I don't know how he even poops...
 

My 6 year old has almost gotten to the point where about the only thing he will eat is something peanut related!

Peanut butter sandwich (no jelly)

Peanut granola bars

Peanut butter pretzels

Sometimes, he just wants a gob of peanut butter.

Now, I like it as much as the next person but too much of a good thing...

In the morning he its a normal variety of stuff. At dinner he usually eats what we put in front of him (though it can and has been a struggle).

But now during the day, at lunch I'll send him apples in his lunch, he asks for apples in his lunch and today my wife comes up from dropping him off with 3 containers of apples that haven't been eaten!

I'm just ranting a bit here...

Today's lunch was a peanut butter sandwich, with some cheese puffs (pirate booty) and for snack I made him some apples and peanut butter pretzels and for his TLC snack he requested a peanut butter bar and something else...

PEANUT BUTTER!!!!

ARGGGGGGGGG!!!!!

I'm contemplating taking peanuts out of the equation entirely for a bit but that may be an over reaction. I'm sure he's just trying to exert some control in some aspect of his life. My #2 problem with all this is when he doesn't eat what I send him, he wastes my money and I like my money. I work hard for my money, I don't have an endless supply of money. I'm just sayin...

Wife is pissed!

We have decided he's 6, he's old enough to talk to us about this food wasting craptasticness...

The other one, the 2 year old eats whatever I put in front of him.

The other night we were having sausages and I like mustards - nothing hot really, more of a dijon or yellow mustard lover and the boy had a sampling of each of the mustards we had in the house. I also enjoy korean food and sometimes the little one will even try the kimchi I'm eating. He loves rice vinegar on his rice. He'll try ANYTHING, it's great. #1 however...want's nothing to do with anything that isn't peanut or ketchup covered.

I know, I know it's just the way he is and his sensitivities are what they are - I don't want to punish him for that. But he has GOT to work with me here...

at least he doesn't have peanut allergies....

My oldest son went through the same thing with something else. Wanted to eat that and only that. He didn't pitch a fit or act out, but he just acted like he wasn't hungry and woudn't eat unless we gave him his food obsession. He'd go for a long time without eating, too.

One of our best friends is a pediatrician. The only time we asked him for free advice was then. He just laughed and said a lot of, if not most, kids go through a food obsession at about that age. He said there's nothing wrong with it, and that as long as the food is reasonably healthy and low fat, go ahead and give him whatever he wants. So we did. He ate like a champ, was a happy camper, and grew out of it in no time.

Just let him eat through his food obsession and tell funny stories about it when he hits his teen years and is trying to impress the babes.

We do know that peanut butter is good for you right? It sounds like this is his primary source of protein and it has a lot of fiber (thats how he can poop).

My parents handled this differently:

* They put food on the table, I ate it.
* If I didn't want to eat it, I didn't leave the table
* I didn't get to make requests
* I didn't get to peruse a menu
* I didn't get to send it back if I didn't like it
* I didn't get any say in the menu until I was old enough to do the cooking myself.

I'm not a parent, so you can take this with a big grain of table salt, but you're setting this kid up to be a spoiled brat.

So its wrong that my wife prints up a menu??? LOL

I think the biggest mistake is to 'MAKE' someone eat their dinner. Thats how I was raised and I think it contributes to obesity.

Anyway, in our house, dinner is served and you eat what is prepared. If you dont want to eat all of your dinner then you are obviously too full for any kind of dessert and you better not come in later wanting to eat.

This, except I was always welcome to go hungry - but just had to stay at the table until the family was done.

We have never had to get quite that strict with our girl since we didn't have major problems, but it is the approach we went with and now we have an adventuresome and agreeable little eater at 7 yrs. Now she gets flexibility since she doesn't cause static. About the only rule now is that she can't turn up her nose at stuff until she's had a bite of it first. Most of the time she ends up liking it.

Last night she ate pad thai and a piece of spider roll.

Or, be glad he doesn't go to a school where they've banned peanut food products because someone else in the school has an allergy to them.

To counter that arguement from the school I would go to you to get a note saying that my kid HAD TO HAVE PEANUTS...then let us see the school district squirm with that one...

Our Temple is like that for the summer day camp he attends. Not as bad as what you're referring to but we substitute soy nut butter which he actually likes more (as do I) so there is no issue.

Sometimes he asks for a soy and peanut butter sandwich.

