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Reply to "If you're a family who expects your kids to eat what's put in front of them, do you make exceptions?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
OP here,

I think there are two things behind her thinking.  One is that she is concerned that her kids eat the "right" nutrition in the "right" proportions.  So plating their food and making them eat it ensures that she knows that they ate a vegetable, or a protein, or whatever is important to her.

The other is, I think, that she has the idea that if her kids know that eating what's in front of them isn't negotiable, then she can gradually increase what they eat by adding foods.

But she's got a lot on her plate, and she gets to the end of the day, and she's tired so she makes something that meets her nutritional criteria that's easy and fast and she knows they'll eat.  She's making healthy meals, just not a great variety.

How well is it working?  Well, that's hard to say.

I think she feels that her kids are naturally very picky, and that the fact that they eat a greater variety of healthy foods than most "picky eaters" is a win.

I think it's also possible that if exposed to more foods, or allowed more choice, they'd eat even more variety.  I feed my kids differently, and my kids eat a greater variety of foods than hers do.  But that could be because I happen to have unpicky kids.  I'm certainly not going to tell her that I think that if she fed her kids like mine they'd eat like mine, because I have no idea if that's true.

I think one dynamic is that she is pretty competitive and it bothers her that my kids eat "better"* than hers.  Like, it's embarrassing to her when her kids are fussing about how they don't want something, and my kids are happily eating the same thing.  So, she'd like to avoid that situation.  My solution to that problem would be to tell the kids that they can say no thank you, but they need to do it politely without fussing.  Her solution would be to not serve foods that her kids won't eat, so my kids won't be able to "show off".

*note:  I'm using words like better and picky eater and little kid friendly food because that's what she uses, and I'm trying to explain her thinking.  I wouldn't use those words to describe my own kids' eating.  [/quote]
I'm another PP who is simply fascinated by this thread...and, wow, there is so much going on from what you've communicated in this post. It actually makes me have a little more compassion for your relative, though I still think her ask is bonkers and rude and wouldn't indulge it.

Not that it matters, since this isn't really about changing your relative's approach to feeding her kids, but I was an insanely picky eater as a kid. I'm in my 40s now, and our family and family friends still make jokes at large gatherings about how they remember my only eating rice and plain yogurt (I'm Indian-American) and are surprised I'm eating vegetables and chicken or whatever. I don't think my parents were perfect in how they handled it, but my mom basically took the "find something to eat from among what's offered" approach (and the availability of rice is a very safe bet at an Indian party). I'm not at all a picky eater nowadays, and I've had random people walk up to me at restaurants to remark how impressed they are by the variety of foods my kids will eat. I actually think if my forced me to eat stuff I didn't like, I'd still have aversions to it. Kids' palettes are weird. I'm a huge fan of modeling and serving a healthy variety of foods, but forcing people to eat stuff they hate will almost always backfire.[/quote]

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