Worst of the Week: “Dad, dinner sucks!”

Oct 24th, 2008 | By chrismarshall | Category: Advice, Reviews

Welcome to my regular Friday feature, Worst of the Week. As a white, suburbanite husband and dad of two kids, there’s a lot that can go wrong and this entry is all about how to fix it. I hope you enjoy it!

As a stay-at-home (and in desperate need of a job) Dad, it’s my job, among thankless other tasks, to get dinner ready. Occasionally Patty clips out recipes from the woman’s magazine du jour or the weekend paper, yes, I still get a paper.

One of them she clipped sounded on the surface to be pretty good and one that everyone would like – Pasta with Creamy Dijon Sauce. I set up the table well in advance, I followed the recipe to a T and I had even bought a nice loaf of bread, the kind you bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. I served it up and then like a ton of bricks – the kids hated it. Now I have to say I kind of agreed with them, to me it was just OK but very bearable. Patty on the other hand scooped it up and even had seconds. Not only that but she made suggestions on ways to make it even better like adding chicken, mushrooms or green and red peppers.

Back to the kids. Nothing we could do would make them eat it. Not even a threat like, “This is dinner and that’s it.” Nope. Nada. Nothing. I felt really bad considering that even the chef didn’t think it was all that great. I caved in and made them Mac ‘N Cheese (of which I hoarded down a big spoonful).

Now this isn’t the first time the kids refused dinner, nor the first time we got them something different like a pizza because Dear Ol’ Dad burnt the last of the hot dogs on the grill, but this particular time it just really took me by surprise. I also find it amazing that if one kid doesn’t like it, the other kid doesn’t like it, too. How does that happen? Osmosis?

What do you do when the kids don’t eat their dinner? Run to McDonald’s?

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  • Thanks for all of your great comments and suggestions!
    I tried having the kids make dinner with me and it went over very well. Both kids, but mostly Erin, was eager and glad to help out. A true accomplishment.
  • My mom always said she wasn't running a restaurant and we had to eat what was on the table or not eat at all. We don't make special meals or make special trips to accommodate anyone's tastes. While I agree with that basic philosophy, it's important to realize that kids' tastes change. (When my son was younger he loved carrots. Now he'll rarely eat them, not even raw.) As Chef JoAnna pointed out, getting them involved in cooking helps a lot, but I think you have to get them to at least try a wide variety of foods to see if they like them or not. While finding something healthy can be a challenge, with more food choices available than at any time in history you'll find something that they will like that will be good for them, too.
  • I might be a little biased, but what about doing a cooking lesson? Maybe the person who does most of the cooking gets some private, focused instruction, to build up a core set of skills, and to learn a few versatile recipes?

    OR, you can involve the kids, with a family cooking lesson, and give them some 'ownership' of what goes on the table. What if, for example, each of your kids was given a special (healthy!) recipe to learn, and on a certain night every week, that recipe got made and put on the table? (even the littlest ones can have SOME part of helping to prepare the food) Not only would the kids want to see how everyone liked their recipe, but they'd also understand that it takes some work to put food on the table.

    I'd also like all you grown-ups to remember that kids perceive tastes differently! It's a natural defense to not like to eat things that are bitter or strong-tasting, so many vegetables *ARE* just plain yucky to kids. Instead of trying to mask them with sauces or hide them in other foods, learn how to cook them correctly and serve small portions.

    A final thought -- if you get your kids to help you make the dessert (maybe something simple like seasonal fruit mixed with a little frozen yogurt? or sprinkled with toasted cinnamon-sugar oatmeal? or BOTH?) you have a much better bribe when it comes time to insist they take a few bites.
  • Love is a many splendored thin
    I love FamilyMan's comments.

    Listen, we all want what's best for our kids. But sometimes what is best doesn't always taste the best.

    Caving into demands and giving them mac n' cheese if they protest loudly enough only makes it worse to please their finicky palates down the road. So your empty threats about "this is dinner and that's it" only encourage them to complain. Especially if you backtrack and cave in, as you've indicated. ;-)

    Kids take the majority of their cues from the parents. It's ok to gently make comments about the food not tasting great, but ultimately if the parents eat what's offered and give thanks to the person who made it, the kids will eat too, end of story.

    It's great to encourage kids to eat outside their comfort zones, and for that to be an exciting experience, not an "ew, gross" one. And on that score they will largely follow the example set by the parents.
  • Over the years we have come down to a "yuck list"--3 things you don't like, and we won't make you eat. Squash, tomatoes, and fish are recurring themes.

    Everything else is fair game. If they don't eat, they don't get another option, and they know when the next meal is. No eating means no in between meal snacks either.

    This approach has gotten children to learn to eat salad, spinach, beets and root vegetables.
  • As a WAHD, I love making dinner for the family. And my only regret is that I'm often too busy to do it. (Tonight was chicken and rice, with rosemary and other herbs, and boy did it turn out wonderful.)

    But I also remember as a kid hating whenever my mother tried something new. I have a particularly grueling childhood memory of fish chowder.

    Now, I kind of regret those memories. So don't take it personally when the kids gag at the meal you've so lovingly prepared. I know my kids have done that plenty of times with my own dinner experiments.

    -TimK
  • Gastrokid is a blog describing the sometimes successful, sometimes less-than-successful efforts of two "foodie" dads to introduce their kids to real, good food. Here is the link: http://customcom.typepad.com/gastrokid/
  • One time I decided to try something different as a snack: edamame. I know it sounds nuts to offer this. My son (5 years old at the time) had a couple friends over and they were quite picky when it comes to what goes into their mouths.

