my kids won't eat

tegalicious

Don't mess up a child's innate ability to regulate their eating. They don't have the emotions tied to food the way we do. They only know hungry vs. not hungry. Educate yourself on what age appropriate servings are for their ages.

Don't make a child clean their plate.

Don't make food a reward or punishment. It's just food.

Serve a well balanced meal

Involve the children in menu planning and shopping

Don't force them to eat something. We all have foods we don't like, children and no different. You couldn't force me to like mushrooms no matter how hard you try.

Foods are not bad or good. Crackers are not junk, they are crackers. Carrots aren't good, they are just carrots.

I typically see parents trying to "win" the food battles. This is not a good foundation for positive food relationships for children. I can't help but wonder how many overweight MFP users were forced to clean their plates, or forced to eat foods they didn't like as kids. They won't starve to death, and will learn to like more and more foods as they grow up. Is being a picky eater really the worst thing in the world?


@ mtpkok- are the parents aware of your stance on food?

Yup . And the praise me for it.

The_Angry_Fish_Guy

They get hungry enough they will. FACT.

tegalicious

Don't mess up a child's innate ability to regulate their eating. They don't have the emotions tied to food the way we do. They only know hungry vs. not hungry. Educate yourself on what age appropriate servings are for their ages.

Don't make a child clean their plate.

Don't make food a reward or punishment. It's just food.

Serve a well balanced meal

Involve the children in menu planning and shopping

Don't force them to eat something. We all have foods we don't like, children and no different. You couldn't force me to like mushrooms no matter how hard you try.

Foods are not bad or good. Crackers are not junk, they are crackers. Carrots aren't good, they are just carrots.

I typically see parents trying to "win" the food battles. This is not a good foundation for positive food relationships for children. I can't help but wonder how many overweight MFP users were forced to clean their plates, or forced to eat foods they didn't like as kids. They won't starve to death, and will learn to like more and more foods as they grow up. Is being a picky eater really the worst thing in the world?


@ mtpkok- are the parents aware of your stance on food?

And I don't force the children to do anything. They are given a plate of nutritious food and they either eat it or they don't. They get to be in control of what they choose to eat from a plate of food that I choose to make for them. I, the adult, choose to offer them nutritious foods and they, the child, make the choice to eat it or not. I don't bargain with them or make them take a bite or guilt them in any way for their choices. It's very simple. Here is what we are having to eat. If you don't want to eat that is fine. We will eat again later. And when I was referring to junk food I was referring to pop tarts and donuts and iced cookies and cupcakes are all allowed to be served in my state and many of them qualify as fruit servings . There is nothing wrong with giving these things to children if you are their parent. I am not their parents and I am not going to feed them anything like that here. I feel it is my responsibility as an educator to offer children nutritious foods while they are still developing their taste buds and their relationship with food.

wanttolose40lbs

When my kids were young, the dr told me not to make them eat, they won't let themselves starve. We seem to think we have to make our kids eat when they're not hungry and that leads to bad eating habits as adults

mamacoates

Eating or not eating, can be a very emotional issue for PARENTS. If you don't make a big deal of it, they will eat when they get hungry enough. Just make sure you have plenty of healthy choices throughout the day/week and they will eventually get all the nutrition they need.

Also be mindful that they are not filling up on empty calories elsewhere.

happysummerrunner

If it's really bad- talk to their doctor. I worked as a feeding therapist at a hospital. The saying 'a kid won't starve himself' is true a lot of the time but not all the time. If they're just picky, lots of great advice here already. Good luck.

notworthstalking

My 7 year old is a shocking eater at times. She is also on the leaner side of the scale. But the month she turned 7 something strange happened. She was constantly asking for food a sleeping through. 'Mum, why am I always hungry and tired lately?' She asked. She lost the skinny look , then one morning was a couple of inches taller. She is now better with eating , and my husband and I trust her appetite more. Her sister is 4 and eating more now she is at kindy. In saying that, the 7 year old got bad at sleeping and eating for a couple of weeks and turned out she had a throat infection. So sometimes they aren't hungry, sometimes they're sick.

GillaMahogany

I just want to throw it out there to have kids tested for allergies, especially if it's a particular food, or group of foods they won't eat. I took a lot of criticism from a lot of adults when I was kid for "not liking" peanut butter. A four year old just can't describe that the very smell of it in the room makes her sinuses swell and itch.

PennyM140

Spank them! :laugh:

Chain_Ring

Take em' to McDonalds.........no, seriously.

PennyM140

Ok, no, probably not spank them. Luckily my son is a pretty good eater. I always encourage him to try everything but if there is something he truly finds disgusting I don't force the issue.
Maybe require them to eat a small amount of something healthy before they have something they enjoy. Like you have to eat a few pieces of squash before you can have your mac n cheese??
I think repetition is important. They have to acquire a taste for things just like adults do and tastes also change over time. Good luck.

fannyfrost

My husband and his family are all very thin. His brother is 10 years younger than him and was 14 when we met. they have a sister right in the middle so she was 10. Well the parents went away for a while and the sister asked her younger brother if he wanted to eat like 10 times. He finally said "Just because you keep asking I now am not going to eat at all". Well this sentence is the most telling sentence a kid can say. If you force the issue, well they WILL not eat.

Food is the only thing children truly have control over when they are young. I mean we schedule everything else, when they get dressed, when they go out, etc. The only real control a child has till they go to school is what and when they eat. Kids will not starve themselves, but they will go without eating. My friend's daughter ate only one meal a day for years. My daughter refused to eat anything with sauce or that even looked like it had sauce, unless with friends. Anything we offered or forced her to try was gross, things friends offered were often yummy. Case in point, Chinese Dumpling "yuck those are gross" comes home from a friend's house, "what did you eat" "we had dumplings" oh did you like them, "Yes" well what about the ones we get "no those are different, I don't want those"

The more you make food an issue the more it becomes an issue. the only rule in my house was if you didn't eat a healthy dinner, especially the veggies (my daughter loved broccoli and spinach always) you couldn't have any junk later. You could have fruit or something healthy, but no ice cream or cookies. The answer when she was real little was "healthy food will make you grow big and strong, cookies, ice cream and cakes are OK but you grown big eating them" Very simple answer, kids want to be big like mommy or daddy, so healthy foods will help them get there and well she always ate a healthy diet. Not always of course and not always as much as I thought she should but I never ever made it an issue.

FYI, even without making food or body size an issue, others outside the home did and she has a complex about being skinny. I can't even. She was 12 the first time someone asked her "how do you lose weight?"