Tonight I said something that I swore I would never say.
I told Nigel that he had to eat everything on his plate or he couldn’t get up from the table.
Up until now I have tried to follow the philosophy that requires my children to try new food (the mandatory “no thank-you bite”), going under the assumption that eventually they will learn to like food by repeat exposure and increase their portion size accordingly. We also make it clear that there is no dessert or treats for kids that don’t eat the regular dinner- so that there is an incentive to eat what is served. I have been morally opposed to forcing any of my children to “clear their plate”.
Nigel has confounded me. None of this strategy works with him and he is ridiculously picky and also very thin. He doesn’t mind going hungry if dinner seems to him to be unappetizing.
Which brings us to tonight, force feeding breakfast casserole (baked cheese, sausage, and eggs) to him while he sat and cried like it was torture. There was also fresh honeydew- but honeydew alone does not a dinner make.
Dinner ended with a discussion on health. I don’t want to give Nigel a complex about dinnertime and I don’t want to create an unhealthy environment for him when it comes to food, so we talked about how I go to the gym to help keep my muscles strong and how daddy is eating less so he can lose weight. We talked about how all of the kids are responsible for putting healthy foods into their bodies and making sure that they are not filling up on candy and cookies. We talked about how God gives us one body here on Earth and it’s the only one we get, so we need to take care of it.
I hope that as a family we can take some of the focus off of Nigel and make this a Smith Team effort to be healthier- but I still feel like I am going to have to force feed him to get him to eat anything.
I need some help on this one. Any thoughts?
6 comments:
Nigel is thin, but not too thin. Believe me, he will grow just fine. I would not try to force him. The power struggle is not worth any benefit that might be gained by putting more food in his body. And besides, when he's a teenager you'll wish he ate less so your food bill wasn't so high.
Of course, you could always send him for the clean-up on Aisle 7!
have you met my Tanner. His favorite food is cheese but if it is melted on a piece of bread forget it he won't touch it. Loves bacon won't touch ham. And the list of what he won't eat goes on and on and on. Drives me crazy and needless to say we have had many a miserable meals over it. He is too thin for a 12 year old and has very dark circles and was always tired for a while back in the fall until I just began by giving no options you must eat healthy. So good luck to you and if you get any good ideas that work please pass along because we could use a new idea
I wouldn't force feed my kids anything. Maybe he didn't like the texture of the breakfast casserole. I was forced to eat tapioca pudding once and I thought I was going to throw up. To this day I cannot eat it or bread pudding, or custard, or flan and other things because the texture of the food bothers me. Personally, I'd feed him what he likes. If I was cooking something I knew one of the kids (or husband) didn't like, I always served a simple alternative. Would you eat something you couldn't stand? Not me. Also, Nigel doesn't look too thin to me. I got told up until I was 30 years old that I was way too skinny and needed to gain weight. He probably got some of my genes and high metabolism! Way to go, Nigel!
I would just give him time. Dave is still picky picky to this day, but he is healthy. Gloria would get him checked out at the doctor on a regular basis to make sure he wasn't going to keel over and die considering there was only about 3 things he would eat (literally 3 things). The doctor would run test and check his blood and do various things and the results were always the same - he was perfectly healthy. He gradually built us his taste for new things over the years. And now he eats pretty well as a vegetarian (who will eat bacon). I don't think Nigel is anywhere as bad as David was as a child. I do know that one thing Gloria never did was force David to eat anything or make him feel bad. She just let him go at his own pace with food. What else can you do? I remember being forced to eat fish sticks and I can't stand fish to this day in any way shape or form. Just the hint of the smell makes me sick to my stomach.
Yeah, we've tried a similar route with Ethan making him at least take one bite AND swallow it before he tells us he doesn't like it. Well, that has backfired on more than one occasion. He chews on it so long that it loses all flavor or appealing tastes it once might have had and then he gags on it and throws up. I've decided that it's just not worth it anymore. I ate cheese and mayo sandwiches as a kid for years. Ethan is that way with oatmeal. And cereal. And waffles. At least it's something. What does Nigel's doctor say?
Post a Comment