Do you make your kids eat everything on the plate?

Question

Do you make them eat really wierd food, and make them sit there to they eat everything off their plate?

Like do you go in your frige and stuff thats been there for 6 months thats supposed to be thrown away, do you put that in a blender and sneak it in your sauces.

Answer 1

No. I think making them eat everything on their plate trains them to be overweight later. Let them eat until they are full. Encourage them to try new things, but don't force them. They will just avoid those things later in life.

Answer 2

When my girls were growing up we didn't have the childhood obesity problem we do now but even then I didn't make them eat everything on their plate. I made sure they had a balanced diet and they were required to "taste" everything on their plate. If they ate enough of the healthy stuff then they were allowed dessert or a bedtime snack. If they picked through dinner and didn't eat, they had the chance to eat that before bed.

For your second question, no I don't blend up old food for my sauces and stuff but my former mother-in-law sort of does. She saves every scrap of leftovers and then when fixing a meal she'll go through the fridge and say something like "Oh, better use that up before it goes bad." OMG, nothing better in the world to help with a diet, if you know what I mean. LOL

Answer 3

Absolutely not, that's a form of child abuse. If they are full, then okay were through eating. I always leave there plate out so they can go back and forth to nibble while they are playing. The weird food thing, if for some reason I've bought something odd they are more than welcome to try it, but I'll make something different that i know they will eat.

Answer 4

No, I never forced my kid to eat everything on their plate or anything weird. My kid would hardly eat at all sometimes and I was worried about it so I asked the Doctor about this and was given the following advice:
Do not force the child to eat more than they need. This can lead to obesity and eating disorders later in life. Kids by instinct eat what they need to survive.
Feed them what they like to eat, skip the junk food, keep healthy snacks on hand. Introduce new foods but dont expect them to like everything you do and dont force them to eat anything they dont like.

Answer 5

Have them at least sample every thing, People have different taste , Forcing some one to eat is torture and abuse. I still remember throwing up after my dad made me "clean my plate"
"Weird food" I wouldn't even make my dog eat that.

Answer 6

My parents did that to me and I swore that I would never do it to my daughter and well that idea was bad, my 11 yr old to this day wont eat anything that we all have for dinner. I have to make her something different than everyone else because she only likes a few things. she only will eat cheese sticks or pizza rolls or mac & cheese.

Answer 7

Nope, but I make her try everything. If she's hungry, she'll eat. If not, she won't. I think you set your kids up for a whole host of problems/issues if you force them to eat everything all the time.

Answer 8

when i was growing up my parents made me do that and to me these were weird foods. if they weren't weird i would have eaten them, so when my kids were growing up I didn't force the issue, they have become ok adults with normal likes and dislikes in food even trying and liking foods that I would never have thought they would like.

Answer 9

No and I have tried the starving kids in the world thing. And they told me (If kids are starving why don't you give them this food) hmmmm kids are getting smarter than we realize!

Answer 10

No, but if they don't eat everything they don't get seconds on one item that they might prefer. Also, if they don't eat a decent portion of their greens they do not get dessert.