Rose is Rose by Don Wimmer and Pat Brady for April 10, 2012

Let the cat go hungry… Picky eaters aren’t hungry

I didn’t insist that my kids eat at mealtime (or even finish their meal), but they understood at an early age that they got nothing else but water until the next meal – even if the next one was breakfast. No dessert, no cold dinner, not even a carrot; nothing but water until the next time. My step-children had to learn that too; my step-son tried to go around us by raiding the kitchen at night, but we put a stop to that soon enough. (He was rather easy to stop; I was a night-owl and a really light sleeper then. Now they’re grown and flown, and I sleep like a rock.)

Why do most people automatically assume that children will eat anything they give them and don’t have a discernible (working) sense of taste…?Children normally have a higher sense of taste than adults, have they ever tasted any of the stuff that they plan to feed to children…?I still remember more than half the stuff out there (from when I was little) still tasted horrible and almost no one has since than improved or found a way to work around the taste…Closest I can think of is nutrition supplement pills, most of the stuff you need without the taste…

tell him it’s grubs.

Let her go out and hunt her own game and eat it. As for the cat…

My dad would put out a dish of food for the cat and let it sit. Eventually the cat would get hungry enough and eat it…even if it was 3 days old.

Do Mimi & Abby live next door to the Gumbos??

My parents always told us when we were kids if you complain you don’t eat. Also if we took too long over a meal they would take it away and serve it to us cold at the next meal. You get over having to eat what you like and learn to appreciate new things.

I’m a Mom.

My question always is, “How hungry are you?” I’m reminded of a special I saw as a kid when they were opening Auschwitz up as a museum. An old woman was visiting with her granddaughter and explaining her life there as a prisoner. There was a grassy patch and the old woman said that it had been mud, because if there had been a single blade of grass they would have eaten it.

Let kids run around outside, not sit in front of the tv all day and you’d be amazed at the appetite they’ll work up. A few hours without food won’t kill them either.

When my son turned up his nose, we went on with our dinner. Guess who ate after all?

There’s too much from which to choose!I opt for the parfait or sorbet!

My philosophy is “if you’re too full for dinner, you’re too full for dessert”.

For my boys, I tell them that they have to eat the supper I have cooked becuase I don’t want to hear them say, “I’m hungry!” at 9 at night. I keep a very light snack for them for after school, but they have to eat supper. If they still fuss about it, I then tell them I will call evil Dr. Blowhole (an evil doctor who is a a dolphin, from the Peguins of Madagascar show). I then make a show of ‘calling’ the evil doctor and having a very active conversation with him. The kids laugh like crazy, and then low and behold, they eat supper. Works like a charm.

When I was a kid, we only had two choices: 1-eat was put in front of us or 2-do without. I had the same rule with my kids. We couldn’t afford to be picky. The dogs and cats were the same way. If they didn’t eat it 30 minutes after it was put down for them, it was picked up for the next day. They learned faster than the kids.

The only thing I make my children eat is fruit and veggies, they don’t have to finish the rest but it also means no dessert or juice.

This is like today’s Calvin and Hobbes. When my daughter was a baby, she refused to eat strained vegetables-she had to had to have MEAT and vegetables together. If I tried to feed her straight veggies. she let out a long raspberry sound. We had a cat who hated fish flavored food.

Parenting Tip From a Successful Dad (Hey! The little begfers are now in their mid-thirties! That’s successful, ain’t it?)

I have seen very few actual hungry children, and non of those in the United States unless there was some form of abuse going on. My rule when mine were little: eat it or don’t, I don’t (show that I) care. When you are hungry, you will eat. Oh? You won’t eat dinner, but you want your dessert? Sorry. My house does not work that way. No arguments, no fights that would have only raised my blood pressure. No drama, and no tears. And usually, supper was eaten and dessert was enjoyed. Coaxing a child to eat is negative reinforcement of a bad behavior. And if you coax a child, you ARE playing their game.

Dogs, cats and kids. What we put out is what you get. You don’t want it, 15 minutes later it is gone till the next meal. Dogs learned quickly. Kids learned quickly and if you ate most of it, you got desert. Cats didn’t learn; we go rid of them and saved money.