How to Handle EXTREMELY Picky Eater

[BillP]

When we were picky my mom would rush around trying to make everyone happy, til my Dad got home from overseas.

He said, “make dinner, if they don’t want it they don’t have to eat it, but you aren’t a short order cook, they’ll eat when they get hungry”. First night corned beef, yech! I’ll skip it.

Next morning, darn! slept too late for breakfast!

You’d be surprised how much less picky I was when I found a corned beef sandwich in my lunch box.

 

[Sierrah]

HELP!!! I told my daughter I would ask on the forum for her. My 7-1/2 year old grandson is SUPER picky to the point of we are worried he won’t be healthy. He will eat red grapes, apples, nuts, chicken, 3 flavors of yogurt and a couple different cereals and things like chips and certain cookies and icecream. That’s really about it. He eats NO vegetables. DD and her hubby have started telling him he has to at least have a taste of the foods offered for supper and they no longer give him what HE wants to have and also no dessert or snack if he has failed to at least taste the new food, but he has himself so psyched up that he will hate the new foods that he throws up if he finally does try, which isn’t often. While we were there they had a rice dish and he didn’t even eat one GRAIN of the rice. He put about 1/16th of a green bean in his mouth and gagged.

Has anyone had a similar problem and what did you do? My daughter is about ready to take him to a child psychologist. He has been fussy about food since he first started being weaned and DD kind of catered to his tastes so in a way has contributed to the problem, but that is beside the point. She did her best and most kids would have gradually accepted new things–he just never did.

HUM as a picky eater I can understand where her son is coming from. I was much pickier as a kid too. She’ll just have to experient to find what he can eat. I suggest exposing him to a wide variety of foods until she finds out for sure what textures, flavors and smells he can’t tolerate.

There’s hope though I used to hate yogurt now I love it. Still don’t do sea food, veggies or most meats but I’ve managed to survive.

 

[Joan_M]

When we were picky my mom would rush around trying to make everyone happy, til my Dad got home from overseas.

He said, “make dinner, if they don’t want it they don’t have to eat it, but you aren’t a short order cook, they’ll eat when they get hungry”. First night corned beef, yech! I’ll skip it.

Next morning, darn! slept too late for breakfast!

You’d be surprised how much less picky I was when I found a corned beef sandwich in my lunch box.

Exactly! Far too many parents cater to their kids and get caught up in the whole thing. Kids will not starve themselves. Serve them what you have cooked. They have a choice - eat that or nothing.

My oldest son tried that once when he was three. Yes, only once. I served him his lunch and he would have none of it. I said, OK. You don’t want to eat? Well, it’s quite a long time to supper time (6.00 pm). By 5.00 pm he was begging for food. I re-heated the lunch he had refused (it had been in the fridge). I don’t think I ever saw him eat a meal so quickly!! He never tried that one again!!

If either of my sons complained that they would prefer something else, my response was “I’m not running a restaurant. Your choice is eat it or sit and look at it.”