kadesma:
I love hearing about your experiences with your grandchildren! And I truly appreciate your advice. My mom passed away in 2007. I don't have her to turn to. (And with food, my friends and relatives just let their kids eat whatever they want so I can't really seek their advice!)
I have seen so many bad examples of parenting over the years. I am trying so hard to do all the right things: my children always say please and thank you, they always ask if they may be excused from the table, etc. If they walk in front of somebody in the store (mainly because they aren't paying attention to what they are doing), I make them stop, turn around and say, "Excuse me please." (That's how they learn!!)
With food, I tried to make the right decisions. I didn't push sweet foods on them as babies ("dessert baby food", ice cream, sweet cookies, cake, donuts). They have their whole life for that. To them, a fresh fruit salad is a huge treat! They love it. The non-picky-eater daughter does like chocolate and I let her have some chocolate covered pretzels or chocolate covered raisins occasionally. (She didn't even taste chocolate until she was 2.5 years old.) I make cupcakes as a treat once in a while (every three or four months). We have a few Dunkin Munchkins once in a while - only after a healthy breakfast (usually just when on vacation).
I encouraged veggies and fruits and didn't give them deli meat or hotdogs. I have friends whose kids will only eat hotdogs, boxed mac & cheese, french fries and junk food. The parents tell me, "Johnny will only drink soda!" Really? Why does Johnny (age 4) even know what soda tastes like?! I had a friend whose child would eat only McDonalds french fries. So they would pick up a bag of fries whenever they went anywhere for dinner and bring along fries for the child. Kids LEARN those habits from their parents.
I can handle every other aspect of parenting. My kids are polite. They help clean the table. They have "responsibility charts" and daily chores. They make messes, but they help clean them up, too. They very rarely throw fits or refuse to do things we tell them to do...they know who is in charge.
We take a very non-nonsense approach with them. But I really struggle with demanding that my daughter try things. She cries and cries. We insist and she'll eventually try it, but it makes dinner very trumatic....and she usually ends up with a negative opinion of the food because of the stressful situation. My other daughter ends up in tears because she gets so upset from listening to an hour of crying during the meal.
"Tricks" work on my other daughter!! Sometimes she'll say she doesn't want something simply to raise some controversy. She'll say she doesn't want to eat something that I made for her. Without missing a beat, I'll just say, "Oh great. I'm starving!" I pick up the plate and start to walk away and she'll cry and say she wants it.
Or if she won't eat something on her plate, I say, "Okay, I'll eat it" and I get a spoon and start reaching for it. She immediately starts to eat it. Works like a charm.
The other one couldn't care less!! Sometimes I'll put food in front of her and she won't even take one bite. She'll just say, "I'm all done, Mommy." I could clear her plate and she'll leave the table (or sit there until we are finished if I tell her she has to)...she doesn't care that she didn't eat. The next morning, she eats enough to feed a football team though. She just doesn't care.
My boss (he is in his 50s and has a college-aged daughter) told me to just keep serving food she won't try. She'll eventually eat something. For instance, serve steak and baked potatoes for dinner (she won't taste either one), then serve eggs and oatmeal for breakfast (she won't taste those either), then a burger for lunch (she stopped eating those about 8 months ago)....he said she'll have to eat something. He said is daughter would never eat hambugers until they went someplace once that only served hamburgers. She was starving so she ate one...and continued to eat them since.
Your comment was interesting: "one rule, what you take you must eat and seconds are allowed if each thing is tasted". I never thought of that!!
The doctor said to just make sure there is always at least one thing on their plates that they like. My concern with that is that my daughter won't feel the need to try anything if there is always something she likes. If I serve pasta, chicken and broccoli for dinner, my daughter will eat the pasta and broccoli and ignore the chicken. She'll keep eating seconds of the pasta and broccoli until she is full. So how will she ever develop a taste for "new things" if she won't taste them and she has the option to fill up on foods that she likes?! I love your idea!
So if I give her one serving of each thing and then she eats the ones she likes and refuses to taste the meat (or whatever), I'll tell her she has to try the one thing before she has seconds of the others. But what do you think I should do if she cries repeatedly at the table and refuses to try it? Should I end the meal and ask her to leave the table (rather than allow her to make the meal unpleasant for the whole family)?
