Transcription
[intro music]
Debi Pearl: Poppa and I are going to record so ya'll go ahead and shut the door. [door closes]
Girl 1: Remember those flowers we planted? They're sprouting.
Girl 2: Yeah.
Announcer: This week on Vintage Answers, we have some advice for parents struggling with picky eaters. Let's see what Mike has to say.
Debi Pearl: These letters are short and easy. "Both of my children hate thee. What is the alternative to punishment for not eating because I don't want to whip them for it. Please help, this is really starting to take a toll on me emotionally. I am dealing with a lot of anger towards them because of the power struggle over food. I've tried spankings but I can't spank them three times a day because they won't eat. I don't want to do damage to my children because I'm mad at them that they won't eat. Please advise me. What should I do?
Michael Pearl: Letters are so revealing. Let me have that there. She says here, "It's starting to take a toll on me emotionally." [laughs] I can understand where she's coming from but just rhetorically, let me ask why should that take a toll on mother? It's them that won't eat. It wouldn't bother me personally, because I have a though old hide but it wouldn't bother me mostly for them not to eat, I just wouldn't care. I have absolute confidence that God created every human being with a drive to eat for survival and I have confidence, with the exception of some rare brain disease, that everyone is going to eat enough to stay alive. I've never seen a child that got hungry that didn't eat.
I know what's happening in this home is obvious, they are eating between meals. They are eating something between meals that is more pleasing to the palate than what's on the table, that's just as clear as can be.
It's obvious that they are holding out at meal time because they don't want to eat potatoes and meat and vegetables or whatever is being offered them. They want to have ice cream, candy, cake, and sweet cereal and doughnuts and whatever it is that's available between meals.
I'll give you a sure cure here, this will work. Take all the sweets out of the house, take all of the in between house, all the corn chips, potato chips, any of that stuff. Take it all out, get rid of all the jellies, all the syrups, all that. Have nothing in the house but good solid food, good vegetables, good potatoes, good meat, whatever you feel like is good healthy food.
At breakfast time, just set them up to the table with their oatmeal, no jellies and some orange juice and whole wheat toast. If they say, "I don't want this, I'm not hungry," say, "Fine." Nine o' clock, when they say, "I'm hungry," say, "We'll be having dinner at noon." At noon time, you put it on the table, if they say, "I don't want to eat this," you say, "Well that's fine. Whatever you want to eat is fine with me."
Then, at one o' clock when they say, "Well, I'm hungry," you just get the turnip greens if that's what you eat, spinach, potatoes and green beans out of the refrigerator, put them on the table cold and say, "There."
If they say, "Oh, I'm hungry. I'm sorry but I don't want that." Say, "Fine, we're going to have supper." When supper comes back around, that's a night time meal here in the south, you put it on the table and say, "Well, here, eat." If they say, "Well, I don't like anything on the table," say, "Fine." Put it up and right before bed, they say, "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm starving." "OK. Fine. Here's your supper." It's cold, let them eat it. Same thing for breakfast.
I guarantee you that in a week's time, that child will be eating turnip, green, spinach, and cold potatoes and enjoying it and loving it and be a lot healthier for it. Your doctor bills will go down and you will have happy, healthy kids. No need for you to ever get mad again. No struggle of wills.
You'll never have to be upset because it doesn't make you a bit of difference what they eat and when as long as they eat what's in the house and the only thing that's in the house is good food. You've thrown everything else out.
If you can stand that, it'll work, I guarantee it'll work. I have seen other parents try it, it'll work. The only thing that will keep this from working is if you mother, love sweets so much yourself that you keep your house stock piled with sweets and you have your little snack and they have that little snack with you then they will not eat a meals and you'll be angry. But, it's yourself you ought to be angry at and not the kids.
Announcer: Well, that wraps up this week's archives. We hope you that found it as encouraging as we did. Don't forget to check out the specials at Cane Creek Corner.
