but you can’t make it drink. Or maybe that should read: you can lead a nine year old to the dinner table but you can’t make it eat.
We went to dinner this evening at mother in laws place, with sister in law, her husband and her three kids [nine year old, and two year old twins – all boys!].
Complete chaos and extremely noisy but nothing new there. It depends what mood we’re in as to whether we can handle it, or whether it drives us crazy. Tonight was fairly reasonable, we managed to stick it out for nearly 3 hours which is good going.
Anyway, I digress. The nine year old is a reeeeaaaaaalllllly fussy eater. I’ve known him since he was nearly 2 and he pretty much always has been. He was an only child until he was 7 so maybe he was allowed to get away with it for too long. Plus, when the twins came along I think it just became important for him to eat, no matter what it was.
He seems to only eat pizza, tinned pasta and ham or chocolate spread sandwiches. I’m sure he has a greater repertoire than just these but it’s all I seem to witness.
As a family we’re all trying to say that if he wants to be good at sport [which he does] he needs food for energy. This hopefully changes it from nagging to something he needs for himself. He agrees in principle but then can’t quite bring himself to follow through.
Having witnessed his behaviour, and the shouting/crying it generates, we’ve always insisted Peanut eats what we’re eating. If we’re all eating at the same time, and especially when we’re somewhere else, Peanut has what we have. I’ve never fussed over and given her something different. And even so I still think she’s a bit fussy; or perhaps manipulative so she can eat rubbish!
Maybe he needs to realise that dinner is his only choice? That if he doesn’t eat his dinner he actually will be hungry. But there’s the dilemma: do you want him to eat ‘something’ now or do you want him to eat ‘good’ always?
Just before we headed home he was eating pitta bread, just so that he ate ‘something’.
Kids!
Saturday 9 February 2008
You can lead a horse to water
2 comments:
Picky eating is a tough business. Trust me, I know from experience. The Princess eats very little - largely bread, cheese, and fruit. No meat, no veggies (not for lack of trying on my part). The biggest problem that we've had is that if we tell her "eat this or nothing", she'll eat nothing and then wake up crying and hungry in the middle of the night. It's a huge pain. We're still working on it. I wish your nephew's family good luck dealing with him. Hopefully he'll come around soon.
I'm a huge believer of eating what the family is eating WITH the family. The only exception I make is that I offer the girls pureed veggies instead of whole - for some reason they won't eat whole veg and I want them to have those vitamins.
That said, I really do menu plan around what they like. My twins won't eat red meat - they hoover down beans and chicken and I think that's a very healthy outlook for 2 year olds so I go with it.
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