Awwwwwww no you are not babbling at all, the info you have given is really useful. My boys are 6 and 8. my younger boy will eat pasta and fish where as my other bot would rather have potatoes and wont touch pasta or fish. they both do adore fruit though so i make sure they get thier 5 a day through that, although my eldest loves veg, where as the youngest dont, its funny how thier taste buds are so different
TEMPORARY 9/16/07 1:53 P
And now I'm spamming this topic, sorry, but one other thing that I found made a huge difference a few years ago was when we started talking about WHY we wanted the boys to eat the foods I was cooking. But we put it into terms they could understand. At the time, the older one had just signed up for track, and the younger one was starting to show interest in hockey. So we would have dinner conversation about how food is fuel for our bodies and if Nicolaus wanted the energy to run that mile relay or if Alex wanted the strength to last a whole game as the hockey goalie, then their body needed GOOD fuel to keep going.
I remember last year, each parent had a day on the schedule when we were supposed to bring snacks for the team after the game. I was so excited about my day. I packed bagels cut up into smaller pieces, orange slices, gatorade, and water. Later, I found out that most parents brought fruit roll-ups! What a conflicting message. Be healthy and play sports, but then load up your body filled with artificial flavors and preservatives? I asked Alex if he was sad that I hadn't included fruit roll-ups but he said that the orange slices had disappeared quickly, so he didn't think anyone minded.
TEMPORARY 9/16/07 1:44 P
I just thought of something though - how old are your kids? Mine are 12 and 14. So they've been eating this way for a while now, and I know what they like so even though I'm deciding what's for dinner, oftentimes it's stuff I know they love. For example, we have spaghetti quite often bc it's the younger one's favorite meal, so even though he isn't requesting it, I'm making it bc he loves it. (The way I kept it fun for me was I experimented with different sauce and meatball recipes till I found the one I loved the most and that's the one I make. So he gets his spaghetti - luckily he's not picky about which sauce he gets (I think bc he's used to his mom making sauce from a jar), but I'm happy to make it bc the sauce is to die for. And the 14 year old's favorite dish is tacos. I can't handle having tacos for dinner, personally (I know that's silly but I like my dinners to be more exciting), so I'll make them for lunches on weekends.
If your kids are younger, you may have to do a combo of who gets to pick what's for dinner. You can ask them all for their favorite meals and let them know they'll have them sometime in the next week or so. Go shop for that, but pick out which sides are healthy that you want to expose them to. So if one likes spaghetti and you go with that, add a side salad (that everyone has to take at least ONE full bite of), and have a fruity dessert.
That way you're easing into the different types of foods.
The hard part may be that they're used to getting their way right now, so there will be a lot of resistance to you saying you're cooking ONE total dinner and that's it.
Another hard part might be if you give in to the autistic child bc of how difficult he is to convince, the other kids might feel like you're being unfair. I suppose that'll depend on how well they understand why you're treating him differently.
Ahh, I feel like I'm not really helping, just babbling!
NIFTYNAT 9/16/07 1:34 P
ty for the reply, what you say is very true, and i will give it a go, see if i can branch out thier tastebuds, we seem to eat the same things because they say they dont like this and dont like that. but i will give it a go and see how i get on. ty so much for sharing that with me
TEMPORARY 9/16/07 1:28 P
Wow. That does sound like a nightmare! Unfortunately, I don't have any experience with disabled or autistic children, so I might not be able to help you there, but let me just share with you how dinnertime is at my house.
First of all, I'm the cook, so I have the right to decide what's for dinner, lol. If one of the kids or my husband has a request, I'll certainly consider it (I usually go that route after all bc sometimes I have a hard time making decisions!), but since I'm the one standing in the kitchen for anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours, then I need to be happy with what I'm doing in there!
Second of all, everyone must take at least one bite of everything - even if they think in advance they don't like it. As my husband says, tastebuds mature over time, so just because you didn't like Tomatoes last week doesn't mean you won't like them today. (Obviously, it takes longer than a week for someone to magically like tomatoes, but it's just that we always want the children to be willing to TRY something.) If you still hate the tomatoes, then you pick them out of the rest of your meal, no problem.
And then lastly, the reason we don't have a problem with the children being relatively picky after that first bite is bc I work really, really hard on having several parts of the meal. For example, last night's dinner was a sort of stew over brown rice (that involved tomatoes, which the older one hates which is why I thought of that example), cornbread, a fruit salad, and grilled veggies, with applesauce for dessert. So even though he picked out all of his Tomatoes from the stew, he still had plenty of food to choose from. If, for example, the whole stew was inedible in his mind bc it was too tomatoey over all and he couldn't handle it, then he'd have the rest of the food to eat. If that would have been enough, great. If not (esp. bc the rest of the food didn't have much protein), then he knows where the Peanut Butter and jelly is and he can make himself a pb&j sandwich, or he can have leftovers from a previous meal. But *I* am done cooking for the night, so I won't be making that sandwich for him!
Gosh, typing all that out kind of makes me sound like a dictator, but bc we've had these rules established for so long now, everything goes pretty smoothly. And I'd say only 1 out of 100 times (or less) will one of the kids dislike a part of the meal so much that a sandwich or leftovers have to get eaten. I think bc they've been eating so many different types of foods for so long now that a meal like tofu and veggie stirfry doesn't have them batting an eyelash.
And I like the rules bc it forces me to branch out as well. I remember a time when I would leave out ingredients from a recipe bc I didn't like them (say, mushrooms), but now I've started leaving everything in (unless I'm making substitutions for health reasons), and I, too, am forced to take a whole bite of the meal, mushrooms and all! Sometimes, I do as the kids do and take out all the mushrooms after that bite, but more and more, I'm being able to leave them in!
Sorry for the long post!
NIFTYNAT 9/15/07 4:16 A
Hi all i just wonderded if anyone else had the same problem as me, Mealtimes in our house is a total nightmare, i find myself cooking 3 and 4 different meals because the kids will not eat the same type of food, so not only is it time consuming, but expensive too Is anyone else had this problem if so how did you over come it? My eldest is disabled and has autistic tendencies so once he sets his mind to something ie wont eat something, its very hard to change his mind. I love cooking but cooking 3 and 4 different meals every day gets beyond the joke after a while. Any suggestions would be greatfull ty
Is anyone else had this problem if so how did you over come it? My eldest is disabled and has autistic tendencies so once he sets his mind to something ie wont eat something, its very hard to change his mind.
