The War of the Vegetables

One of the things we have with the most as parents is feeding picky eaters. Colin came out into the world a picky eater. He would not eat from a bottle. He had trouble when we introduced solids. He never ate meat until he was five years old, with the exception being McDonald's Chicken Nuggets. His brother and sister haven't been quite so picky, but still have very strong preferences of things they will and will not eat.

So the question becomes, do you force them to eat?  Do you require them to finish a plate or to eat foods they don’t like so they learn to like them?  There doesn’t seem to be a universal right or wrong path to follow in this area of parenting.  In my house growing up, you had to try everything and eat at least three of whatever vegetable was being served before you could leave the table.  Todd was never made to eat anything because his mom had to spend hours at the table growing up since she refused to eat what was served.  Both of us survived into functioning adults needing very little therapy with a love for vegetables and a variety of foods.

So, Todd and I have chosen to merge the styles of our parents and ask our children to try everything served, but not requiring it.  The only requirement comes that you have to eat your dinner to get dessert and we dish up the plates.  But it is a choice to finish those vegetables our children seem to hate, albeit a parental semi-bribed choice. 

So last week my mom brought over cookies to bake while she watched Molly for an afternoon.  The kids LOVE cookies!  So, at dinner that night they had to eat three carrots, raw carrots, to get dessert.  Zachary always puts up a fight.  I think he does it just to see if he can win, not because he really hates eating so much.  He wasn’t going to eat those carrots because he could just have a cookie tomorrow in his lunch.  So I of course had to counter with a decree of no cookies or dessert of any kind in the lunch when you don’t eat your vegetables.  Those carrots disappeared from his plate faster than I could believe.  Mom-1, Zach-0

Later in the week I did the laundry.  When I removed a load of the boy’s clothes I found three shriveled carrots at the bottom of the wash bin.  Upon further review, it seems the play on the field will not stand as called. Mom-0, Zach-1.