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> (My kids are ridiculously picky eaters. I’m willing to accept that this is my fault.) Just to say, out of an urge to find some common ground: I was a "picky

> (My kids are ridiculously picky eaters. I’m willing to accept that this is my fault.) Just to say, out of an urge to find some common ground: I was a "picky eater" -- initially whimsically and then ultimately rather more seriously, until early adulthood (though never to feeding tube territory, I was definitely underweight). My parents would want me to tell you that it almost certainly isn't your fault. And I can tell you from thinking it through that it was never really about foods I did or did not like. It was always about disgust, and deep-seated, too. As I've said before in comments, it's actually a diagnosable eating disorder (ARFID) even at the fussy/faddy stage, and can become problematic even when it initially manifests as quite a mild or simply defiant thing. To keep it on topic, here's where you might find yourself at odds with your own position further up the thread: if they do have any psychological basis for why they are picky, then you trying to make them do better through assertive parenting is more or less guaranteed to make it worse. Most of your parental instincts will be at odds with the outcome you desire. I could tell you what worked for me if it would help.

dpark 5y ago
My kids were both excellent eaters until we began to indulge their pickiness too much. For both of them we chose “eat more of the stuff you like” over “eat more variety” because we were more concerned with weight gain (as in our kids are both at the bottom end of the weight charts). I’m pretty sure that we created much of the problem. Most kids go through some picky phases but parents can definitely magnify them. And sure, there are kids who are perhaps picky to the point of disorder. I don’t think that’s my kids.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  "Eat more of the stuff you like" is definitely strategy zero -- it will keep even the pickiest kids alive with less intervention. It's also why parents get called bad parents who when their ARFID kids will only eat two kinds of potato chips and one kind of cheese. Strategy one: baseline foods and well-liked gravies/sauces. Do they eat rice? If so, Asian food is an amazing way to extend taste and texture tolerance, because special fried rices (like Nasi Goreng etc.) allow you to experiment with the amount of a thing you can bear at any one time, and also to add small amounts of other dishes to the safe rice as they want to. Strategy two: comparable foods. Choose a restaurant not always because it has the thing they like, but sometimes because it has a different kind of meal that is extremely similar. Again, Asian food is amazing for this -- chicken katsu curry, if I'd known that was a thing when I was nine... Strategy three: outsourcing. Your kids friends' parents are likely to get them to eat things you cannot. Because eating the thing at home, disappointing you by not being able to eat it, etc., is different. Strategy four: participation. Cook the thing they'll eat but ask them to them stir it/help prepare it/be responsible for it. Strategy five: cookery. Get them to choose a thing from a recipe book and be involved with it to the point that they are doing all the non-dangerous bits themselves quite young. Strategy six: send them off to uni/college. I came back from uni in my second term largely cured, though I was never able to (and I am still unable to) eat breakfast with anyone else.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  FWIW my ARFID was almost certainly triggered by an emotionally stressful environment and childhood illness. I don't remember, but apparently I pretty much just catastrophically stopped eating most things; within a matter of weeks. I am one of three siblings and the other two are fine. My issues with food had/have not very much to do with food itself. It's an eating disorder, and eating disorders are weirdly not much to do with food.

dpark 5y ago

My kids were both excellent eaters until we began to indulge their pickiness too much. For both of them we chose “eat more of the stuff you like” over “eat more variety” because we were more concerned with weight gain (as in our kids are both at the bottom end of the weight charts). I’m pretty sure that we created much of the problem. Most kids go through some picky phases but parents can definitely magnify them. And sure, there are kids who are perhaps picky to the point of disorder. I don’t think that’s my kids.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
"Eat more of the stuff you like" is definitely strategy zero -- it will keep even the pickiest kids alive with less intervention. It's also why parents get called bad parents who when their ARFID kids will only eat two kinds of potato chips and one kind of cheese. Strategy one: baseline foods and well-liked gravies/sauces. Do they eat rice? If so, Asian food is an amazing way to extend taste and texture tolerance, because special fried rices (like Nasi Goreng etc.) allow you to experiment with the amount of a thing you can bear at any one time, and also to add small amounts of other dishes to the safe rice as they want to. Strategy two: comparable foods. Choose a restaurant not always because it has the thing they like, but sometimes because it has a different kind of meal that is extremely similar. Again, Asian food is amazing for this -- chicken katsu curry, if I'd known that was a thing when I was nine... Strategy three: outsourcing. Your kids friends' parents are likely to get them to eat things you cannot. Because eating the thing at home, disappointing you by not being able to eat it, etc., is different. Strategy four: participation. Cook the thing they'll eat but ask them to them stir it/help prepare it/be responsible for it. Strategy five: cookery. Get them to choose a thing from a recipe book and be involved with it to the point that they are doing all the non-dangerous bits themselves quite young. Strategy six: send them off to uni/college. I came back from uni in my second term largely cured, though I was never able to (and I am still unable to) eat breakfast with anyone else.
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
FWIW my ARFID was almost certainly triggered by an emotionally stressful environment and childhood illness. I don't remember, but apparently I pretty much just catastrophically stopped eating most things; within a matter of weeks. I am one of three siblings and the other two are fine. My issues with food had/have not very much to do with food itself. It's an eating disorder, and eating disorders are weirdly not much to do with food.