Anonymous
Post 12/08/2022 09:37     Subject: Re:5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
Anonymous wrote:I have a 13 year old who is very picky. She will eat peanut butter on toast or chicken nuggets for most meals. The only fruit she will eat is applesauce, or an occasional banana. Our rule is that if she's not eating what we provided/made, then she has to make her own dinner. She does this without complaint. It is what it is. There were times when she was young where we tried to bribe her or cajole her into trying something, and she would gag. She has a real aversion to certain textures and a very narrow palate.

She's a very mature young teen in most areas and she's started to challenge herself more. For example, she ate some pasta the other night. She didn't like it, but she ate it. She also got her flu shot and even though she has a phobia of shots, she just told herself that it was something she had to do. I always knew that at a certain point she'd just make herself overcome it.

There was a time when she was younger that I felt frustrated and, yes, embarrassed that she didn't have a wider palate. But then I asked myself, "Do you know any adults who only eat chicken nuggets?" And the answer is no. Eventually people grow out of this. No one wants to go to high school or college and get made fun of for only eating kid food.

To sum up, you can judge your sibling and their spouse all you want, but this is a very common issue. If you feel it falls into a larger pattern of not enforcing rules, well we don't know, we're strangers on the internet. You may be right. I just know from my experience that some kids are just like this. Her younger sister never had any trouble trying or eating anything, so I know it wasn't that I somehow caused this to happen. At a certain point parents have to choose their battles.


I actually do know an adult who never grew out of this and now her child, who is 19 and in college, has the same palate. Plain hamburgers, fried chicken, chicken breasts, white rice, pound cake, and Hawaiian rolls are what these people eat. It is awful because the mother has incredibly poor health after a lifetime of eating this way, and had been told this very clearly by medical professionals. Yet she's still not made changes and her child will suffer same fate.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 19:24     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
My kids aren't that picky but we still feed them hot dogs once a week or so. Organic turkey hot dogs, they are high in sodium but pretty clean otherwise, the Applegate version has no additives. Just posting to note that not all hotdogs are equal and also its not the worst thing in the world to eat. Imo its healthier than boxed mac and cheese which is full of chemicals and preservatives. Healthier than frozen pizza. Healthier than fast food. People have different definitions of what is healthy for them and their bodies. For some kids hot dogs aren't the end of the world.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 14:40     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I make what I make and our kids eat it or they don't. At the age of five she has no access to other food, unlike teens. How can she even get the idea that only hot dogs would be available? Someone had to keep buying them again and again until consuming them daily became part of the established food culture of the home. I think it is a mistake to try to force kids to eat things because the conflict makes them the center of attention. They should be free to choose what they eat but not what I provide.

You are such an awesome parent! Are you kids all failure to thrive and have ulcers in their stomachs at 7 months old and they have reflux coming up their esophagus below the level of 2 pH 140 times in 21 hours?
Regardless, you are so awesome!


Yes, she is awesome! I'm sure it's because my parenting skills are so lame, unlike hers, that my kid has thrown up at the table because the smell of certain food made them so nauseated - food that they liked to eat previously. If only I'd been a better parent I wouldn't have had to spent thousands and thousands of dollars on therapists. I'm sure it was just me rewarding their efforts to be the center of attention. Oh, how I aspire to be a parent like the PP is.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 13:44     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
Anonymous wrote:I fed my underweight kid donuts, so mind your own business. I was even told by pediatric endo and nutritionists to feed my below 1 percentile kiddo whatever her wanted to eat.


Exactly. Pediatrician, gastroenterologist, nutritionist all said feed your less than 1% kid whatever they want to eat. Nutritionist encouraged butter and maple syrup to get food in kid. Would totally do that if they would eat butter and maple syrup. These people have no clue.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 13:39     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
Anonymous wrote:I make what I make and our kids eat it or they don't. At the age of five she has no access to other food, unlike teens. How can she even get the idea that only hot dogs would be available? Someone had to keep buying them again and again until consuming them daily became part of the established food culture of the home. I think it is a mistake to try to force kids to eat things because the conflict makes them the center of attention. They should be free to choose what they eat but not what I provide.


Which is fine, until you kid drops in percentiles to <5%, is off her growth curve, and can't seem to keep up with her peers physically. At that point you seek medical advice or you are an abuser.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 13:36     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
Anonymous wrote:I make what I make and our kids eat it or they don't. At the age of five she has no access to other food, unlike teens. How can she even get the idea that only hot dogs would be available? Someone had to keep buying them again and again until consuming them daily became part of the established food culture of the home. I think it is a mistake to try to force kids to eat things because the conflict makes them the center of attention. They should be free to choose what they eat but not what I provide.

