My youngest son eats almost nothing. So you can imagine my delight when our pediatrician told me that he might be lactose intolerant and to cut the cheese so to speak. Not just cheese, but milk and yogurt as well. 3 things that I am guaranteed to get my son to eat. He turns up his nose at eggs, hamburgers, most pastas (plain or sauced) and any meal that does not look like or taste like a hot dog. Sure he will happily accept a big ol bowl of crap...crackers, goldfish, pretzels, nutrigrain bars, you name it. If its artificial... its for him! He likes quesadillas but those are full of cheese. And forget about vegetables. While my now 4 year old would have to be encouraged to slow down on the veggies, Nicholas thinks they are ridiculous. He puts them to his mouth and gently touches them with the tip of his tongue and just as we are slow clapping ourselves for getting him to eat it, BOOM its been thrown to the floor. He throws it with such force that you would think he had a personal vendetta against the thing. Our dog, grateful for the snack, flinches as the food flies toward his face. Nicholas will spend most meals standing on the bench seat on one side of our table. Before you judge his table manners, please spend a meal with this kid. Spilling, throwing and refusing to eat are just a handful of his mealtime antics.
I started looking through pinterest, websites and blogs for recipes and tips for finicky eaters. They all claimed "Your child will be sure to finish his plate with zealous abandon!" They shared advice like "Never force food or trick food into your childs mouth, it will create eating issues later on". Embarrassed that my remedies and methods were obviously wrong, I tried all the suggestions and recipes and was met with minimal success. We went back to our clearly inadequate methods of threatening and trickery and at one point I could hear myself saying that age old adage...."There are starving children in India". Now a 19 month old with very limited language had no idea what I was talking about but it made me feel better to say it. Yes, Nicholas mommy may be forcing food down your gullet but I am doing it because I love you and because kids in India are hungry. The more I thought about these hungry Indian children, the more I started thinking about truly hungry kids...the ones Sally Struthers was telling us about. I bet picky eating is not a problem in developing 3rd world nations. I bet whatever I set down would be happily and gratefully gobbled up. I highly doubt that hungry children turn up their noses or complain about what you've cooked. I am positive that they eat whatever is put before them.
I think the problem is that our kids have too many choices....and not just in the food arena. We were told for so long that our kids needed to have choices, so they could express themselves. And now that advice is literally "biting" us. I think we need to return to the old method of parenting. Where kids knew their places and were polite and didn't talk back. They worked hard, helped around the house and were expected go to school and have a paper route all before they were teenagers. Look at how our grandparents generation turned out. No one was coddling those 12 year olds that came to America alone...on a boat...penniless, and they built this country. I think Im going to have to let my son be hungry if he refuses to eat. From now on I will be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. I will make nutritious meals and if my kids don't like them...too bad. When they are hungry enough...they will eat.
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