Raising children who are competent eaters has been one of my long term parenting goals, yet sadly, I am not making as much progress in this area as I would like to see. I take full responsibility, as I knew when they were little that I needed to be more diligent with their exposure to different foods. Quite frankly, it is in the last year that I have over come some picky eating myself, so perhaps I wasn't the best role model. And now,once again, I hope to bring them along in their eating as well.
My oldest (14 years old) seems like a lost cause. He has the eating skills of a 5 year old, if that. He has an aversion to certain food textures. I can lead this child to good food, but he chooses to stay locked in his small repertoire of safe foods. I go back and forth wondering if I should continue to buy his nuggets. If I didn't buy them, what would he eat? He will every once in awhile try homemade ones, but I don't make them often enough. I don't want to make them every day and sometimes he will not eat them, anyway! The only truly good thing about his diet is that he will absolutely not eat if he is not hungry and that includes sweets. He will stop in the middle of the most wonderful treat and say he is full. He is a thin eater and for that I am thankful. I am praying for him to branch out one day. I know it can happen. I have a cousin who, as a child, only ate french fries from McDonald's, no lie! And now she eats quite a lot of different foods. She is 25. I may have a long wait!
My middle child (13 years old) is more adventuresome. She loves fruit, some vegetables, and some meats. She is a bit overly fond of sweets, but not of grains. She has come to connect her symptoms of being unwell when she over indulges in sweets. I am so thankful for this! We went through a long time trying to discover why she was having some very bad GI issues. She even went through surgical testing to see if she had celiac disease. We discovered that she most likely has an irritable bowel and also needs to go light on the dairy. Refined sugar and flour are irritants to her system. She also now gets pimples when she eats too much sugar. I love this, actually! It is a good visual reminder to her to be moderate. I try to stay out of her food choices as much as possible so that she can draw her own conclusions. It is working. She makes good choices a lot of the time. She also will try new foods, although needs encouragement to do so. I'd like to see her branch out a little more with the vegetables she enjoys. Perhaps this will come with exposure. She did get over her aversion to beans, recently.
My youngest (age 10) is a lot like me physically and socially. He loves to eat. Carbs are his favorite. He is the most adventuresome eater of the three. He will try anything. Sometimes he likes it, and sometimes he doesn't. He doesn't make a big deal about it. He is not a thin eater, like the other two. He overeats. He is in danger of being obese one day. He is not as active as the other two, also. For awhile, I fretted and withheld food from him. I know this was wrong. I came to realize that in order for him to be a competent eater, I need to have the same rules for him as the others. My goal for him is to have him move more and to keep on being adventuresome. I don't want to restrict him. I want him to learn to eat in a way that is good for his body. He has recently had a bad experience after a few days of eating junk. He felt terrible. His GI system was messed up. He connected the dots on his own. I think he will be making better choices from now on.
So, what are my rules? Basically, I provide the food and chose when they eat, and they chose what and how much to eat. I try to have a variety of food. I don't keep a lot of junk in the house, mostly for my sake! And they get plenty of junk, trust me! It finds them, mostly at church, unfortunately. I do encourage them to try new things, especially if it is made from some things they already enjoy, but I don't force them.
If you want to learn more about raising healthy eaters, Ellyn Satter is my favorite author on this topic.
Sounds like you are doing what needs to be done in their lives, good job mom. And a little encouragement about your 14yo, nuggets only eater. That's how Paulie was his whole life. He barely branched out to eat anything other than nuggets. We just prayed and prayed for him, and one day he says, "Mom, I think I need to start trying new foods." Yes, I had to pick myself up off the ground. He still prefers nuggets, but he is eating a lot of other kinds of food now too. So be encouraged, he can change. Don't forget the power of prayer over you children's lives, even when it comes to food. :)
ReplyDelete