A dining disaster

[elfs]

Well, dinner wasn't a complete disaster. I tried to cook Lemon and Thyme Lamb Chops with Spinach and Sweet Corn Mashed Potatoes, but the girls wouldn't eat either. I don't like corn! I don't like meat! And I hate anything green stuff!" Kouryou-chan insisted. Yamaarashi-chan just held her silence, ate the lamb, and left the veggies and starch untouched. Ah, well. It was a nice combo too; wish I'd had some mint jelly to go with it.

Grr. There has to be a way to get more into these girls than mere hot dogs and spaghetti.

Comments

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

Well, there's always the "This is what we're having for dinner, and the kitchen's closed" approach. And there's the "You have to eat ONE bite of everything" approach in combination with the above. I'm told (by an experienced parent) that they work well.

[moofinator.livejournal.com]

Those never worked on me. I was too smart, and knew that my parents loved me too much. They'd just make me a bigger breakfast when I asked them nicely in the morning. ;)

Some people say that if you change a cat's cat food too often it can become finicky. In this respect, pets are like children. But if you perservere, I'm sure they'll realize how yummy mashed potatoes are.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

I use riverheart's method, with the proviso that I will pretty much always add fruit or vegetables when requested.

The other rule is "if you don't like it, don't eat it, but don't *talk* about it, that's not polite," because it used to drive me crazy that her dad always griped about what I cooked.

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

Having grown up overseas I was very open to new food ideas. (To this day my favorite dish is something that looks like it came out of a Lovecraft book....It's called Puntaitas (sp?) and is little bably octopi stewed in their own ink. (Aka Cthulian delight))

I think what did it most was being forced to cook for myself when I was 10 and encouraged to experiment.

FoodTV is a wonderful thing.

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

So unpon further thought....make your kids cook and surrpticously remove some of the ingredients for less good meals.

No-frozen burger patties or cheap hotdogs, No freezer pizza, etc. However, keep on hand some of the instant pizza crusts (like boboli), ground meat, bratwurst, etc and allow them to "make" pizza, fresh hamburgers, etc.

Pickup some of the recipe books that have nice color photos (used bookstores & such are great for that) and flip through them and ask the kids to pick something.

I know your dealing with younger kids, but if you get them interested in good food now (and for their own enjoyment) it will stay with them their entire lives. As the sooner you can get them cooking themselves the better (as soon as it's safe to let them use knives and the stove). (For me that was when I was 10.)

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen "baby octopus salad" at fancy delis. The first time I saw it, I immediately thought of the 1980s toys, "Wacky Wallwalkers". Little fluorescent-colored octopuses ...

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[mothball-07.livejournal.com]

I had good luck with approaches that involved their control. For example, I introduced california rolls when Stone was about 3 - complete with little menu cards for he and his halfsister(then 8) to fill out. They both adored them because they got to check off what they wanted in THEIR roll.

Anything he helps cook is more popular too. Though that approach seems to work less well with Joy. She helped make english mufin pizzas tonight and then turned her nose up. What kid doesn't like those?!

But, as someone said, she's firmly in the "don't mix the food" phase. I hear it's evolutionary - keeps them from eating what all and dying. Dunno if I buy that, but she did pick off one thing at a time to nibble.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Spaghetti isn't a disaster. There's the whole range of pasta dishes, and different sauces, not just the stuff out of a can.

Other than that reminder, no solutions to suggest...

[fallenpegasus]

It looked like it was going to be good, I'm sorry that it worked out that omahas and I had other dinner plans.

Food

[(Anonymous)]

Grr. There has to be a way to get more into these girls than mere hot dogs and spaghetti.

My niece and nephew were the same way; my sister was happy to get them to eat ANYTHING. They've just started university and turned out fine - nephew is slender but well proportioned and can hold his own in his PT job as an Electrician's Assistant. Niece EJ has always been, uh, plump but here health issues (suspected rheumatoid arthritis) have nothing to with past nutrition.

My sister's experience raising her kids has been that they're pretty indestructible. And I didn't like veggies either and I'm only half crazy.....

Aaron Eton
aaron-eton@swbell.net

[omahas.livejournal.com]

Kouryou-chan adores "noodles and sauce" and "pillows and sauce" as she calls spaghetti and ravioli. Yamarrashi-chan loves them too, but Kouryou will demand them all of the time. And this is home-made sauce too.

Yamarrashi went through a phase where she wouldn't eat most everything on her plate, and Kouryou is just going through that phase as well. Yamarrashi-chan is now willing to try most things that we give her (she still has an emotional issue with cheese for some reason) and further doesn't need food "hidden" in other foods like Kouryou-chan does (for example, chopping chicken up and mixing it with buttered noodles to get her to eat the chicken does very well for Kouryou).

We've started the kids on doing a little cooking, but it's an every once in a while affair. Maybe we should increase this to a once a week kind of thing? We've started including them in choosing one menu item a week for the dinner menus we set up at the beginning of the week (so we can buy weekly groceries), but maybe they should also be involved in cooking that item too. Or maybe another item, for variety?

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

You know, I think you do an excellent job with the girls, but sometimes I do wonder that you fret over their eating habits a bit much. When my children were similar ages, I had the following overarching guidelines:

1. Pick your battles carefully. Of all the things you can possibly struggle with children over, food is one of the less important. Childhood struggles over food can create lifelong issues in adults.

2. Model the behavior you want to encourage, rather than demanding the behavior.

3. Don't reward behavior you don't want to encourage by giving it attention.

In my household, this meant I didn't give attention to food struggles. Sometimes I made food the children liked, and sometimes I didn't. When they ate the food, that was great. When they didn't like what was served, they did not have to eat it, but would have to wait until after everyone else had eaten, when an adult would make them the "backup food", which was peanut butter and jelly. I *never* had "you will eat X" arguments. I never demanded children just taste a food. Just about the only big accommodation I made was that my daughter liked cheese a great deal, and would eat almost anything if we put some finely grated cheese on it. I kept a package of finely shredded cheddar and would just throw a little of that on whatever was on her plate sometimes.

There were people who really had a problem with this. One time, we were visiting close friends and their parents were there. The meal was a hybrid American/Korean style, because the family had lived in Korea for many years. Both my children would not touch *anything*. They quietly asked to be excused, with the expectation that later in the evening, they could have sandwiches. The parents of my friends freaked out completely, and were very upset that I did not demand the children at least try the foods, that I did not make them sit there with us, etc.

At this point, my younger child, who was *exceedingly* picky about foods as a small child, is known in our house as the Culinarily Adventurous Child. She will try just about any food once, and enjoys things that I won't eat myself. She does have some things she really doesn't care for (like vinegar, or cooked spinach) but she is mostly very comfortable with a lot of things.

I think the biggest thing is to not turn food into a control issue. When you struggle with your children about food, that's exactly what happens. You want X, they don't, and you tug back and forth about it. The biggest positive step you can take is to Drop the Rope and refuse to take part in the struggle. Ultimately, these food things *do* pretty much turn out to be phases, though may go on for a long time.

(Oh, yeah, and don't forget that foods don't taste the same to children as they do to you, because of differing tastebud issues.)

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Ohmigod, ELF! You were listening to Girls with Guns? Just that cut, or do you do the whole album?

I less than three Tommy Shaw, y'know...