Dinnertime tips for finnicky eaters.
Dinnertime with children can be excruciating. One day my sons will gulp down green beans only to hate them the next.
Sometimes I make rice seasoned with onions and spices for a little variety--but the kids spend an hour picking out every single sliver of onion and each speck of pepper. They then consume the rice one grain at a time with a look of revulsion with each bite because they still taste the onion.
My wife and I totally gave up on serving peas since our two youngest flat out refuse to eat them, whereas our oldest would only eat ones that were perfectly round--not dented. (It took a long time for my wife to let up on the fact he got that from me.)
It's not uncommon for children to hate what parents put on the table. When I was very young I thought my parents were nuts for serving "roach" for dinner. Of course it wasn't really roach. Sure I eventually learned it was roast, but it didn't help that my Mother, God rest her soul, could take a perfectly good hunk of meet and dry out out worse than the Sahara. Therefore, i developed the covert art of food disposal.
It doesn't take long to figure out that just moving food around the plate doesn't work. You have to get rid of the stuff. And when there is an absence of house pets, you get creative--or desperate.
My personal favorite was spitting the repulsive morsels into my napkin as I pretended to wipe my mouth. If it were a paper napkin, I faked an Oscar-winning sneeze so that I could justifiably throw the napkin into the trash and get a fresh one.
If my parents were distracted, I'd make a deposit into the pot of the nearest fake houseplant, especially if my older brother cooperated by supplying the diversion. Since the plants were artificial they never needed watering or repotting, so no one was ever the wiser.
Another strategy called for excusing myself to go to the restroom. One flush and the evidence was gone. But that was limited--there were only so many times you might reasonably go potty during dinner.
Boys are not the only culprits in such situations. My wife was a frighteningly cunning little girl who mastered her own suppertime cons. Fortunately for her, she often ate with not just her brother, but also several cousins. When it comes to kids in numbers, there is chaos--and in chaos there is opportunity.
Because their mother and I wrote several chapters of the parental con manual, our unfortunate sons get no passes.
Still, they are becoming adept negotiators. The boys have worked a deal with us on broccoli that if they eat the florets (tops only), they do not have to eat the bitter stems and--this is critical--they still qualify as having eated their veggies to gain Mom's coveted dessert. (It's a rule in our house that dessert is earned with a clean plate).
Infamous in most families is the "just one more bite?" plea. We solved that by increasing one more bite everytime one of the boys asked for one less. The spread became so large that the debt carried over to the next meal--so they now cust their losses and accept whatever number we offer.
But sometimes they sweeten the pot by saying they will finish a vegitable or starch--that we know is not their favorite--if they only have to take a small number of bites of a meat that we know they hate more. Fair enough.
As they get older and a little wiser--and my wife and I grow more patient--dinner becomes less torturous and more entertaining, sort of like "Family Affair" meets "The Apprentice."
The only drawback is that when we reach our limit on patience, we can't say to the oldest, "You're fired."
Copyright 2006 by David Falloure
