Dinner Wars

Last night a friend (Hi Angela P.!) posted on Facebook that getting her son to eat his dinners was becoming a battle of wills.  A few people commented with some advice or simply with a reassuring, “been there, done that” sort of comment designed to make Angela know it’s a universal problem, getting these kids to eat their veggies and meat, and to reassure her that her kid is not an anomaly and that she’s a good mom for sticking to her guns. 

I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised that kids can be picky eaters.  We are the smart adults, they are the ones learning how to maneuver this world, and that’s why parenting is mostly a dictatorship, not a democracy, otherwise the little stinkers would definitely choose Pixie Stix for breakfast, Tastykakes for lunch, and a grape and a corn dog for supper and consider themselves well fed.  I know that Dr. T. Berry Brazelton would tell us not to make a fuss over what they eat, but that didn’t work for Dave and me.    Our rule is they must try everything.  If they don’t like something, they may stop, but it will not be considered a “good” supper and there will be no dessert or bedtime snack (although they may have fruit or carrots at bedtime).

I feel like the battle has finally been easing up in our house, as Maddie and Ben are old enough now to realize that they will just have to eat it, there are no alternative choices, and although they whine sometimes, there’s not as much “how many more bites do I need?” bargaining going on as the old days.  And Jack is not a picky eater!  He is my best eater, hallelujah!

Top Six Dinner War Stories From Our Home

6.  Maddie hates meat, it sometimes makes her gag.  The first food fight I ever remember was when she was about 2 or 3.  She absolutely refused to eat her meat and we told her we would not be joining the already planned family swim night at the local college if she did not eat her chicken.  She refused.  And we missed swim night.  We felt good about our choice, patted ourselves on the back for remaining strong, and figured she had learned a lesson and would always eat her chicken from then on.  HA!  HA!!

5.  Did Ben really think we wouldn’t notice his entire dinner dropped here and there onto the floor under the dinner table by his chair that time?  Apparently he did.  But he wasn’t the one who dropped it all.  Under his own personal chair.

4. Here’s one from my childhood:  I hated spaghetti, and I guess I figured if I poured my milk on it, I would not be able to eat it.  Instead, I sat at the table for hours staring at the bowl of cold, milky spaghetti until bedtime.  I never did that again.  My children have never tried that trick, but they have sat at the table for a long time until that last bite of whatever is gone to earn their dessert/bedtime snack.

3.  Okay, one more from my childhood.  My mom made us pig stomach, which here in PA Dutch country, means you take an actual pig stomach lining, and fill it with sausage and potatoes.  I know.  Weird, right?  (But now that I am an adult, I’ll admit it’s delicious.)  So my bratty brother Dave and I, not knowing the outside was the pig part (duh) ate only the lining, and not the sausage and potato filling.  I don’t think I ever saw my mom smile so big as the moment she told us what we had done.

2. Back to Maddie and the meat.  If there is the slightest bit of fat on her meat, she refuses to eat it, so we must cut it all off.  One time, she chewed a bite of meat, then spit it onto her plate telling us it had fat in it.  Fine.  But by the end of the meal we noticed quite a large pile of chewed up meat on her plate.  I guess she figured if it worked once, it would work for the entire pork chop.  It didn’t work.  She got another meticulously trimmed pork chop to eat.

1.  Oh my, here’s dear Maddie again.  Shortly after supper was over one night, Jack came running out of the bathroom.  “Mom!  Someone pooped up their peas!  There are peas in the toilet!”  Dave and I looked at Maddie who sheepishly said, “Wow.  That is so weird.”  MmHmm.  Now she may not leave the table to use the bathroom with a mouthful of food…

Do you have any funny food stories?  Let's help Angela know she's not all alone in her fight to nutrify her cute son.   (By the way...Nutrify: verb, to fill your child with vegetables and meat and all things healthy against his/her own will; Sit yourself down in that seat, mister, and nutrify yourself right now, and don't you roll those eyes at me.)