Picky dinner guests (kids)

[Low C Sharp]

I don't see a problem getting three happy meals to squelch a drama episode, easy as pie.

I missed the part where parenting is supposed to be easy. If your primary goal is to squelch drama, don't have kids. Teaching them how to behave like civilized guests (and how to eat healthy, homemade food) is not the fun part. It's the hard, necessary part.

what's the problem with them NOT eating stuff they don't like? It seems to me like it's just a control thing.

If it's just one thing, and they've tried it and don't like it, then it shouldn't be a big deal as long as they are eating other nutritious foods. But first, some kids are rejecting entire categories of food that are necessary to a balanced diet, like all vegetables. Skipping spinach is fine if you eat broccoli, zucchini, cabbage, and lettuce; it's not OK nutritionally to skip all that stuff. The OP's nieces are basically skipping the whole meal to go right to dessert unless the "meal" is greasy garbage like nuggets and fries. They're learning terrible habits that may hurt their health someday.

Second, it can be about control on the kid's part, too. There are plenty of kids who may not actually hate the food; they want to prove that they're in charge and they don't have to do what Mom says. Of course Mom should pick her battles, but a kid forcing Mom to make three separate meals for family members is probably enjoying the control more than the nuggets.
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Vaporizer Volcano

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by ISUKappa

If they're not rude and they at least *try* it (and I mean one, good-sized bite, not the miniscule things my son tries to pull on us) then I don't have an issue with it.

This. That was the whole point of my mom's one-bite-without-a-face rule -- so that you learned to try something politely when you were a guest.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by Low C Sharp

I missed the part where parenting is supposed to be easy. If your primary goal is to squelch drama, don't have kids. Teaching them how to behave like civilized guests (and how to eat healthy, homemade food) is not the fun part. It's the hard, necessary part.

Pretty much.

It's never easy as pie to get a kid to do anything they don't want to do.

I mean, if you want to go the COMPLETELY drama-free route, have ice cream for dinner every night, tell them that bathing is optional, and that they only have to go to school on days that start with P.