Picky eaters at friends houses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My cousin was an extremely picking eater from basically birth through the age of 18. It was mostly a control thing. She is extremely Type A, over-achiever, perfectionist, etc. She would basically eat ketchup sandwiches (I'm serious).

Guess what magically cured her? Going away from home to the Naval Academy. Pretty much "cured" overnight, because she couldn't pull her stunts and force the issue with the commanding officers. Do you think they coddle picky eaters in the plebe mess hall? LOL.

Anyway, she grew up pretty fast, once ketchup sandwiches and buttered noodles weren't an option. It was eat or starve, and she couldn't afford to starve with the rigorous academics and athletic regimen.

She travels all over the world now, and eats a variety of foods. The first time she was invited to an officer's home for dinner, guess what was served? Tuna casserole.

Glad she grew up.

Yep. These people bringing buttered noodles for their kids are not helping. I'm find with feeding your kids after you get home, or AFTER they try the new foods, but...there is no incentive to try something new if you are going to pull out buttered noodles everywhere you go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I’m getting from this is

If:

1) Your friends don’t warn you in advance of serious pickiness and

2) You make a meal that includes lots of things that almost everyone likes (at LEAST one or two of the things) and

3) You don’t keep certain other foods at the house “just in case”

Then

4) You are a bad host

No. You are a bad host if you don’t care about the comfort and preference of your guests, who are presumably known to you.

If these are total strangers who just drop in with no warning, what can you do? Certainly a good host doesn’t mean you need to have all foods for all tastes all the time.

But if you have good friends over for dinner and you are aware of certain food needs, a good host would try to accommodate.

A good host cares about the comfort of ALL the guests, not just some of the guests.

Of course, but then we're in agreement. I mean, I think we mostly are. Where I may quibble is that I don't believe that being friends with someone-- even good friends!-- means you are automatically aware of all "certain food needs" for every member of their family. And even if you ask, they may be sort of clueless or obtuse about it. Lots of parents seem to think however their kid does things is within the fat part of the bell curve, even when it's not.

Like I said upthread, I have a friend (very close friend of my husband's) whose kids we knew were "picky," so we did ask what they'd eat, were told no more than that they weren't too adventurous, so we got rotisserie chicken with fries and rice and they wouldn't eat any of it at all. And the next time we invited them over, asked VERY SPECIFICALLY what they'd eat, were told "oh, you know-- rotisserie chicken or something simple like that is fine."

I just don't see it as this black and white thing, where Friends = Know Every Single Dietary Predilection of Every Family Member and the only case in which you wouldn't have a complete inventory of their needs and preferences would be when your guests were strangers off the street who barged in with no warning.

Again, I make all kinds of concessions, and I ask everyone for dietary restrictions before feeding them, every time! I often let them know the approximate menu in advance, to get their yea or nay (for example, friends with kids who have something like acid reflux-- I don't always remember what is okay and what is not). But sometimes even when you ask people, they say, "No, no dietary restrictions." And in some of those cases it's because they think eating a grand total of 20 or 30 foods is normal and that should go without saying, or whatever. And like... I can be sure to serve things that even most kids would like, but I can't read minds.

I care a lot about what others think of me, and bend over backwards, but if someone wants to call me a bad host after all of that, I have to accept it just can't be helped.

[Anonymous]

My oldest daughter can be a bit picky. We were recently visiting a sick relative, with lots of ILs. The sick relative thought Vietnamese sounded good.

I pulled my daughter aside and told her I'm going to feed you a granola bar now. When the food gets here, I'm going to put some on your plate. You can push it around and not eat much, but I do expect you to sit here politely, and I do expect you to try at least three bites of chicken and three bites of vegetables. If you do that, I'll get you some different food later.

I explained to her that this is one meal, and the important thing is that Great Aunt Sue is sick and not eating much; this food sounds good to her, so we're going to eat it and make this a pleasant meal.

My 6.5 year old handled it. Without fuss, without making it a big deal, without me fussing around the kitchen and finding something else. We ate a bit more at the hotel later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My oldest daughter can be a bit picky. We were recently visiting a sick relative, with lots of ILs. The sick relative thought Vietnamese sounded good.

