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From: smuga@mtuxo.UUCP (j.smuga)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: Kid won't eat
Message-ID: <1250@mtuxo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Jan-86 09:44:30 EST
Article-I.D.: mtuxo.1250
Posted: Fri Jan 24 09:44:30 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jan-86 08:04:53 EST
References: <774@decuac.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 42

I've got the same problem: two picky eaters, ages 7 and 8.  (Did
someone say this mostly happens to boys?  Mine are both girls.)
It's been this way for years.  Obviously, I don't have the solution;
if I did, I wouldn't have the problem.  I can offer some observations,
based on years of experience.

1.  It's really more *my* problem than theirs.  I am the one who
worries about their nutrition, and I am the one whose feelings are
hurt when my good cooking is rejected.  ( I don't force them to eat
anything, I do insist that they taste it.)

2.  Their health hasn't suffered.

3.  Some strange food choices may provide good nutrition.  My kids
won't eat cooked vegetables, but they love frozen green beans.  I mean
they eat them still frozen.  Well, it's no extra work for me!  During
their preschool years, when they swore off meat and eggs, I used to
fix them "eggnog" for breakfast: eggs, milk, honey and vanilla extract
whipped togther in the blender (I forget the exact proportions).
For my 8-year-old, who won't drink milk, I fix puddings and cheese
omelets.

4.  I've tried the old trick of involving them in food preparation.
They *love* to cook, but it doesn't follow that they will eat well.

5.  Why is it that they help themselves to salad while I'm fixing it,
but won't eat it once it's on the table?  (At least they're eating
it.)

6.  Just when I think I know what they will and won't eat, they change
their minds.  So I prepare what I think is a great favorite, and then
no one eats it.

Anyway, I find it easier to live with this than to try to change it,
if it can be changed at all.
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Janet Smuga			I've had a great many troubles in my time,
ihnp4!mtuxo!smuga		and most of them never happened.

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