Question About Nephew

[Old_Joe]

My sister and her 8 year old son are visiting next week. He's very picky eater and will only eat certain foods (e.g. chicken nuggets). My sister caves in because she doesn't like to hear him whine and complain and will even reward him with peanut butter cups. As result, he's not growing enough and is considered marginal. Does anyone have suggestions of what I can do to help him while they're here?

[T-Bone _]

No ideas. Anything you do to interfere may cause family strife.

[Lil Red]

+J.M.J.+
tell him "x" is what you are serving for dinner. if she or he doesn't like it, they are welcome to go to the grocery store

[IcePrincessKRS]

If you make something like mashed potatoes put things like heavy cream and butter in it. Offer him gravy. Top it with shredded coagulated milk. They should not be doing anything low fat. I have skinny kids, my middle daughter is especially thin (she's not even on the growth charts for her weight) but we generally eat really well. Healthier stuff, not junk all the time. But, again, we don't do low fat because it's not good for the kids (I am not a fan of low fat anyway, so they'd be getting it anyway lol). Children, especially skinny ones, need the calories and good fats in milk products for growth and brain development. (Don't be scared by the anti-saturated fat gurus, do you know how fatty and high in cholesterol breast milk is? Kids need that stuff!)

If he eats cereal for breakfast cut his milk with some heavy cream to give him more calories in his diet. Make him a milkshake and put some Carnation Instant Breakfast powder in it to boost his calorie intake. He'll think he's getting a treat and you'll know you're helping get a little extra vitamins and calories. Anything that you can add extra fat to (cream, butter, coagulated milk etc.), do it. Eggs? Fry them in butter and top 'em with grated coagulated milk.

A child's stomach is generally only about as big as their fist, so parents need to be sure that whatever 10 bites (because that's about how much a fist's worth of food is) their kid is consuming is chock full of as many nutrients as they possibly can get.

I also agree with Red. I do not EVER make separate meals for my kids and I never have. They get what I cook, that's it. They have never been finicky. One may prefer meat and the other carbs, but in the end they eat whatever is put in front of them.

[Chestertonian]

[quote name='Old_Joe' post='1950854' date='Aug 16 2009, 08:09 PM']My sister and her 8 year old son are visiting next week. He's very picky eater and will only eat certain foods (e.g. chicken nuggets). My sister caves in because she doesn't like to hear him whine and complain and will even reward him with peanut butter cups. As result, he's not growing enough and is considered marginal. Does anyone have suggestions of what I can do to help him while they're here?[/quote]


Is he autistic by any chance? I know a lot of kids are picky eaters, but the kids who only like a handful of foods are often "on the spectrum."

[eagle_eye222001]

My mom had a friend whose daughter was a very picky eater. One time she came over to spend the night and when she told my mom she didn't like what we were having for dinner, my mom basically just said she was making what she was making and if she didn't like it, she didn't have to eat it, but she wasn't going to make anything else. Guess what? She ate it and when her mom came to pick her up, she was shocked to hear that she had eaten what my mom had cooked.

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[Archaeology cat]

I was an extremely picky eater as a child, at least in part because my mother would allow it (and the fact that she hated cooking). I, however, never make a separate thing for my son - he eats what we're having because that's the only option. And he eats things I never ate as a child. I mean, this child loves Brie, red beans & rice, pretty much anything.

I'd second what Icey said about cooking with full fat everything, though. I do that a lot.

[Sojourner]

One of my best friends has a daughter who is an extremely picky eater. She will ask for something, then refuse to eat it when it comes out. It has frustrated my friend to tears, literally, but she and her husband have stuck to their guns with her and worked on it. It is a control issue, at root, and they've discovered that they have to present a united front in order to have any effect.

[Old_Joe]

[quote name='Chestertonian' post='1950946' date='Aug 16 2009, 11:36 PM']Is he autistic by any chance? I know a lot of kids are picky eaters, but the kids who only like a handful of foods are often "on the spectrum."[/quote]

No he's definitely not autistic. I think the main problem is not so much that he is a picky eater, but rather that my sister is enabling him to be one.

