My SIL was an EH teacher. She had a blast disabusing her students of the notion of “fair.”
Oh, let’s not forget the aggravated sigh, perfected only by teenaged girls when asked by their mother to do something.
Funny, she never pulls the aggravated sigh on her father.
Something I learned when my kids were that age and very picky - if you make the food into something fun they’ll gobble it down even if they wouldn’t touch it otherwise. I used to take tuna fish salad (something they’d absolutely never dream of eating regularly) and make it into a mouse with carrot stick tail and whiskers and olive eyes. They couldn’t get enough and would ask me to make them mice salad.
Ditto fruit and carrot curls as octopus, celery and raisens as ants on a log.
I am always in awe of parents able to think this way. Between job, house, hubby and two toddlers, I was happy that I got the food in the right end; creativity never even came into play.
My two year old won’t even eat ice cream and cookies. She demands the cookies, but then walks around with them making things sticky until the dog scarfs it. Or she feeds it to the dog intentionally. The dog loves the 2yr old.
Really they’re not picky eaters. I think the whole thing is a power grab on the part of the 4yr old. Mamma don’t play that game.
What drives me nuts is every holiday dinner with my mother in-law. Now, my MIL is a sweet woman and I love her dearly. But between my two kids and my seven year old nephew, every holiday dinner is composed of:
Nephew, are you eating? How about you eat a few bites of potatoes? 4yr old, are you eating your ham? Eat some ham for Mimi. Did 2yr old get enough to eat? Did they eat any vegetables? Come on, 4yr old, just have a few bites.
In our house, it’s simple. You don’t eat meals, you don’t get snacks. Do not whine for snacks, for thou shalt not get snacks. Thou shalt eat what the rest of us are eating, otherwise thou are apparently not that hungry. Mother will not beg you to eat your food. It’s your stomach, it’s your choice.
Having posted in angst about eating issues here, I’ve come to a comfortable compromise along these lines. I make something reasonably within her “likes” list, and if she rejects it, she hears, “OK, you can wait until breakfast for something else.”
Actually, my kid will probably learn to hate the phrase, “OK,” as I usually use it as a misleading prelude to offering her an uncomfortable choice, such as taking a rest or doing without TV for the rest of the day, or picking up her toys or having me put them away - for a week, in an inaccessible spot.
In our house, “I NEVER . . .” has been pretty effectively squelched by offering to show her what never getting to do X is *really *like, so that she can compare. This is one of those situations where having a bright kid can work to your advantage in discipline.
I made chicken pot pie one evening. My son insisted he didn’t like chicken pot pie, would not eat chicken pot pie, and would go hungry. (He was a teenaged boy, so I knew his stomach would rule in the end. Also, I’d made it before and everyone scarfed it down.)
I shrugged, served it up for my daughter, me, and my husband, and we ate.
About an hour later, my son came back into the kitchen and sheepishly polished off what was left.
We’ve adopted the peanut butter and popcorn rule. You can have a peanut butter sandwich, you can have popcorn. (There are other healthy snacks on the ‘we won’t let you starve’ list).
Hungry kids just make for incredibly whiny kids in our house - and kids who can’t fall asleep because they are hungry. Since they don’t see the relationship between their blood sugar and their mood and since they don’t mind being whiny, hungry kids are a much larger punishment on Mom than they are on any child.
They may not end up the most adventurous eaters (which isn’t turning out to be the case at all, the eight year old just got her dessert comp’d at a very nice restaurant because the kitchen was so impressed she ordered and ATE snails - she had them before - then helped her mother consume a very rare salmon entree - the nine year old impresses the sushi chef with his willingness to eat whatever is put in front of him at a sushi bar - its at home that suddenly grilled chicken becomes some horrible form of torture) - but Mom’s sanity and their hides will be spared.
To you with young kids- it doesn’t necessarily get better. It just gets different. The “eat your vegetables!” becomes “You don’t LOVE her, you’re only 14!” and “You’re 17 years old- why don’t you get a JOB!”
Hey parents,
This is all fun, enjoy it while it lasts! when kids grow up and move away , these are the things you can remember 
There was a TV commercial for biscuits here in India ( about 10 years ago). It showed TV guy is doing a survey on the street , by giving the biscuit and asking them various questions…
One working mom is asked " Maa’m what do you want your son to be, when he grows up ??"
She says, "just grown up , just grown up "!! 
ITA about not fighting re: food. This OR peanut butter. Period.
psst - bananas are magic sleepy food, I swear!
Earlier today, my 9-year-old became emotional, again. This is like the 4th time in the past 2 days that he has cried. I asked him, “Why are you being so emotional lately with the crying and stuff- are you not getting enough sleep, is something wrong…?” He responds, “I’m PMSing!” all dramatical.
“You know only women get PMS, right?” I ask, laughing.
“No.”
To my 4-yo, “I’m hungry” means “I want a treat and I’m bored and entertain me! With candy!” She will look at a half-eaten lunch, announce that she’s full, and then ask for a cookie or something. When I refuse to give her a cookie, she whines that she’s hungry. This has yet to work, but she keeps trying.
You’re all horrible parents. Don’t you know that people have separate stomachs for meals and dessert? It’s perfectly possible for one to be full in one’s dinner stomach and be simultaneously be hungry in one’s dessert stomach.
God, I knew that when I was four years old.
Didn’t work on my parents, either.
Even I tried it on my mom, the doctor. She expressed polite interest in this amazing new discovery in anatomy.
That was a favorite claim of my sisters, as well.
Actually, I’m pretty sure I heard it just a few weeks ago. Sister is 27.
I’m afraid I do this too…I’m a bit bored with my meal, it was a lot to eat, and I want to leave room for that yummy chocolate cake over there.
Maybe the portion size needs to be smaller?
Like a Vampire Slayer?
Especially when dining out, this is often true. Recently, I had Italian with my family. So most of us were presented with huge platters of food–tasty, but overwhelming. So we agreed that we would take leftovers home for lunch the next day. But tasty as mine was, I was quite happy to watch everyone else investigate my “green noodles” (rigatoni with pesto sauce) so that there was none left for a third meal.
Yep, I’ve had to reduce my daughter’s portions to about three tablespoons of food per meal, and I’m happy if she eats half (she’s growing fine, she’s just doing that existing on air and cracker crumbs thing). I did one of those Stupid Parent things, where I was filling her plate (a small plate) and getting annoyed when she “wasted food”. Well, duh! Give her *half *a cheese stick and stick the rest in a baggie and back in the fridge, instead of being mad when you find the petrified half a stick stuck under the bed!