Dealing with the "Finicky Eater" Child
Somebody has created a monster. Or maybe it's more accurate to
say a generation of monsters. Why are our children such finicky
eaters? And, more importantly, what can we do about it? I don't
mean a child who has firm preferences for certain foods. I'm
talking about the child who is choosing all of his meals and
eating macaroni and cheese from a box three times a day every
day.
We are in a food crisis, and it's beyond the scope of this
article to talk about all the terrible things happening in our
culture around food issues. But I will talk about what parents
can do to help their children with eating issues. Parents can
intervene while children are young and formulating their ideas
about food and eating. Parents ask me, "What can we can do about
the fact that little Meagan will only eat Chicken Fingers? And
what can we do when she throws a fit when she can't have them?"
They don't want her to starve! Some parents even carry along of
can (or container of) whatever little Johnnie will eat when they
go out to a restaurant or are visiting with friends.
In the homes of these finicky eaters, every night at dinner time
there is a gruesome scene where little ones cry, throw
themselves around, spit out food, and in some way throw a
tantrum when they can't have spaghetti-o's. As the dreaded
dinner hour approaches, parents vow to "make" Jimmy eat his
peas. But more often than not, parents become short-order cooks
who are preparing three different meals for three different
children. What parents want to know is "What do we do when Amy
won't eat anything but Cocoa Puffs?"
First, let's look at the bigger picture. There are two opinions
in child psychology that I believe have been misinterpreted by
parents. The first one is the recommendation that children be
given choices to help them develop their internal locus of
control. This means that if you start to allow children to make
age appropriate choices, they will be able to be more autonomous
and independent as adults. This is excellent advice and comes
from sound psychological research. While the concept is a good
one, and is absolutely essential as children move toward
puberty, parents have not understood that choices must be
limited and must be congruent with the developmental age of the
child.
To take a 4-yr-old into a grocery store, place her in front of
250 kinds of breakfast cereal, and ask her what kind she wants,
is to set a precedent that is both unreasonable and
irresponsible. It would be appropriate for the parent to choose
two cereals (hopefully not Cocoa Puffs) and ask the child which
one he/she would like. It is this kind of choice which fosters
independence, but does not give the child the false belief that
he can run his world. Also, depending on the age of the child,
he or she needs structure and can become confused and anxious
with too many choices.
When the "choice concept" is applied to food, this is the
beginning of the finicky eater phenomenon. Children are told or
are made to believe that they have a choice about what they eat.
But they soon realize that they've been lied to. They can't
really decide to have ice cream for breakfast because parents
freak out when they make these kinds of choices. They're kids.
They really are not capable of making nutritional choices.
That's why they have parents, to guide them in their formative
years so that they can make good choices later, when they are
developmentally able.
So it's this lie that originally creates the power struggle.
Kids are told they can choose, and then parents cajole, argue,
punish, get mad and upset, and try to get them to change their
mind. Kids don't have much power, so they surely don't want to
give it up when they get it. In their world, Mother told them
they could choose, and they're going to make sure that she
delivers!
The second misinterpretation of sound psychological advice is
this: Don't make children eat what they don't want. Do not force
feed your children. Now this is surely good advice. Again,
children who are forced to "clean their plates" do not develop
an internal point of reference for recognizing hungry and full.
This creates problems later with overeating. Everybody remembers
the scene from Mommy Dearest where the poor girl was
forced to sit at the table late into the night in front of a
cold piece of meat. Of course, parents do not want to get into
that type of power struggle with their child. But I think the
pendulum has now swung in the opposite direction where parents
believe they must let the child make all his own decisions about
food. Parents must give guidance by offering only certain
choices. Back in the good old days, parents and children sat
down to a family meal and they ate what mother prepared for
dinner. If they didn't like something, they didn't eat it, but
mother didn't jump up and start preparing them an omelete. It
just wasn't expected.
Here are a few basic principles for parents worried about their
children developing eating disorders:
l. The less said about
food the better.
2. Don't project your own eating issues
onto your kids by focusing too much on food.
3. Don't make
comments about your own diets, size, fat people, bad foods,
healthy foods, and all the rest.
4. Just stop focusing on
food and eating!
For misguided parents who had no idea they were creating a food
monster, it's not too late to get a handle on it. You may
already have given your child the mistaken belief that she can
choose what she wants to eat. And you already may be dealing
with a "finicky eater". It's time to admit you've made a mistake
and make these changes:
1. Depending on your child's age, have a talk with them about
their finicky eating and their accompanying bad behavior about
getting what they want. Tell them you made a mistake and you now
know that you should be giving them guidance and you're going to
start today. If your child is too young to understand this
explanation, simply start with #2 below.
2. Hopefully, your child has some foods he will eat (other than
candy and sweets). Most kids will eat bread and butter or maybe
fruit. Pick out something you think your child might eat and
include it in the dinner menu as a side dish. Not another
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