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I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. 3 John 4
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thank you very much. i feel like this is for me because my 4 year old just wont eat healthy stuff. he will often go a whole day without eating unless he gets what he wants but no more 🙂 i will be making changes today. thank you and god bless your ministry. its good to know that mike is getting better. we love you guys 🙂
I love all the advice you guys give, but I have a question, I'm in the same situation with my 2 half yr old, and yes he does eat between meals, but it's only good food! His favs are peanut butter or honey sandwiches, and any fruit. Should I still be restricting this healthy food between meals in order to get him to eat at meal times? I've tried it several times, saying "no, wait till dinner" but he gets so irratable and it's such a hard few hours (dealing with another small baby also) that while I don't give into him, I don't do this very infrequently. What do you suggest? Meal times are such a battle ground. It's actually between my husband and son, it doesn't bother me so much, but I'd love a quiet family dinner! Thank you 🙂
I have to share a very interesting situation. Last night I made my daughter a sandwich. We're vegetarians, and I had taken leftover oatmeal (she loves oatmeal, btw), added some herbs and flax seed, and pan fried it into patties. These I had frozen. So I took one of these, put mayo on a whole wheat bun, and put it in the bun with some pickle relish (she loves the relish and we never buy white bread of any kind). She didn't like the patty, so she fussed, ate a couple of bites, then started acting like she was tired. It was late, so I put her to bed. (I should clarify that our big meal around here is what you call dinner; supper is lighter and usually leftovers or cereal or whatever--when I'm not nursing or pregnant I usually don't even eat supper. Her brother has a lot of allergies, so I usually fix her something simple and give him something he can eat, so they rarely eat the same food, because his is expensive.)
Anyhow, I decided she was more tired than hungry and put her to bed. I forgot about the sandwich in the fridge the next morning, and she enjoyed breakfast. Then I got busy and lunch was late. I was working on lunch, and she came in saying she was hungry. I knew she was, because I was too. So I said she could eat some carrot sticks, but she didn't want those. Then I remembered the sandwich and suggested that. She asked for chips, but they were going to be part of lunch, and we only had so many, so I said no (we're talking organic corn chips, btw, eaten as the grain with beans and other stuff--everyone except for her in our family is currently gluten free). Then I turned my attention to finishing the meal, leaving the decision up to her. To my amazement, she took the sandwich and ate it without a word of complaint! And then she ate her lunch about 15 minutes later (she really was hungry, and it was one of her favorite lunches).
One thing I would like to mention, though, is that snacks, especially unhealthy ones, are not always the problem. We don't snack in our house--or at least, only rarely. My husband will occasionally make a smoothie (we're talking the 100% fruit kind) if lunch is going to be late and he is too hungry, because fruit absorbs quickly when eaten alone. We have only a little bit of "snack food" in the house, which gets eaten with meals. And by snack food, I'm talking about a few crackers, corn chips (sometimes). I usually don't buy much of these things because I can't afford to buy a lot of them. I don't give the kids "healthy snacks" either--only rarely do I let them eat something if the meal isn't quite ready, and then it's usually part of the meal, and not sweet stuff (usually lunch is the problem time, so they get veggies). I don't keep desserts in the house, with the exception of healthy jelly beans given one at a time as rewards for certain things (they were really helpful with potty training a few months ago). But I still get issues with kids not liking what I fixed. I think I'm going to have to get tough with them and do what Michael said. It's even more frustrating with my son, because he has so many allergies and has to eat a special diet (mostly I cook extra for him--which makes it even more frustrating when he decides he doesn't like what I fixed). Today he didn't want to eat squash, but I told him he didn't have a choice, and it was only a little bit, so he ate it. We did add a little something to make it more tasty. Then I offered beets. He wanted pasta, but it was still cooking (lunch was late, and pasta was not on the menu for the rest of the family), so I told him he had to eat his beets first. He hemmed and hawed a little, but then he ate them, and then enjoyed his pasta. So I guess I'm on the right track. 🙂