I pulled my daughter aside and told her I'm going to feed you a granola bar now. When the food gets here, I'm going to put some on your plate. You can push it around and not eat much, but I do expect you to sit here politely, and I do expect you to try at least three bites of chicken and three bites of vegetables. If you do that, I'll get you some different food later.

I explained to her that this is one meal, and the important thing is that Great Aunt Sue is sick and not eating much; this food sounds good to her, so we're going to eat it and make this a pleasant meal.

My 6.5 year old handled it. Without fuss, without making it a big deal, without me fussing around the kitchen and finding something else. We ate a bit more at the hotel later.

This^^^ is how you handle this situation! Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My oldest daughter can be a bit picky. We were recently visiting a sick relative, with lots of ILs. The sick relative thought Vietnamese sounded good.

I pulled my daughter aside and told her I'm going to feed you a granola bar now. When the food gets here, I'm going to put some on your plate. You can push it around and not eat much, but I do expect you to sit here politely, and I do expect you to try at least three bites of chicken and three bites of vegetables. If you do that, I'll get you some different food later.

I explained to her that this is one meal, and the important thing is that Great Aunt Sue is sick and not eating much; this food sounds good to her, so we're going to eat it and make this a pleasant meal.

My 6.5 year old handled it. Without fuss, without making it a big deal, without me fussing around the kitchen and finding something else. We ate a bit more at the hotel later.

Why not just get some plain rice or see if you can get something really simple that she will eat? Most Asian places are more flexible than American.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My cousin was an extremely picking eater from basically birth through the age of 18. It was mostly a control thing. She is extremely Type A, over-achiever, perfectionist, etc. She would basically eat ketchup sandwiches (I'm serious).

Guess what magically cured her? Going away from home to the Naval Academy. Pretty much "cured" overnight, because she couldn't pull her stunts and force the issue with the commanding officers. Do you think they coddle picky eaters in the plebe mess hall? LOL.

Anyway, she grew up pretty fast, once ketchup sandwiches and buttered noodles weren't an option. It was eat or starve, and she couldn't afford to starve with the rigorous academics and athletic regimen.

She travels all over the world now, and eats a variety of foods. The first time she was invited to an officer's home for dinner, guess what was served? Tuna casserole.

Glad she grew up.

Yep. These people bringing buttered noodles for their kids are not helping. I'm find with feeding your kids after you get home, or AFTER they try the new foods, but...there is no incentive to try something new if you are going to pull out buttered noodles everywhere you go.

My child would choose to starve over eating something they didn't want to. Made for a really difficult kid (who is normally an easy kid). Its not worth the power struggle. They will try new foods when they are ready. Mine is slowly eating more but if I get into a power struggle, I can tell you it makes things worse than better. If a kid wants buttered noodles at my house, fine. At one point I would have been thrilled with that as mine wouldn't even eat plain pasta.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My cousin was an extremely picking eater from basically birth through the age of 18. It was mostly a control thing. She is extremely Type A, over-achiever, perfectionist, etc. She would basically eat ketchup sandwiches (I'm serious).

Guess what magically cured her? Going away from home to the Naval Academy. Pretty much "cured" overnight, because she couldn't pull her stunts and force the issue with the commanding officers. Do you think they coddle picky eaters in the plebe mess hall? LOL.

Anyway, she grew up pretty fast, once ketchup sandwiches and buttered noodles weren't an option. It was eat or starve, and she couldn't afford to starve with the rigorous academics and athletic regimen.

She travels all over the world now, and eats a variety of foods. The first time she was invited to an officer's home for dinner, guess what was served? Tuna casserole.

Glad she grew up.

Yep. These people bringing buttered noodles for their kids are not helping. I'm find with feeding your kids after you get home, or AFTER they try the new foods, but...there is no incentive to try something new if you are going to pull out buttered noodles everywhere you go.

