Children don't hear the word 'no' often enough

Minibags ate everything she was offered until she was two and a half. Since then there have been and are a lot of foods she will not try though she is now beginning to try things she wouldn't try before and will eat some of the old favourites like Toad-in-the-hole, corned beef hash, macaroni cheese. It isn't just, if at all, about taste in her case, but an actual fear of food syndrome (not an official name, just what I call it). There's bugger all anyone can do about it.

Fortunately, she always liked the bread I made (into which I put extra, nutritious ingredients like ground linseed) and has remained healthy on a very narrow diet by most people's standards. It does make me wonder if we really need masses of variety so long as our diets include the essential range of nutrients.

my friends beautiful daughter also went to montessori and she's a wonderful young woman kind hearted ,well mannered adn all you'd want in a daughter..maybe it was their home life that made your friends children how they are ,Montessori gets a brilliant reputation in education for under 5's

I'm not sure if just going to a Montessori nursery 25 years ago would have that much effect - it must be the home life too. Perhaps the parents have not heard of the word 'no'.

We don't expect clean plates at our house and if a child has a real dislike of a particular food we take note of that just as we would for any guest.

But if they don't eat a dinner of food they like then there's only fruit available until the next meal.

We noticed on holiday how often the older 2 couldn't eat dinner but could eat continuously between meals .

We do use the word no and when we use it we mean it and the grandkids all know that. They do things with their parents they wouldn't even try with us. They're not daft :-)

I was forced to sit and eat everything off my plate, my Mother would sit there with me, sometimes I'd be there until 11pm at night, I felt so frightened of my Mother, and to this day, have a bad relationship with her. Very domineering. My SIL's GD, 5, is a spoilt little madam, and will carefully arrange herself on the hearth rug, lay down and scream at the top of her voice if she does not get what she wants to eat, SIL's daughter can't do a thing with her, whilst baby-sitting this child one day, she wanted me to go to the shops for a packet of Pink Wafers, I told her no, she went through the whole gamut of tantrums, throwing herself on the floor, screaming, beating her head on a cushion, I ignored her till she'd wore herself out, she then came to me, and asked me for her dinner, after that, she was very well behaved and went to bed, without any further protest!

Yes! Parents must stop parenting by social media standards and start parenting by what is fit for each child.

It's OK to teach them about "NO" and "you can wait a bit" and "consequences for your actions" because these things too provide a good sense of balance when tied with all the positives regarding parenting.

A child who is being parented by social media standards will never truly know what "being let down" "not getting the job" "Sorry but you weren't accepted" will feel like and they won't know how to deal with it. Most will suffer from depression because they haven't felt those "negative" emotions.

Balance! All about balance!

I was forced at junior school to eat the two foods that I loathed and detested and still do to this day: potatoes and cheese. I even vomited everything back up a couple of times, but still they persisted. I have never, ever, forced my own children to eat anything they didn't like, and both seem to enjoy almost everything now they are adults.

My GC are often asked what they want for dinner. One of them actually said 'you never asked me if I wanted pizza'. I pointed out to her that her daddy had never been asked what he wanted and always had to eat what was on his plate. For once, she was speechless.

100% agree with rules and boundaries, having worked in a school and seen the teenagers we are now breeding ! I know 3 separate examples of affluent families who have over-indulged their kids and now as adults, are paying a high price. The various kids don't know how to budget, pay bills etc They have wasted money on alcohol, drugs and gambling, so have enormous debts too. It's as if they can't get joy from little things in life, as they have had everything handed on a plate so easily. They just expect all their life's will be like that .... So when life doesn't go their way, they have no coping mechanism and go off the rails.

Just reading about Baggs DD, Minibaggs . My sister lived on an extremely limited diet until she was well into her teens (probably about 16) when she started to try more foods. She lived on bread (my grandmas homemade preferably but any white bread) this could be toasted or not, potatoes (chips, mash,boiled) thinly cut ham (but not bacon) and ready Brek (made extra runny), Yorkshire puddings and gravy and basically that was it.

She was stick thin and my mum was never away from the doctors with her. These days she eats everything and anything.

I don't think there's anything at all my three DGC won't eat. They love their meals (always starving) and almost always clear their plates. They love all vegetables and will give anything a try. Mind you they are extremely fit (always playing sport of some kind) so probably need the fuel.

I wonder if, in famine regions the kids are so picky, and whether or not their taste buds develop at 18 months?

First world problems. We have too much choice and certainty about the next meal, or better still treat coming along, to take the edge off our 'hunger'.

Food is just one area where children are allowed to exercise their choices in ways that were not encouraged before all the psycho babble nonsense became generally accepted.....clothes, passtimes, even schools are becoming things that kids can choose for themselves now and even gender is on the horizon as an opt in at will.

I don't know where this child centred approach came from, whether it is advertising, prosperity or just idiocy, we seem to pander to them far too much and they are not that much happier for it.

I too was made to sit and eat what was on my plate, and once as a teenager had my face hed down into my dinner, which was mashed potatoes and tinned tomatoes, can't bear the smell of either of those now 50 years on!!!!

As a herd / tribe however it is important for survival that children be taught what 'no' means and encouraged to eat everything because who knows when those chicken nuggets might just disappear.