    Rather than calling it edamame to watch them make a yucky face, I told them this was frog brains. Their eyes lit up and they ate them without any hesitation.

    Maybe it's how you market the food you serve them.
  • Okay, I'm gonna regret posting this:

    Yes, my kids, or at least the oldest of the two, can be picky. Actually, we've found very little we can get her to eat, and I refuse to let her live on a diet of french toast.

    The pediatrician says not to worry, kids won't starve themselves.

    However, I have to admit, although I have an "he'll eat anything" reputation, I see stuff coming to the table that I want to refuse to eat. It's not that the wife doesn't try, it's that she doesn't aways hit the mark.

    What do you do when the kids say "dad, this sucks" and deep down you know they're right...
  • I don't even try. I find what foods they eat and give it to them early. I only feed them and I have my own dinner later. I find a main dish they like, vegetables they like and other side dishes they'll eat and that's what they get. It's when we try to eat as a big family sit down that we have the most problems. We have fish and couscous and tomato salad, while delicious, isn't a kids palette. They're also vegetarian which is doubly hard on me. I don't force them to eat, but I reward a clean plate. If they don't eat, they don't eat. It's up to them. I try to have them eat a couple bits at least, but if they don't finish it's bed time. So far I haven't got much of the "it's yucky" argument, just the "I'm full, so can I have a cookie" argument.

    theguth is correct, though. They'll eat when they're hungry and if that happens to be at dinner time, great. If they're not hungry, they're not hungry. I won't instill a sense of food abuse on a child so they grow up with obesity or bulimia. Food should be fun and delicious and important, not a chore.
  • I love to cook, it's my thing I guess. And I do spend a lot of time in the kitchen preparing well thought out meals, and yeah, some of them are real duds. Wife doesn't like it, kids don't like it, what to do.

    But you know what? Kids are slaves to what their bodies tell them more than adults are. They eat when they're hungry, they drink when they're thirsty. Their bodies tell them when they need the nutrients they need (are my kids really that sugar deficient?!?). I only make one dinner, if they don't eat, well...a bigger breakfast for them in the morning I guess (a better meal for them to 'eat big' at anyway).

    It does hurt my feelings a little when I've slaved over something that gets panned all around though.
  • Scott
    We have two boys 6 and 4 who are fairly picky eaters. For us, it's usually my wife making the dinner. She and I both work so it's about 5:30 before she is home and can start dinner, and as you say it really is a thankless job. I see her come home exhausted from work and instead of kicking her shoes off and putting up her feet she gets right to work on dinner. 30-45 minutes later it's ready to eat. So seeing my wife put in all this effort and proudly declaring "Dinner's READY!", only to have the kids plop down at the table and in under two seconds rip all her pride from her by declaring they don't like it, I have tried to take the "It's not about whether or not you like it, it's about being thankful for you Mother's hard work" approach. It really does come down to being rude, so I've pulled my kids aside and tried to point out to them how hard and how much time Mom is spending on dinner, and the most important thing is to tell her thank you, and under no circumstance is it ok to tell her you don't like it, because it's terribly rude. I've been pleasantly surprised how they've actually responded to this new perspective. I really don't think they ever thought about how much effort their Mom was putting into it.
  • You're fortunate to consider this an event. It's a daily struggle in our house, and one we have yet to find a good answer for. We jokingly call our 4-year-old daughter a "starch-itarian". Bread, pasta ... that's about it for dinner. She'll go as far as not even trying it, NOR eating that "emergency meal" simply because we had the audacity to put something in front of her that didn't look like it would appeal to her in the first place. (Needless to say, the emergency meals stopped in a hurry.) Our older son would follow the "I'm not going to eat it either" scenario once in a while as well. After realizing that it was happening every night, that concept quickly vanished in his mind.

    A few the myriad of things we have tried with our daughter include:
    "Try it, you may like it."
    "Eat 4 bites, and you can have some dessert."
    "Well... maybe it's time to go to bed."
    "Can I eat your dinner instead?"
    Full on cheerleader approach... cheering her on to take a bite
    "Daddy makes us a great dinner every night, and look how sad he is!"
    "You can't leave the table until you eat X amount of food."

    Yeah... very little success. She seems to be softening to trying more here in the last week, so we'll see if it stays that way.

    Anyone else struggle with this that wants to share their ideas?
  • Scott
    Great post, Chris, and one to which I can really relate. My wife is a stay-at-home mom and therefore usually takes care of dinner for us, but she has been out of town for 5 of the past 7 days. Thus, the task falls to The Dad. I actually enjoy doing it, though, since it's not something I have to do every day, day after day, like she does. I guess when it only happens occasionally, it's not so much drudgery.

    But getting to your question of what you do when the little ones won't eat dinner....We have five kids, ages 2-14, and they all inherited their mother's Picky Eater Gene to one degree or another. Thus, at least once a week, one or two kids have a problem with what gets served up on the table. As hard as it is sometimes, we tend to take the hard line of "Hey, this is what's for dinner...take it or leave it." And after awhile -- sometimes a very LONG while -- they give in and eventually manage to choke it down.

    On the other hand, it's not like I can BLAME them for it. They tried it and they didn't like it. You can't make a kid like something. Which is why I occasionally cave, too, and either whip up mac and cheese like you did or find something else for them to eat.

    Bottom line, I guess, is that I wish I had an easy answer to this. Maybe if I just ignore the problem and wait 20 years, they'll all have moved out of the house and it will go away. ;)
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