I think there is a pretty significant difference between catering to a 3 year old, and catering to an 18 year old. Per OP, there were a bunch of kids under 6 at a dinner, where the host served two things - a mushroom and veggie casserole, and a salad. To me, that's just not being a good host.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m the child of immigrants and we ate what was served (or we didn’t eat) and so did all the other relatives I knew. But DH is not that way and it seems not a lot of people were raised that way. I’m curious to know how this works. I’m surprised to read that a medically normal 15 year old only eats about 8 foods. How do you handle normal meals or eating out? How do you grocery shop? Do you constantly cater to the pickiest eater? This drives me absolutely bonkers dealing with DH and it irks me that so many people think it is normal.

Can't speak for the 15 year old, but I have friends, where the guy has an extremely limited palate. He's in his 40s. He won't eat veggies/meat with any seasoning other than salt. And maybe butter. He only eats one kind of pizza - plain cheese, and from one brand. Their freezer is full of pizza. He once had to go to an oyster bar and eat oysters with clients. He did. Then excused himself and went to the bathroom, where he threw up. His wife and kids are vegetarian, and eat a wide variety of foods. They don't go out to eat as a family, because it is nearly impossible to cater to his needs. Or he'll eat from home before they go. I usually go out with the wife and kids, because we can go just about anywhere that way; he has no problems with that, of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When did this picky stuff become a thing? Was this a thing when you all were growing up? I don't remember it being a thing when I was growing up, we just ate what was there or went hungry and that was pretty much it. One of my grandmothers did the short order cook thing but she liked doing that for us kids and it made staying at her house fun.

+1

Personally, I think all of this is made up hype - textural this, sensory that... We've created a generation where it's ok for things to be *disgusting* and to be refused - by constantly serving instead/carrying along the *most palatable foods* (some combo of fat/sugar carbs that lights up the - goldfish, crackers, cheerios, buttered noodles, chicken tenders).

On a totally unrelated note, it seems to me that, if we've got so many kids who have sensory, add, adhd, on the spectrum, etc. issues - and it's not about parenting - I think we need to rethink what are doing environmentally that is causing such a high percentage of our population to have so many issues.

ITA

Why do so many American restaurants now have kid menus when they didn't before? Part of it is because parents only feed their kids five things that you see on the kids menus.

Kid menus are really only a thing in the US, though now we seem to be exporting that gem as well.

What are you talking about? Kid menus aren’t new. I’m 43 and ordered off kid menus growing up.
And now I eat a wide variety of foods, just to head off your next accusation.

Unless you only went to McDs, I don't recall kid menus being so ubiquitous. I'm 49, grew up in CA. And it's certainly less of a thing world wide. Do children in other countries have so many children with food aversion? Seems we have the worst of both: lots of obese children and lots of children with food aversion issues.

[Anonymous]

I’ve got one kid that eats EVERYTHING and one the older one doesn’t eat entire categories of food and generally refuses to try new things. It’s very humbling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My cousin was an extremely picking eater from basically birth through the age of 18. It was mostly a control thing. She is extremely Type A, over-achiever, perfectionist, etc. She would basically eat ketchup sandwiches (I'm serious).

Guess what magically cured her? Going away from home to the Naval Academy. Pretty much "cured" overnight, because she couldn't pull her stunts and force the issue with the commanding officers. Do you think they coddle picky eaters in the plebe mess hall? LOL.

Anyway, she grew up pretty fast, once ketchup sandwiches and buttered noodles weren't an option. It was eat or starve, and she couldn't afford to starve with the rigorous academics and athletic regimen.

She travels all over the world now, and eats a variety of foods. The first time she was invited to an officer's home for dinner, guess what was served? Tuna casserole.

Glad she grew up.

Yep. These people bringing buttered noodles for their kids are not helping. I'm find with feeding your kids after you get home, or AFTER they try the new foods, but...there is no incentive to try something new if you are going to pull out buttered noodles everywhere you go.

My child would choose to starve over eating something they didn't want to. Made for a really difficult kid (who is normally an easy kid). Its not worth the power struggle. They will try new foods when they are ready. Mine is slowly eating more but if I get into a power struggle, I can tell you it makes things worse than better. If a kid wants buttered noodles at my house, fine. At one point I would have been thrilled with that as mine wouldn't even eat plain pasta.

