my kids won't eat

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?"