Alternatives

[lillibet]

I'm curious what other parents think of this post. Our solution has been that Alice doesn't have to eat what she doesn't like at dinner and then she has a before-bed snack of yogurt mixed with oatmeal and fruit, so she won't go to bed hungry, which drastically affects the ease of bedtime. And, mostly Alice will find something on her dinner plate to eat if she's hungry and if it's not a hungry day, very little is acceptable. And she does eat so many things that it hasn't been a big deal. But forewarned is half the octopus, so I think about strategies.

I understand the theory behind what these folks are trying, but in the family I know who did this, the alternative was for the kids to nuke themselves a hot dog and the outcome was two teenagers who really didn't eat anything but hotdogs.

Comments

[minkrose]

Sometimes I think I was a picky eater because my parents had no idea how to encourage me. They treated it like a Problem and I saw dietitians... they never forced me to do anything, but my mom doesn't like adventuresome food and therefore did not make any for us. My back-up food, for years, was Gerber's meat sticks but then I got "too old" and eventually I stopped eating meat things all together because the texture grossed me out (until I was much older - now I'm fine).

Now, Andy makes all kinds of foods and I try them because I trust him when he says I'll like it. Now, I eat things my mom won't touch. I wish she'd thought to branch out and make foods she didn't like when I was a kid. I could have been eating asparagus the whole time! I ended up making most of my own food at the time, so at least I learned some cooking skills, but I was mostly making the same thing over and over (pasta) and I really could have learned more.

But, my mom didn't want to have kids until she met my dad and he was committed to doing that. I don't think she really had a Kids Plan. In my case, I have ALWAYS wanted kids and I pay attention to what everyone says about it, and I try to remember how I felt as a kid so I can do better. I think she did the best she could, and she's definitely getting more adventurous now (good for her!). And I'm making up for lost food-time now, too.