I'm sorry, but a really stubborn child will fight you on almost everything. Do you give into everything? Where's the line? If she wants to stay up till midnight, do you let her?

Do you all remember this story?

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-49551337

Eye doctors in Bristol cared for the 17-year-old after his vision had deteriorated to the point of blindness.

Since leaving primary school, the teen had been eating only French fries, Pringles and white bread, as well as an occasional slice of ham or a sausage.

Tests revealed he had severe vitamin deficiencies and malnutrition damage

"He explained this as an aversion to certain textures of food that he really could not tolerate, and so chips and crisps were really the only types of food that he wanted and felt that he could eat."

How many young American children live off of butter noodles, chicken fingers and french fries?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My cousin was an extremely picking eater from basically birth through the age of 18. It was mostly a control thing. She is extremely Type A, over-achiever, perfectionist, etc. She would basically eat ketchup sandwiches (I'm serious).

Guess what magically cured her? Going away from home to the Naval Academy. Pretty much "cured" overnight, because she couldn't pull her stunts and force the issue with the commanding officers. Do you think they coddle picky eaters in the plebe mess hall? LOL.

Anyway, she grew up pretty fast, once ketchup sandwiches and buttered noodles weren't an option. It was eat or starve, and she couldn't afford to starve with the rigorous academics and athletic regimen.

She travels all over the world now, and eats a variety of foods. The first time she was invited to an officer's home for dinner, guess what was served? Tuna casserole.

Glad she grew up.

Yep. These people bringing buttered noodles for their kids are not helping. I'm find with feeding your kids after you get home, or AFTER they try the new foods, but...there is no incentive to try something new if you are going to pull out buttered noodles everywhere you go.

I think there is a pretty significant difference between catering to a 3 year old, and catering to an 18 year old. Per OP, there were a bunch of kids under 6 at a dinner, where the host served two things - a mushroom and veggie casserole, and a salad. To me, that's just not being a good host.

I agree - but I would have fed my kid after we left. I am not taking food to anyone’s house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My cousin was an extremely picking eater from basically birth through the age of 18. It was mostly a control thing. She is extremely Type A, over-achiever, perfectionist, etc. She would basically eat ketchup sandwiches (I'm serious).

Guess what magically cured her? Going away from home to the Naval Academy. Pretty much "cured" overnight, because she couldn't pull her stunts and force the issue with the commanding officers. Do you think they coddle picky eaters in the plebe mess hall? LOL.

Anyway, she grew up pretty fast, once ketchup sandwiches and buttered noodles weren't an option. It was eat or starve, and she couldn't afford to starve with the rigorous academics and athletic regimen.

She travels all over the world now, and eats a variety of foods. The first time she was invited to an officer's home for dinner, guess what was served? Tuna casserole.

Glad she grew up.

Yep. These people bringing buttered noodles for their kids are not helping. I'm find with feeding your kids after you get home, or AFTER they try the new foods, but...there is no incentive to try something new if you are going to pull out buttered noodles everywhere you go.

I think there is a pretty significant difference between catering to a 3 year old, and catering to an 18 year old. Per OP, there were a bunch of kids under 6 at a dinner, where the host served two things - a mushroom and veggie casserole, and a salad. To me, that's just not being a good host.

I agree - but I would have fed my kid after we left. I am not taking food to anyone’s house.

That really depends on a lot of factors, such as the length of time the child has gone without eating, how frequently the child needs to eat, how long you're expected to be there, etc. wouldn't it? I mean, if we're strictly going for dinner and leaving right after, it might not be a big deal, but if you go early so the kids can play, and stay a little later to help clean up and hang out, it might be several hours beyond your average toddler's tolerance for starving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My cousin was an extremely picking eater from basically birth through the age of 18. It was mostly a control thing. She is extremely Type A, over-achiever, perfectionist, etc. She would basically eat ketchup sandwiches (I'm serious).

