots, peapods and celery sticks. WhyBaby loves to scoop tuna salad with little Gerber veggie crackers.
I worked with a woman who told me a story about her husband and his roommates when they were in college. Evidently they decided that they could save money for worthier causes (beer and video games, no doubt) if they saved their food money. Therefore they took a vow to only eat macaroni and cheese. After a while they all started feeling ill. They were eventually diagnosed with scurvy.
To start off, I am not a parent. Far from it.
Are you parents vehemently against exaggerating/lying to your kids to get them to eat right? Not lying in the sense of, “We’ll buy you a new bike if you eat _____” then not buying them a bike, but more like “If you drink from a bottle it will mess up your teeth and then you’ll need painful braces” (which may be true, I’m not a dentist either though). Or maybe bribing kids? Like “You can have one extra cookie at dessert if you eat (insert vegetable, fruit, meat, milk whatever the kid should eat)” I don’t know if this is the right way to go, but I know kids can be very strong willed and you can’t force something down a kid’s throat.
My suggestions might be horrible and damaging, but it’s all I could really think of. I know my parents couldnt force me to eat my green beans or whatever as a kid. Trying to force them usually ends up bad from what I’ve seen and experienced. Offering wide varieties seems to be the best - and don’t force anything. Maybe con a taste, but if they really hate it they won’t eat all of it. Try to reason as much as possible with them. The kid might be pretty young, but kids can also be smarter than you think, and they might appreciate having a decision in the matter.
What My Daughter Will Eat:
[ul]
[li]Absolutely anything you put in front of her*.[/li][/ul]
Her dinner has been “whatever the family is having for dinner” (except for potential allergens) since she was about eight months (basically, once she got a couple of teeth in), and we’ve yet to find anything she hasn’t liked.
She’s ok with spicy, bounces up and down when you give her roast beef, waves french fries around like well-chewed batons, loves Chinese, and will wolf down any veggie she can lay her hands on.
Oh, and she loves oatmeal too. Just not three times a day.
*“anything” need not technically be edible.
Dip! Dip! Dip!
Yeah, don’t forget the dipping opportunities. Give my 3 year old daughter two foods that she refuses to eat, but tell her to dip one food into the other and she’ll yum it up happily.
Or banana ghosts. Oh, you don’t want bananas? OK, how about banana ghosts? Yeah!
Banana ghosts are slices of banana with tiny dots of whatever to make eyes and mouths. It could be anything. Yum! Much better than yucky bananas!