I went through it with my two youngest children, where with my two older ones (by 15 years) there was not as much choice or support for choices. We were poorer then and adults expected kids to 'eat it all up'. I never made mine sit for hours with uneaten food, that felt cruel but in a way, I wish I had been sterner.

Life could be about to take an almighty down turn for a lot of us, and what survival skills do these kids have when they only feel secure with their own wisdom on choices?

Some of the war time ration recipes were bizarre but hungry people ate them. I don't suppose Ann Frank sat behind the hidden door dictating what she felt she fancied to eat or making as much noise as she liked.

Everything is a social construct, we make it all up as we go along. Like the 10 second rule, some people will eat food that has been on the floor and others won't, masses of food is wasted because people religiously subscribe to use by dates and others eat stuff from the supermarket skips........

Affluence brings choice, nothing else, the poor cannot afford to be demanding about anything.

gillybob. There was a play about a girl who didn't want her breakfast (I think it was kippers) and her father insisted on putting it on the table every morning. I saw it when I was a teenager and now you've got me trying to remember it's name. It was quite famous at the time. Kitchen sink era.

Thank you radicalnan I enjoyed reading your post and think you made some very good points.

WE had to put everything put on our plates, whether we liked it or not. I have to say I used to prefer to go hungry than to eat some of the stuff we had! My DCs had the same treatment, though I would be careful not to cook too many of the things that they didn't like. I also made sure they tried a mouthful of everything they said they didn't like. One is veggie, one is greedy one is gourmet...
GDs on the other hand have snacks every hour, meals cooked for each set of tastes [both veggies], and mealtimes are a struggle unless the GPs [us] are involved. No snacks, no messing around, call our bluff each time [like another poster, I'm grumpy Grandma as I stand no nonsense.]
The parents seem terrified of rules and boundaries "Now that wasn't a good choice. What would you do to fix it?" to a 2-year old...
No - is a very good thing; boundaries are even better.

Hi Jaycee - The play about the dad making his daughter eat a meal (herring I think) is called "Spring and Port Wine"!

to EAT everything... sorry chaps/esses

My mother learnt to cook during the war, and also hated onions, so mince meat on toast (no onions), Hot pot (no onions), pork pies heated in the oven with warm crisps and tripe were put before us. We knew there was nothing else and having been outside playing in the countryside all morning, we just got on an ate it as quickly as possible, pocketed a few dog biscuits for later and escaped back outside asap. My grandchildren were pretty fussy, the first being the worst, the second eating everything as long as each food was separate and the third living on cheese, chips and cucumber. No one is worried because we know that, like the others, as soon as she starts having school dinners in the autumn she will start eating anything! I strongly believe that food is used to blackmail parents and they all fall for it as there is so much choice nowadays.

I never made my children eat everything on their plate because I used serving dishes. I think over piling a plate puts children off. So help initially with a little and then there is more if needed. Going back to control. I have grandchildren brothers who have been over controlled on some things. And no boundaries with othersn and I find it difficult to be in their company. One in particular is totally self centre, mean and doesn't know the word stop or no. It's effecting his life. No one else wants to be with him either. Obviously I feel guilty about my feelings. I am hoping he will change as he gets older and I see him anyway but I wouldn't look after him on my own. I have tried in my house to stop him from being distructive or hurt his cousin but I got sworn at. This is from middle class well educated adults.

I grew up in wartime and you ate everything put in front of you, good bad or indifferent and you cleared your plate. Either that or you went hungry. And we sat at the table until everyone was finished eating because that was considered good manners

I'm a great believer in the maxim "children are a product of their environment" and i wish more parents would remember that

Hi Jaycee - The play about the dad making his daughter eat a meal (herring I think) is called "Spring and Port Wine"!
With James Mason

I thought I'd posted about that earlier in the thread but maybe not !!
Oh dear

I never insisted on my DD eating everything on her plate (much to the disagreement of her father and her family) because I didn't want to make a big issue of food, and lay the grounds for an eating disorder.

I'm happy to say my daughter has a healthy attitude to her body, doesn't diet or worry about her weight (which is normal), and enjoys food.

After all, no-one forces adults to eat everything they are served.

We couldn't afford to be picky. My mum would put dinner on the table, take it or leave it. There would be nothing else until the next meal, absolutely no snacking in between. We ate what was put in front of us because we were hungry. It drives me crazy in the shops when I hear mums saying "what would you like for dinner?" to a three year old. Who is running this show?

Very interesting reading all these comments. My DGD is now 4 plus and will not sit down and eat a meal with the rest of the family. DIL makes her separate different food which she eats before we eat our meal. In a restaurant she is given mum's phone to play on which keeps her quiet during the meal! She starts school in September so it will be interesting to see how she gets on. The word 'no' is alien to her. Mum says "please darling, don't do that, stop that" etc. and of course that's ignored because there's no consequences. My son tries to be firm with DGD but then he's shouted down by DIL for shouting at DGD! For heavens sake! I'm so glad we live 60 odd miles away. I have to SO bite my tongue. This is called 'permissive parenting' and has done DGD no favours whatsoever. She is a rude, spoilt little girl and tiring to be with sadly