Guess what magically cured her? Going away from home to the Naval Academy. Pretty much "cured" overnight, because she couldn't pull her stunts and force the issue with the commanding officers. Do you think they coddle picky eaters in the plebe mess hall? LOL.

Anyway, she grew up pretty fast, once ketchup sandwiches and buttered noodles weren't an option. It was eat or starve, and she couldn't afford to starve with the rigorous academics and athletic regimen.

She travels all over the world now, and eats a variety of foods. The first time she was invited to an officer's home for dinner, guess what was served? Tuna casserole.

Glad she grew up.

Yep. These people bringing buttered noodles for their kids are not helping. I'm find with feeding your kids after you get home, or AFTER they try the new foods, but...there is no incentive to try something new if you are going to pull out buttered noodles everywhere you go.

I think there is a pretty significant difference between catering to a 3 year old, and catering to an 18 year old. Per OP, there were a bunch of kids under 6 at a dinner, where the host served two things - a mushroom and veggie casserole, and a salad. To me, that's just not being a good host.

NP. The difference: the 3 year old is cute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I’m getting from this is

If:

1) Your friends don’t warn you in advance of serious pickiness and

2) You make a meal that includes lots of things that almost everyone likes (at LEAST one or two of the things) and

3) You don’t keep certain other foods at the house “just in case”

Then

4) You are a bad host

No. You are a bad host if you don’t care about the comfort and preference of your guests, who are presumably known to you.

If these are total strangers who just drop in with no warning, what can you do? Certainly a good host doesn’t mean you need to have all foods for all tastes all the time.

But if you have good friends over for dinner and you are aware of certain food needs, a good host would try to accommodate.

A good host cares about the comfort of ALL the guests, not just some of the guests.

Of course, but then we're in agreement. I mean, I think we mostly are. Where I may quibble is that I don't believe that being friends with someone-- even good friends!-- means you are automatically aware of all "certain food needs" for every member of their family. And even if you ask, they may be sort of clueless or obtuse about it. Lots of parents seem to think however their kid does things is within the fat part of the bell curve, even when it's not.

Like I said upthread, I have a friend (very close friend of my husband's) whose kids we knew were "picky," so we did ask what they'd eat, were told no more than that they weren't too adventurous, so we got rotisserie chicken with fries and rice and they wouldn't eat any of it at all. And the next time we invited them over, asked VERY SPECIFICALLY what they'd eat, were told "oh, you know-- rotisserie chicken or something simple like that is fine."

I just don't see it as this black and white thing, where Friends = Know Every Single Dietary Predilection of Every Family Member and the only case in which you wouldn't have a complete inventory of their needs and preferences would be when your guests were strangers off the street who barged in with no warning.

Again, I make all kinds of concessions, and I ask everyone for dietary restrictions before feeding them, every time! I often let them know the approximate menu in advance, to get their yea or nay (for example, friends with kids who have something like acid reflux-- I don't always remember what is okay and what is not). But sometimes even when you ask people, they say, "No, no dietary restrictions." And in some of those cases it's because they think eating a grand total of 20 or 30 foods is normal and that should go without saying, or whatever. And like... I can be sure to serve things that even most kids would like, but I can't read minds.

I care a lot about what others think of me, and bend over backwards, but if someone wants to call me a bad host after all of that, I have to accept it just can't be helped.

Sure if people aren't going to tell you what their kid will reliably eat... it's not being a bad host to fail to feed the child.

This has not been my experience with severe picky eaters. I have hosted a few and their parents are usually able to tell me exactly what brand or style of (usually packaged) food their child will eat. For me it is no problem to have that food on hand if I know the child will be at our house for a meal.

The rotisserie chicken story -- I am familiar with that level of pickiness. I have a severe picky eater for many years, and he would eat rotisserie chicken and rice and beans, but just from ONE restaurant (not a chain -- from one specific restaurant)-- and not rotisserie chicken from Giant, not rotisserie chicken from Costco, not rice and beans from a taco place. ONE restaurant. I would NEVER have expected our friends to provide that particular menu item for him, though.