Clearly not my child.
Image courtesy of Linda Åslund
I’m sure you think you are helping. That you give me advice with the best of intentions. But frankly, I kind of hate you right now.
And I think you should know that your parenting skills alone are not the reason your kid eats anything. Everyone is different, and some people have more issues with eating than others.
Maybe your kid did go through a relatively picky phase at one time (like that time they refused to eat kale or quinoa for a couple weeks). Or perhaps they don’t eat every single item you offer them all the time. And you came up with a great way to get your child back on track.
But you know nothing about my child and how food has been an issue since he 3 months old. How he refused to take a bottle for the nine hours I was at work and simply switched his feeding times from day to night, forcing me to offer solids earlier than I wanted in an attempt to get more than 45 minutes of uninterrupted sleep at night. Or how even the tiniest chunks would make him gag and throw up his entire meal, even as an infant. How at 10 months he started refusing nearly every solid food, despite me offering things over and over again. How trying to get him to eat his first cake at his first birthday made him cry. How as a new parent I desperately tried any method of enticing him to eat more foods, only to see them all fail. And feel like I was failing him as a mother.
So don’t tell me now that I didn’t offer chunky food early enough, didn’t try hard enough, or just needed to do one thing or the other. I did. I tried harder than you can imagine. But he is a person. He has his own preferences. And he chooses to fight me with food at every step.
He is five years old and the variety of food he eats is still a major problem. But your obvious judgment isn’t helpful. And neither is your “advice.” Just be happy that your kid eats more than most and keep any comments about my parenting to yourself.
From,
The Parent of a Picky Eater
Parenthood Out Loud 