You are such an awesome parent! Are you kids all failure to thrive and have ulcers in their stomachs at 7 months old and they have reflux coming up their esophagus below the level of 2 pH 140 times in 21 hours?
Regardless, you are so awesome!
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 13:33     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
Anonymous wrote:“I would never!” exclaimed people who 100% would, if they really were actually up against the same challenges.


This.
These kind of people suck the worst.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 13:30     Subject: Re:5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
These threads always make me want to cry. My child started feeding therapy at 2, no obvious medical or neurological issues. Just severe severe aversions that would result in vomiting if we pushed too hard to try a new food. Years later after hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars of therapy my child can pass for a typical picky eater most of the time. A huge victory to us but lots of people are still judgmental.

Guess who I don’t share the details with? Nasty judgmental family. OP, there is surely more going on than you know, but they can tell you are not an ally so they are not going to open up to you, nor should they.

Oh and guess what? We recently started to understand there is a significant medical issue that was underlying some of this. But it took YEARS to figure it out.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 13:30     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
I fed my underweight kid donuts, so mind your own business. I was even told by pediatric endo and nutritionists to feed my below 1 percentile kiddo whatever her wanted to eat.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 13:01     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
Anonymous wrote:I make what I make and our kids eat it or they don't. At the age of five she has no access to other food, unlike teens. How can she even get the idea that only hot dogs would be available? Someone had to keep buying them again and again until consuming them daily became part of the established food culture of the home. I think it is a mistake to try to force kids to eat things because the conflict makes them the center of attention. They should be free to choose what they eat but not what I provide.


How nice for you. If you had a child with ARFID, it would die. Good job, I guess?

My best friend is a world traveler. She will eat anything under the sun. Her first child refused to eat. They managed to figure out that she would eat plain pasta with butter. That's all she would eat for a long time. It had nothing to do with her parenting - her food choices were diverse and nutritious.

I am an adult 'picky eater'. Some textures and tastes can make me gag so I avoid them. My parents also did the it'll be there until you eat it and it didn't work, because I would throw up anything I managed to eat that wasn't plain. Despite that, my child eats many foods that I don't and is willing to try things.

It's not the parenting. You people are uneducated and wrong. Keep thinking that torturing kids with eating disorders is good parenting though.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 12:48     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Immigrant here. Honestly this kind of behavior does not occur in my country. One dish is prepared for each meal and the WHOLE family must eat whatever is served. Don’t want to eat it because of ‘pickiness’ then fine, go hungry. They eventually will eat some of what is served.

We don’t coddle the children like they do in the US.


I am an American and this is what my mother did and I do the same.


+1. Another American here, and we had to sit at a the table until we had eaten a reasonable portion of the food. It taught us lessons about waste.
I don't know about other cultures but this was definitely a thing if you were a black kid in the 70's/80's. You were going to sit at that table until you ate that food. Remember the scene from Crooklyn? Puke if you want to.. lol
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 12:44     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
I make what I make and our kids eat it or they don't. At the age of five she has no access to other food, unlike teens. How can she even get the idea that only hot dogs would be available? Someone had to keep buying them again and again until consuming them daily became part of the established food culture of the home. I think it is a mistake to try to force kids to eat things because the conflict makes them the center of attention. They should be free to choose what they eat but not what I provide.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 12:41     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Oh honestly, not EVERYONE in any country does the same thing. I bet the people with kids who would rather starve than eat certain textures just hide it bette4 and live in shame.

Because even here there is shame around it. No one WANTS ago feed their kid five foods or less. Or spend money on books and specialists to be told don’t worry - they might outgrow it.

It sucks. It is embarrassing. But I also can’t fight 3 meals a day.


I’m the PP. No need to fight with your kid three meals a day. My mother would just calmly put the meal in front of me and basically that was all that was offered until the next meal (besides the occasional fruit.) If I didn’t eat any of it, that was fine….no one would get upset, shame me or flight with me to eat. I would just be hungry until the next meal.


My family also did this and I just didn't eat. I was an extremely thin kid and I'm the shortest woman in my family by a couple inches. I think I didn't achieve my potential height because I didn't consume enough calories to grow. I also developed a severe eating disorder as a teen, I think in part because I was so used to being hungry and not responding to hunger cues.


It was your decision not to eat. Blame yourself.


Ha! Sure. That's what I tell my kid about her asthma.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 12:40     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
“I would never!” exclaimed people who 100% would, if they really were actually up against the same challenges.
Anonymous
Post 12/07/2022 12:38     Subject: 5 1/2 year old niece only eats hot dogs…
Kids go through phases with food, some kids can be very picky.

One of my kids only wanted to eat mac n cheese and noodles for a few years as a kid. Yes, we got looks. Now this kid is a teenager and is game to try any food. She is pondering becoming a chef for a living, or maybe a food critic. I am not joking. This kid asks me to take her to the upscale grocery stores now so she can try the next small brick of foreign cheese. She is trying them all, one by one. I never thought I'd see the day when she was six.

Life is strange like that.