Picky eaters at friends houses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the sake of this thread, can we assume your daughter in NT and within the typical range of picky?

I'm a huge Ellyn Satter fan, but I'm also not an asshole, and I would NEVER shame someone for bringing some food for their kid to my house for dinner, let alone permanently uninvite them in the future. That's just bizarre.

That said, I also wouldn't have brought the extra food. I would have fed a late, large snack, an supplemented later when we got home if needed.

This sums it up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We did. She hates rice.

End of the day, she ate a few bites, no one noticed, we ate later and didn’t inconvenience anyone. Because it wasn’t about us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We did. She hates rice.

End of the day, she ate a few bites, no one noticed, we ate later and didn’t inconvenience anyone. Because it wasn’t about us.

This is great and a perfectly reasonable way to handle that situation. Shows good parenting that she can understand the situation and work with you.

[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.

If I do not bring something for DC, then often the hostess make s fuss over what else can she offer...DC really does not care and just wants to be left alone. He would be fine eating another time but often hostesses get upset with that. If I can plop a pbj on his plate...all set!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We did. She hates rice.

End of the day, she ate a few bites, no one noticed, we ate later and didn’t inconvenience anyone. Because it wasn’t about us.

This is great and a perfectly reasonable way to handle that situation. Shows good parenting that she can understand the situation and work with you.

+1. This is how it is done. Ninety percent of the time, it is about your nuclear family when it can new to meals. Ten percent, exactly; it’s not about you, find a way to deal.

[Anonymous]

^^This! It is not always about you or your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We did. She hates rice.

End of the day, she ate a few bites, no one noticed, we ate later and didn’t inconvenience anyone. Because it wasn’t about us.

This is great and a perfectly reasonable way to handle that situation. Shows good parenting that she can understand the situation and work with you.

+1. This is how it is done. Ninety percent of the time, it is about your nuclear family when it can new to meals. Ten percent, exactly; it’s not about you, find a way to deal.

I think this is perfectly handled for this situation. But for a friend's dinner party? While it would work and be very gracious... my friends and I get together with our families to enjoy each other's company. We'd be more upset to run out of wine (obvious joke) then if someone had buttered noodles in their purse. Whatever makes it more enjoyable for all those involved. Unless it is an event like the PP mentioned, I'm not being invited to a formal dinner party with my 3-year old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is wonderful, well done. Also though, a 6.5 year old is a world of difference in ability to do this than a 3 year old. Heck, a lot of perfectly normal 6.5 year olds wouldn't be able to do this quietly and unobtrusively, and that ability is not necessarily about how the kid is parented.

We did. She hates rice.

End of the day, she ate a few bites, no one noticed, we ate later and didn’t inconvenience anyone. Because it wasn’t about us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is wonderful, well done. Also though, a 6.5 year old is a world of difference in ability to do this than a 3 year old. Heck, a lot of perfectly normal 6.5 year olds wouldn't be able to do this quietly and unobtrusively, and that ability is not necessarily about how the kid is parented.

We did. She hates rice.

End of the day, she ate a few bites, no one noticed, we ate later and didn’t inconvenience anyone. Because it wasn’t about us.

I never said otherwise.

(Responding to buried comme y about her being 6.5, not 3.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Celebrate you will no longer have to put up with that craziness. I am married to a picky eater. He would not have eaten the vegetable casserole either. But here is the issue we run into. My DH would also be perfectly content to sit at the table and talk to everyone else while they ate. This is also never "allowed" by a host. The host will always make a big deal about finding something for him to eat. This will of course embarrass my dh which means the next time there is an event he will not want to go. I don't do the short order cook thing for our family but I will always make sure there are "plain" options. So if we are having pasta the sauce is on the side. We will have a roast with vegetables but not a stew where everything is mixed together. Casseroles will not happen ever. Your friend is crazy to make a casserole as the main dish and expect everyone to eat it.

His rudeness is so over the top that they don’t know how to respond. There’s simply no manual for the right way to handle it when you invite adults over and a child and his enabling Mummy show up.

[Anonymous]

Someone so offended by the appearance of buttered noodles at their dinner table has an ego problem.

Ellen Satter doesn’t work for everyone. My picky DD ended up on an all carb diet. Or she would just starve until crappy snacks were offered somewhere and then she’d go wild. In my house, you don’t get to choose to eat unbalanced meals all the time.

I was super picky as a child and I remember the absolute disgust I felt at most foods. I truly hated most food until I was a teen and started doing sports for several hours a day and worked up a huge appetite. Even then I was still picky but actually wanted to eat meals. I gradually tried more and more foods in my 20s and eat pretty much everything now. Picky kids aren’t necessarily picky adults.

[Anonymous]

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.

We didn’t have “one bite to be polite,” we had “sit there until your plate is clean.” I sat at the table all night several times (pickles, carrots, turnip greens, dry meat), sleeping there, before going to school the next day. My sister did the same on other occasions (Swiss chard, turnip/beet/other greens, fatty meat). The two of us sat at the table together an entire weekend because we couldn’t choke down the oatmeal (we both tried, gagged, threw up and our mother didn’t budge).

We both have major issues with food. Both of us also have had a hard time retracting our bodies what hunger and satiety feel like, because we ate on a schedule even when we weren’t hungry, and we had to finish before we could leave the table, even if we were full.

I’ll take kids’ pickiness now, thanks.

[Anonymous]

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.

My sister is 33, still gags and vomits if her meat is too fatty. I’m 34, with enlarged tonsils; meat that is overdone and too dry gets caught in my throat. Neither of us has ever been able to gag down our grandmother’s wallpaper paste (aka oatmeal).

It’s not new. It’s just more widely discussed.

[Anonymous]

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.

My sister is 33, still gags and vomits if her meat is too fatty. I’m 34, with enlarged tonsils; meat that is overdone and too dry gets caught in my throat. Neither of us has ever been able to gag down our grandmother’s wallpaper paste (aka oatmeal).

It’s not new. It’s just more widely discussed.

If it's that bad, it's a medical condition. For the lack of a better term at the moment, a "special need." No one is talking about SN or medical conditions. We're talking garden-variety pickiness and parents who coddle to pickies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
If it's that bad, it's a medical condition. For the lack of a better term at the moment, a "special need." No one is talking about SN or medical conditions. We're talking garden-variety pickiness and parents who coddle to pickies.

Not all of us are talking about "garden variety pickiness". Some of us are talking about severe selective eaters who do have a medical problem. You don't have any way of knowing from the outside what the issue is.