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

[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.)