Do you cook separate dinner for your kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We eat the same about 3x a week because that food is essentially boring and often fattening

Chicken/rice/veggie
Steak/potato/salad
Tacos
Etc


But I don’t really want to eat boring and fattening food all the time so I make special meals for me and my h and kids eat the basics.

Why are you feeding your kids boring, fattening foods? What do you think they're going to grow up to eat?

This is such a western thing I'll never understand.

Oh wise one give me your meal plan for the week.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes. If I REALLY want something they won't or can't eat, I'll make them mac and cheese. But it has to be something I'm dying for and wouldn't get otherwise.

[Anonymous]

I don’t cook separate meals and if they don’t like it they don’t eat. But my kids are very unpicky and have free choice of their healthy after school snack options that they like so even if they’re entire dinner consists of two bites of the meal and fruit leather for dessert, it’s not a big deal for anyone. I think it is probably different if you have a picky eater or an underweight kid or something like that. I’m just glad mine almost always like some part of the meals I make; totally not eating dinners are rare in the extreme.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big mistake to do this OP. Picky eaters are made, not born. Do not become a short order cook for your kids.

Only believed by a parent who did not actually have a picky child...

I'm a picky adult and was born this way. I was never indulged by my parents at dinner. I had to choke down what everyone else was eating. That often meant I was stuck sitting at the dinner table while everyone else had finished and left the kitchen. It meant I cried most nights. It meant I dreaded dinner. It meant I didn't eat fish as an adult for two decades because my mother INSISTED on adding lemon which I hate to fish, making me think I hated fish, until I woke up in my 40's and realized I could make it without lemon. My brother and I were served the same foods, on the same types of plates, in the same kitchen. He likes all kinds of foods, of all different levels of spiciness. My mouth and lips burns for 2-3 days if I eat eggs with a bit of pepper sprinkled in and am completely grossed out by the idea of sushi. It's just how I came out of the womb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big mistake to do this OP. Picky eaters are made, not born. Do not become a short order cook for your kids.

Only believed by a parent who did not actually have a picky child...

I'm a picky adult and was born this way. I was never indulged by my parents at dinner. I had to choke down what everyone else was eating. That often meant I was stuck sitting at the dinner table while everyone else had finished and left the kitchen. It meant I cried most nights. It meant I dreaded dinner. It meant I didn't eat fish as an adult for two decades because my mother INSISTED on adding lemon which I hate to fish, making me think I hated fish, until I woke up in my 40's and realized I could make it without lemon. My brother and I were served the same foods, on the same types of plates, in the same kitchen. He likes all kinds of foods, of all different levels of spiciness. My mouth and lips burns for 2-3 days if I eat eggs with a bit of pepper sprinkled in and am completely grossed out by the idea of sushi. It's just how I came out of the womb.

I forced my picky eater to eat fruit and found out he was allergic,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you cook separate adult and kid meals? Mine are 5 & 7. I try to make sure there is one thing at every meal they both will eat but I don’t cook them their own dinner. Sometimes that means they don’t eat much. Is this typical?

Absolutely not and I never had a picky eater. The only thing they didn't like were Lima beans until I served fresh Lima beans and they loved them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We eat the same about 3x a week because that food is essentially boring and often fattening

Chicken/rice/veggie
Steak/potato/salad
Tacos
Etc


But I don’t really want to eat boring and fattening food all the time so I make special meals for me and my h and kids eat the basics.

Why are you feeding your kids boring, fattening foods? What do you think they're going to grow up to eat?

This is such a western thing I'll never understand.

Yes, Racists and xenophobes are usually stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you cook separate adult and kid meals? Mine are 5 & 7. I try to make sure there is one thing at every meal they both will eat but I don’t cook them their own dinner. Sometimes that means they don’t eat much. Is this typical?

You’re a nut

So eat me, dullard.

[Anonymous]

Simple healthy snack foods if they don't want our meal. -- cut vegetable and fruit, bread, peanut butter, tofu, cheese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We eat the same about 3x a week because that food is essentially boring and often fattening

Chicken/rice/veggie
Steak/potato/salad
Tacos
Etc


But I don’t really want to eat boring and fattening food all the time so I make special meals for me and my h and kids eat the basics.

Why are you feeding your kids boring, fattening foods? What do you think they're going to grow up to eat?

This is such a western thing I'll never understand.

Yes, Racists and xenophobes are usually stupid.

I once got drive-by mommy shamed because I mentioned the whole family (including our preschooler) was going out for Ethiopian that night (a common favorite w/ my kids). Other mom was saying there was nothing our preschooler would eat there, were we going to pack him separate food, etc.

I asked her what she thought preschoolers in Ethiopia ate-- chicken nuggets and squeeze pouches?

[Anonymous]

If my husband is going to be late I’ll make something for the kids that is very kid friendly. If he’s home for dinner I don’t cook anything special for the children but it’s definitely family friendly and not adult focused.

[Anonymous]

A new meal? Never

However I’m always willing to separate out parts of a meal. So, if the family is having stir fry with rice and one kid only wants rice that’s fine. I’ll make them a plate of plain rice with Parmesan cheese or something. If I’m making spaghetti with meatballs, same deal. If a kid wants plain pasta, I’ll set aside a plate of plain spaghetti.

They can supplement with string cheese or fruit, but definitely nothing that involves extra cooking for me though.

[Anonymous]

Yes. And no.

We make whatever my kids want to eat, whenever they want it. For example, if both kids want two different cuisines - Italian pasta and Thai Penang curry for dinner - we will cook it. DH and I are great cooks and we like a lot of variety in our meals too. Also, we love food and love to experiment, so we enjoy that our kids are adventurous eaters.

However, we did not make "kid - friendly" versions of food when we fed our kids. Most of the times, we were feeding them mashed up adult food but we did not remove spices from the food. So, in that sense, our kids were not eating boiled beef if we were eating spicy bulgogi.

[Anonymous]

I definitely don't cook an entirely separate dinner for the kids, but I try to be accommodating of normal-range kid pickiness in the sense that I don't make certain foods I prefer because I know my kids absolutely hate some of the ingredients (e.g., they don't like beans, so I'm not typically cooking something with beans). When I branch out and try a new entree recipe with an ingredient that either my kids haven't tried before or tried and didn't like, I'll have a simple backup on hand in case they really hate it - something like a turkey sandwich or quesadilla. But most of the time, on weeknights at least, I stick to the 2 dozen or so recipes that I know everyone (including me) likes and are convenient to make.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We eat the same about 3x a week because that food is essentially boring and often fattening

Chicken/rice/veggie
Steak/potato/salad
Tacos
Etc


But I don’t really want to eat boring and fattening food all the time so I make special meals for me and my h and kids eat the basics.

Why are you feeding your kids boring, fattening foods? What do you think they're going to grow up to eat?

This is such a western thing I'll never understand.

Yes, Racists and xenophobes are usually stupid.

I once got drive-by mommy shamed because I mentioned the whole family (including our preschooler) was going out for Ethiopian that night (a common favorite w/ my kids). Other mom was saying there was nothing our preschooler would eat there, were we going to pack him separate food, etc.

I asked her what she thought preschoolers in Ethiopia ate-- chicken nuggets and squeeze pouches?

Interspersed

I volunteered with unaccompanied minor and we would not give them culturally inappropriate food because it upset their stomach,

Lots of kids with diarrhea

So yea, hmm.