Tips to help with an extreme picky eater child.
The plight of the picky eater
If you really want to insult a woman (or some men), don’t eat his/her cooking. From a fussy eater’s perspective, there is no worse thing in the world than not eating the food that other people eat. Everybody persecutes us, even fat people (especially fat people). Homosexuals and racial minorities have been through some horrible things, but I got news for you, they aint got nothing on North America’s mostly disregarded prejudiced group, the picky eater.
I think it goes back to the hunter-gatherer days, when, if a person didn’t eat whatever was offered them, they died. Nobody wants a picky eater in their gang, they want strong people who eat strong and contribute to the strength of the tribe.
Picky eaters put up with so much. All their lives, people will be disappointed with them. They’ll look at them with sad eyes and say, “oh…you’re a picky eater?” Then glance away so they wouldn’t have to see the intense looks of pity in their eyes. Or they say things like, “No one in my family acts like that. If they don’t like their dinner, they go hungry.” Picky eaters have heard that a thousand times before. They tried that. They went hungry.
It’s worse for the picky eater, because they know they’re causing you pain when they don’t eat your food. It hurts them more than it hurts you. They don’t mean to do it. Of course, sometimes they get the opposite reaction, instead of being hurt, the unappreciated chef gets determined and tries to turn you.
Women are always trying to change men, or ‘cure’ them. If they find out a man is gay, they want to take him to dinner and seduce back to their side. If they find out a man can’t eat well, they want to make him dinner and seduce interesting foods into his heart. This then leads inevitably to failure. At which point, these poor women are even more insulted than when they started. They tried their best and failed.
At least with turning gay men, women understand its going to be an uphill battle. There’s scientific evidence which says that homosexuality is inborn, and cannot be changed. The fussy eater has no such scientific protection. Women think curing the fussy eater is literally going to be a piece of cake, but its not. God it’s not.
Tips on fixing an extremely picky eater
Maybe it’s okay to be a picky eater. Maybe it’s okay to have sensitive taste buds or to only eat a rotation of ten or so things all the time, but if you’re here, you don’t think so. Okay.
1) First of all. He’s going to feel just as bad about it as you do. This applies to most aspects of parenting, but be cool about it. Don’t force the issue and he’ll be more responsive to what you have to say.
2) Know that, in some cases, it can’t be helped, children have more sensitive taste buds than adults, nothing you can do will help. If you worry this is the case, go see a nose, throat and mouth doctor about it. And consider ways of living it and working around your child's disability (and it is a disability).
3) In other cases, introduce different foods. If he doesn’t like smoked ham and mashed potatoes, make or buy a chicken curry for dinner. Try Chinese food. Buy some prosciutto and some gouda and make him a European sandwich. If he doesn’t like one thing, try other things, if you expand your own horizons, you’re children will see this and respond in kind.
4) You’re not going to like this suggestion, but: be a better cook. I know that nobody wants to think they’re bad at cooking, but in some cases, maybe you’re kid doesn’t like mashed potatoes because you’re doing them wrong. Look up recipes on mashed potatoes in google. Add more butter. It makes everything good.
5) Mix some of his favourite foods with new ones he hasn’t tried. That way, if he doesn’t like the new items, he won’t have to go hungry because he can’t do it.