[StColette]

[quote name='Old_Joe' post='1951209' date='Aug 17 2009, 01:40 PM']I think the main problem is not so much that he is a picky eater, but rather that my sister is enabling him to be one.[/quote]

That is the case a lot of the time. I personally would not cater to his whims. Fix the same thing for everyone and if he doesn't like it then he just won't eat. If he gets hungry enough he'll eat it. A few kids in my family were picky eaters, ie their parents would cave in and give them what they want. A few weeks with my grandparents cured them of their picky eating habits. In their house you either ate what they fixed or you didn't eat lol

[Old_Joe]

[quote name='StColette' date='17 August 2009 - 02:36 PM' timestamp='1250534183' post='1951233']
<!--quoteo(post=1951209:date=Aug 17 2009, 01:40 PM:name=Old_Joe)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Old_Joe @ Aug 17 2009, 01:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1951209"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think the main problem is not so much that he is a picky eater, but rather that my sister is enabling him to be one.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

That is the case a lot of the time. I personally would not cater to his whims. Fix the same thing for everyone and if he doesn't like it then he just won't eat. If he gets hungry enough he'll eat it. A few kids in my family were picky eaters, ie their parents would cave in and give them what they want. A few weeks with my grandparents cured them of their picky eating habits. In their house you either ate what they fixed or you didn't eat lol
[/quote]

unfortunately, I don't think I have few weeks. If it was just him, I could fix the problem. However, since his parents are rewarding his pickiness, it's an even bigger challenge.

[IcePrincessKRS]

Unfortunately I don't think you can change that in a short visit. The only thing you can do is make sure that what YOU feed him is good for him. Encourage your sister to be firmer with him when it comes to meal times, but other than that... you don't want to cross any lines or step on any toes. It's a difficult situation to be stuck in.

[tinytherese]

Unfortunately, my family typically catered to my pickiness when it came to eating (which is a habit that I want to break out of.) Eating is just odd in my family. My dad has recently decided to take a strange nutrition outlook. He eats smaller meals with not much substance because he is trying to avoid as much fat as possible and avoids bread and pasta. He has multiple times made comments when I've made a peanut butter sandwitch saying that it has all of that fat in it, but he doesn't seem to care that it also has plenty of protein. He doesn't even eat dinner with my brother, mom, and I anymore. He eats his own dinner early in the day hours before mom has even gotten home from work. If my brother is with my dad for lunch he doesn't give him that much, just a banana and yogurt.

So mom asks me what I want for dinner. It gets annoying coming up with something that my little brother and I or sometimes just why I want to eat. (Mom typically eats something else that's different from what my brother and I eat and she used to often eat by herself before apart from my dad, brother, and I or sometimes just dad and I.) My little brother stays at my grandparents after school and during the day in the summer and grandma often feeds him before my mom comes to pick us up from her house.

[missionseeker]

[quote name='StColette' date='17 August 2009 - 01:36 PM' timestamp='1250534183' post='1951233']
<!--quoteo(post=1951209:date=Aug 17 2009, 01:40 PM:name=Old_Joe)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Old_Joe @ Aug 17 2009, 01:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1951209"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think the main problem is not so much that he is a picky eater, but rather that my sister is enabling him to be one.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

That is the case a lot of the time. I personally would not cater to his whims. Fix the same thing for everyone and if he doesn't like it then he just won't eat. If he gets hungry enough he'll eat it. A few kids in my family were picky eaters, ie their parents would cave in and give them what they want. A few weeks with my grandparents cured them of their picky eating habits. In their house you either ate what they fixed or you didn't eat lol
[/quote]


We never had picky eaters at my house. We just had picky hungry people.

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='missionseeker' date='18 August 2009 - 04:09 AM' timestamp='1250564989' post='1951700']
We never had picky eaters at my house. We just had picky hungry people.
[/quote]
Honestly, that's how I was at times, too. I know a lot is because I knew my mom would give in. One of my nephews actually had sensory issues and his senses would get overloaded sometimes with new foods.