Forcing kids to eat

[Guest guest]

I might be stepping out of bounds here and I have not read all the posts about

'forcing kids to eat', but I feel I can honestly add a few things since I have 3

kids who eat anything I put in front of them even if they don't like it.

 

You cannot serve your kids whatever they like and then hope they will change

later when they get a little *wiser*. What if you are short on cash (as we are)

and can't afford to feed them anything they like? In my oppinion, they should

not have too many choices with food - they should eat what is put in front of

them or be hungry (they will eat if they know this is the rule with no bending).

If you are firm with this rule right from the begining, this should be no big

deal later on (my kids are 7, 9 & 11). This helps tons when you are eating

somewhere else - they just eat and don't whine or complain.

Letting them eat what ever they want makes really picky eaters - and possibly

aids in producing whining brats - at least it doesn't help. You are *training*

them to eat only a few things instead of developing tastes for foods they might

not like at first. If my kids don't like something, we eat it every day till

they do. I first tried this on myself. I HATED melons of all kinds. I forced

myself to eat them for over a year and what do you know - I LOVE them now. Same

thing with beans - since being vegan requires you to explore new foods, I had to

eat beans - now I love them, in fact I eat them at least once a day (they are

cheap too!).

As for budgets - maybe everyone is not as tight on money as we are, but our food

budget is reduced to $50 a week - I try to go less than that. Not giving the

kids a choice allows me to use up whatever is in the cabinets when we are really

tight on cash (like this week, we will only spend about $25 on cash, but I have

30 pounds of wheat berries, various kinds of beans, lots of brown rice and other

grains, all of which allow me to only buy a few veggies & fruits for the week).

The best thing to do (once again, in my opinion & only because it worked for me)

is to set the rules and stick to them. Always enforce the rules with a good

attitude and a smile on your face - getting upset when your children do not do

something you want them too only makes things more stressful. If you do get

upset, wait till you are calmed down before you take action.

 

Hopefully that made sense and no one took it as rude.

Joanne

 

 

 

 

 

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