Ew Gross, I’m Not Eating That!

What do you do when your kids won’t eat the dinner you’ve made? Do you offer them something different to eat? Do you make them wait until breakfast the following day for their next meal? Are you a believer in the “clean plate club” where a person needs to eat all the food on his or her plate?

Many nights we make “normal” foods, like burgers, pizza and BBQ chicken. We also like to cook new and interesting foods like: Tofu pad thai, curry chicken, and sushi.

Is it fair for us to EXPECT our kids to eat the dinner we make, every night? Probably not. When we make meals like the ones I just mentioned, there’s usually a side of vegetables that goes along with the meal too. We don’t make our kids eat all their food, but we do ask they at least try it all. We’ve also been known to say, “You don’t have to like it to eat it.”

There are times when a meal we make is a bit of a failure and even us grown ups have a hard time eating it. Occasionally, on nights like this, we will make our kids something else, essentially making two different dinners in one night. We’ve also been known to offer our kids a glass of milk and a spoonful of peanut butter as an after dinner snack, if they tried the food on their plate and didn’t like it very much.

How do you deal with the picky eater in your family?

-Pete