Convenient Parenting is a Seed for a Rough Dinner

Getting my child to eat the food I know has the greatest short- and long-term health benefit is challenging, to say the least.

We are talking hours at the table many times at dinner. Gagging episodes, crying, lines of excuses, “Why do I have to eat this?” It’s so funny— as soon as they finally realize my wife and I are here for the duration, the food that once “caused” gagging goes down with ease.

I have concluded that many of the hypersensitivities (or texture issues) children have around food are directly related to us parents permitting them (with no executive function capacity) to choose what they will eat.

In our fridge, freezer, and pantry, we have easily 75–100 different food items we could potentially eat, and I am sure we are on the low end, as we aim to keep even the “healthy” processed snacks to a minimum. All these potential options calling my kids’ names. Asking for their attention. Run life back three generations and you would have less than 20 food options in a home at any given time, with most being in their raw form.

Options create opportunity. Unfortunately, in the case of food and our children’s desires related to it, it makes the task of real food parenting much more daunting.

I often think about the kids who are brought into my office who will only eat a specific type of chicken nugget or a specific brand of hot dogs. I am talking three meals a day—that is what they eat. Otherwise, according to the adults in their lives, they will starve themselves and have a near out-of-body experience. I’m not joking.

I often wonder, how did they get to those chicken nuggets and hot dogs? Even 40 years ago, they would not have existed in their current form. Would the child find a different food to make their own? You know they would. The reason they decided on chicken nuggets as the only thing their body can eat is because an adult put it in front of them at some point.

So what—who is the problem?

#1 I am the problem. We have eight kids, one on breast milk (her choice 😊). I will make seven different breakfast renditions to meet their desires. I have trained my children that they can run through the list of different options and I will make it to their unique desire. Real food, of course, but not good parenting advice.

Kids, what do you want for dinner? Kids have no capacity to choose what is in their best interest. My 5-year-old found some scissors in the basement and started cutting holes in his shirt today. We hadn’t gotten to the lesson on what to do when you find scissors, so he did what seemed logical to a 5-year-old.

We used to have Lara Bars in our pantry, 7–8 years ago. The kids would ask for them ALL DAY LONG. So we stopped buying them (pesticides, teeth), and they have not asked for a Lara Bar in seven years. Why? Because it’s not an option.

If we want to make it easier to get real foods into our kids, we are going to have to shut down the option train.

The other night, my wife made six different real food items for dinner. She put a small helping of each of them on their plates, and then we proceeded to support our children through eating each different portion before they went and loaded up with more of their favorite of the six. Thankfully, my wife is long-suffering and has not thrown in the towel. How acutely effortless would it be to heat up frozen pizza and pasta most nights?

In the moment, it’s great, but the human being subsists on the food inputs given to it. Quick processed food creates a chronically underperforming, palate-sensitive child who literally will become averse to the tastes and textures of real food. Even when they consciously want to choose a real food path, their sensory system will rebel against them.

If you are just coming into parenthood and want to make life as simple as possible on the food front for your children, give them the option of real food only. Crazy, right?!

Every time you choose convenient parenting related to food, you are sowing seed for a more challenging dinner.

The awesome part about being parents is we get to set the food precedent for our children. The problem with parenting is that we get to set the food precedent for our kids.

Accumulate Health!