Picky kids coming to visit - now I've seen it all

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you say scraped the toppings off the pizza I'm assuming you made the error of ordering pizza with gross shite on top. That was your bad.

Wrong. Plain pizza. Cheese and tomato sauce.

Exactly how do you scrape off toppings if there are none? I think you are looking for problems.

The girl scraped off the sauce and the cheese and cut off the crust, and dumped it all in a huge discard pile on her plate. All she ate was the tiny triangle of base that was left. As a result, she ended up taking way more slices than I had accounted for, and I came into the kitchen to hear the girls fighting because all the pizza was gone and they were still hungry. These are 10 year old girls, not toddlers.

And this still bothers you? This would not even be a blip on my radar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you say scraped the toppings off the pizza I'm assuming you made the error of ordering pizza with gross shite on top. That was your bad.

Wrong. Plain pizza. Cheese and tomato sauce.

Exactly how do you scrape off toppings if there are none? I think you are looking for problems.

The girl scraped off the sauce and the cheese and cut off the crust, and dumped it all in a huge discard pile on her plate. All she ate was the tiny triangle of base that was left. As a result, she ended up taking way more slices than I had accounted for, and I came into the kitchen to hear the girls fighting because all the pizza was gone and they were still hungry. These are 10 year old girls, not toddlers.

So use your big girl words and say “there is only enough pizza for each of you to have two slices.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Here’s what I’ve made. If you’re hungry, you’ll eat it.”

I used to ‘not eat it’ as that was all my mother provided and I got so thin and malnourished I got severe anemia.
Try again.

Vitamins can help prevent this. My kid exists on air and a bit of food. Somehow he gains weight and no anemia due to vitamins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you say scraped the toppings off the pizza I'm assuming you made the error of ordering pizza with gross shite on top. That was your bad.

Wrong. Plain pizza. Cheese and tomato sauce.

My kid hates pizza. I think that's pretty weird for a kid but he knows he has to eat one piece if he is at someone else's house. He will eat it because it is what's polite. I told him early on that nearly every party he will ever be invited to will include pizza so if it is a sit down meal, he needs to eat one piece. If not, he can get away with eating something else like chips.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Here’s what I’ve made. If you’re hungry, you’ll eat it.”

I used to ‘not eat it’ as that was all my mother provided and I got so thin and malnourished I got severe anemia.
Try again.

We're not talking about at home. It's one meal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: our kids' friends (ranging in age from 8 to 12)

OP what stood out for me from your post was not the pickiness but the fact that these kids were so up front about it.

By age 8-12, shouldn't kids start to know when to state their food preferences and when to keep their mouths shut? And if they are really hungry and there's nothing they can even stomach, when and how to politely ask for something different? And the difference between close friends you can be more open with, and families you just met?

I think that many cultures do better than the US does with adult-child relationships and how we talk to each other. Europe is one but I can think of others.

I completely agree with this. By age 8, the child could have politely said "no thank you" when offered the oven fries, carried her dirty dishes to the sink and thanked the hostess for the meal.

Don't judge the kids based off one meal. At home, my kids eat a balanced diet. They are hungrier for dinner than for lunch, and we are more likely to serve well prepared, buttered/salted roasted vegetables at dinner than at lunch (they aren't big fans of baby carrots, sliced cucumber or other raw veggies like you would normally serve then). I also deliberately withhold snacks before dinner which gets them hungrier. So what you may be seeing mid day at a play date meal, when kids are distracted by their friends and have probably been snacking isn't necessarily a reflection of their regular daily menu or of even what they eat as a whole that day, which may be more nutritionally balanced.

[Anonymous]

To me, I would be pissed off by the ingratitude. I'm with you. American kids can be very spoiled. I much prefer hosting international students from Asia because they're more exposed to different cuisines and flavors. Read this article: https://dyske.com/paper/1231

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of my biggest pet peeves is kids who come to our house and refuse to eat anything we serve. When we first moved here from Europe, we would serve our kids' friends (ranging in age from 8 to 12) whatever we were eating - pasta bolognese, roasted chicken and potatoes with herbs, salad. We soon realized that our kids friends' -- at least the ones who'd grown up in the US -- wouldn't touch any of it. So we started simplifying their meals, only serving plain pasta, hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs. That works most of the time. (Well, except for the kid who scrapes all the toppings off a plain pizza and cuts off the crust, in the end only eating 40% of each slice and throwing the rest away.) Anyway... today we had some more kids over and I made hot dogs and oven french fries. Sure winner, right? Nope. One of the kids, upon seeing the food, immediately declares: I don't like french fries. The only french fries I like are the home made ones.

