I have been meaning to post this for a while. Food is on my mind a lot these days. Especially because I can't eat much of it. Food battles. They are something I rarely suscumb to around here. I have had the pickiest eaters known to mankind. I pick and choose my battles and food is not one of them.
My mother gets very upset because my kids are so picky. She gets upset because I tend to be a short order cook. It doesn't really bother me. I would rather meal time be a happy time than a battle so I choose not to battle.
Trevor doesn't eat anything but meat or pizza for dinner, yet he didn't eat meat until he was 6. Trevor has texture issues. Pasta will not enter his mouth. He gags. I am not going to force him to eat it. Trevor has never had a bowl of cereal. He has no idea what a Cheerio tastes like and that's ok. He stopped drinking milk at 3 when we bought a water cooler for the fridge. He has convinced himself that he hates milk, even though it was his favorite until the water purifier entered the house. We give him calcium fortified waffles, grilled cheese with American cheese, eggs with milk snuck in and lots of cheapo ice cream (higher calcium content--think Shaw's brand or Hood--the Dr. told me the cheaper the brand the more calcium he'll get). I just work with their diets rather than fight with them over it.
I was watching the Super Nanny on ABC the other night. She had the mother leave her child at the dinner table for 2 hours because she wouldn't eat her carrots. She was 5. The poor thing cried for 2 hours and finally fell asleep at the table. To me that was a form of cruel punishment. They made food a battle. A senseless battle. I couldn't even watch it. To me it was nothing more than a power struggle and really why is it so important for the parent to win at this stage of the game? No, 3, 4 or 5 yr old is going to be forced to eat anything they don't want to. An adult wouldn't be forced to eat something they don't like so why do parents feel the need to inflict this upon their children?
Yes, you can say because a child doesn't know better. You can say that a child doesn't know what a well balanced meal is. You can also say that they need their vitamins. Ok, I am all on board for this but in the grand scheme of things you aren't going to feed them junk constantly and as a parent you know how to get those nutrients into them without it being a huge battle and without them knowing (hence the milk in the eggs or pancakes that I make from scratch etc).
Think about it.......how many children have starved themselves to death? A child will eat when a child is hungry. They are going to cry and get grumpy before they starve themselves to death. I have yet to meet a child that will eat everything that is placed before them. Children are just little people. They have likes and dislikes. They have good days and bad days. They don't like a variety of foods and that is ok. It's really ok.
What most parents don't think about is the big picture. These kids are not going to be like this forever. Eventually, their palettes will expand. They will eat more. Here is an example. Faith ate everything until she was 3. Everything. She was my best eater. At 3 she decided that she didn't want to eat anything but Kix cereal. She ate it 3 meals a day. It's loaded in vitamins and she has it with milk. I let her have it. I always had a supply of Kix on hand. It's all she ate for months at meal time. Now, she loves fruit. So she was alway offered strawberries, grapes, blueberries etc. She devoured them. She was given spoonfuls of peanut butter for protein and eggs if she would take them. She went on like this for about 2 years. Then she decided she didn't like Kix anymore and wanted Cheerios. They replaced the Kix overnight. I let her have them. She's been on a Cheerio kick for about a year now. She eats them for breakfast, she takes them to school for lunch and for a while she was having them at dinner.....along with fruit or yogurt at every meal.
Now she is 6. I have found this to be the turning point age. This is the age where they get daring again. They want more of a variety like everyone else. She has now taken to loving cheeseburgers (after one try), tacos, steak and more. She has even tried fish (that my mom brought over to cook) and she has discovered that ice cream is really so much better in flavors other than vanilla! I knew she would hit this point. It was just a matter of patience. She wasn't going to live on Cheerios forever.
My final solidify it, know that I am doing it right moment came the other night. She asked for salad. Yes, green leafy vegetables. The ones I never forced on her. She asked for them all on her own!!!! Granted she didn't eat the entire bowl but she ate some and that's a start.
See this is how I see it. It becomes a game. It's a battle of the wills. What my children don't know is I will win this game every single time! Because food is just too good to be that picky forever. So the next time you have a child whine and complain that they don't like it......go with the flow. Offer them something they do. I promise you in a few short years time it just will not be an issue anymore. TRUST ME! I have won this game FIVE times! :)
Maybe I could teach the Super Nanny a thing or two ;)
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