Please, can someone unroll my eyes out of the back of my head?

Why invite them back? Their parents are failing them. Sad.

[Anonymous]

My kids are younger, so pickiness is still pretty developmentally normal no matter what you do. That said, we don’t feed them much junk/we try to increase their palates, so I could easily see them saying they didn’t like hamburgers (DD doesn’t) and then eating the broccoli side you made for yourself (which she loves). Btw I don’t mean to suggest she’s a snowflake who only likes healthy food — she isn’t, she loves pizza and French fries — just that lots of parents who try to make an effort but have picky kids end up with kids who don’t necessarily like kid food (since half of the pickiness is just refusing to eat things they aren’t frequently exposed to).

[Anonymous]

Maybe don’t let the whims of other people’s children have so much power over your feelings and self-worth, OP.

Do you get that they behave differently at home/in their real lives? No one wants to visit the judgmental/grumpy old German lady, and when they have to, they may act up a bit.

[Anonymous]

OP, I think I had the same kid over! He drove me nuts! I only serve lunch to kids or a snack and I let the parent know some options so they can tell me what the kid will eat. The WORST kid had a parent who claimed her kid was easygoing and anything was fine. I apologized at drop off and said her kid will be hungry and didn't like any of what I served. She then admitted he was picky. I am happy to accommodate to a point, but hate just totally wasting food. Now, unless I know for sure the kid will eat what I can offer I only have kids over during times when snacks can be served-no meals. I don't want the kid to feel bad and I don't want to kid to starve either!

[Anonymous]

Or you can tell the kids to pick out what they want from your pantry/fridge and prepare it themselves. If they invest some effort in it, then they'll eat it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Here’s what I’ve made. If you’re hungry, you’ll eat it.”

I used to ‘not eat it’ as that was all my mother provided and I got so thin and malnourished I got severe anemia.
Try again.

Vitamins can help prevent this. My kid exists on air and a bit of food. Somehow he gains weight and no anemia due to vitamins.

With a parent in denial thinking that the kids needs to ‘eat what is served’ or else’ this doesn’t work out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of my biggest pet peeves is kids who come to our house and refuse to eat anything we serve. When we first moved here from Europe, we would serve our kids' friends (ranging in age from 8 to 12) whatever we were eating - pasta bolognese, roasted chicken and potatoes with herbs, salad. We soon realized that our kids friends' -- at least the ones who'd grown up in the US -- wouldn't touch any of it. So we started simplifying their meals, only serving plain pasta, hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs. That works most of the time. (Well, except for the kid who scrapes all the toppings off a plain pizza and cuts off the crust, in the end only eating 40% of each slice and throwing the rest away.) Anyway... today we had some more kids over and I made hot dogs and oven french fries. Sure winner, right? Nope. One of the kids, upon seeing the food, immediately declares: I don't like french fries. The only french fries I like are the home made ones.

Please, can someone unroll my eyes out of the back of my head?

Why invite them back? Their parents are failing them. Sad.

OP wrote this.

You people are really weird!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me, I would be pissed off by the ingratitude. I'm with you. American kids can be very spoiled. I much prefer hosting international students from Asia because they're more exposed to different cuisines and flavors. Read this article: https://dyske.com/paper/1231

I know - like monkey brains still attached to the monkeys! Yum! How about dogs?
Most of don’t aspire to be people who ‘eat everything’.

This is really offensive. Asians eating dogs doesn't apply to any Asian I know. It's not about eating everything, it's about being open to balanced nutrition. If you take a look at whichever cuisine in Asia (Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Thai, etc.), their meals will include protein and vegetables. Nothing from a box or processed.