We have gone the route of trying to force him to eat what we do and frankly this boy is willing to fight it much more than we are. I'm not a roll over parent but seriously - the fight was a CONSTANT, knock down drag out every night. We finally just gave up. If he doesn't eat - he doesn't eat and there isn't anything I can do about it (except give him candy right? He'll eat that...). Now that was the past - we have had him and us in some counseling and that has been productive. We're dealing with a some impulse control and ADHD issues. I'm fine with him snorting peanut butter up his nose, I'm not fine with him asking for food and then not eating it.

These days, and there are previous threads on this - we have lightened up at dinner time and so has he. He eats more, I know what he likes and doesn't and I do tailor things a bit but I don't go far out of my way. I meet him part way and he's meeting me part way.

Hopefully he will grow out of it but I'm a bit food obsessive myself, I just have more range. =-)

It's funny how children can come from the same physical place (my house, specifically) yet be so entirely different. My wife has friends who complain about their parents and their childhood. This 6 year old is very challenging and sometimes insufferable. These two situations makes my wife now ask her friends who complain about their parents and childhood ask those friends 'um, maybe you were a craptastic child eh?'

HA!

I would tell your little rug rat, that if he doesn't want the Apple don't ask for one. That he is not hurting your feelings by NOT asking for one...and that you are trying to give him something that he likes in his lunch. That you thought he wanted Apples. That he should ask for what he truly wants to eat.

If he wants Peanut Butter give him Peanut Butter. It is not bad for him, the only thing I would check is the Sugar and Salt content in the brands.

Unless there is some hidden agenda that i am missing here, it sounds like a phase. Ask him what makes peanut butter taste so good to him. Keep asking why...it makes you think about why you do the things that you do and the things you like or don't like.

OK. There's something wrong with your kid if he likes soy nut butter. Yech.

Like tabs suggests, just check how much sugar is in the peanut butter you're giving your kid, as some have a buttload of the sweet stuff as an ingredient.

This sounds like me! I swear there are times when I'd rather have a PBJ than a filet from my favorite steakhouse. And after making a sandwich I always sneak a big bite of peanut butter before putting the jar away. Great, now my mouth is watering.

That is 'sig-worthy'.

If you ask for it, then you eat it. Otherwise, you don't get it a second time. There is no third.

As far as the peanut butter thing. I don't think it's a big thing as long as the butter in question is a healthy choice and it's supplemented with maybe a multi-vitamin. Kids go through food phases. My little brother went through a period of about two years where he would only eat peanut butter and jelly. And the jelly had to be blackberry. He hate it 3 or 4 time a day and absolutely nothing else.

Apples or bananas with peanut butter spread on them = YUM!! Might try to diversify on that basis. Peanut butter pancakes, etc. Have fun with it and he'll outgrow it.

angela

Actht ZOOOO.."a bit food obsessive...." does the Apple fall far from the tree...

"Impulse control"...yeah it is called being SIX YEARS OLD...at 6 years old you are letting the WITCH DOCTORS diagnose your kid...that is fking insane...What do yu have to say about that? Are you abdicating your own common sense to someone who is a supposed expert?

The day that he stops fighting is the day I would start to worry. watch the movie "Stand By Me" some parents tend to beat the creativity out of their kids instead of encouraging a kids talent and focusing it....

Howevr a parnet also has to teach their kid to recognize that there are limits, that they are not all powerfull and can get anything they want. Clint said, "A man has got to know his limits' of what he can do today and what he can do tommorow.

At 6 years old Dad is Lord and Master, and what Dad says goes...why do you have that power, because in childhood you are respoonsible for their safety and welfare. Hopefully you are teaching them good survival skills for later on in life.

IMHO it's just kid weirdness- but don't take my advice. My son would run in circles and yell. I don't know why. Later he carried 2 liter bottles of soda around all the time. Then it was hours of Pac Man at the arcade. Annoying as hell and scary but I put it down as kid weirdness. Now, with a Phd that he earned through scholarships, he teaches at Boston University hospital and has given me two of the greatest grandkids a man could ever pray for. I don't know if I did right by being moderately tolerant, but it all worked out for the best. There is no formula. You do your best and hope it's right.

Peanut Butter and blackberry jam sandwich. Yum. I love peanut butter.


I have five kids - 12 to 19. I have been through everything, including food issues. All I can do is laugh because, man, things never go the way I think they should.


You asked for apples! Why did you ask for apples and then not eat them? If you're not going to eat them, then don't ask for them! When you have a job and want to waste your money on things you're not going to eat, go ahead, knock yourself out. But until then, it's MY money and MY food your wasting, so knock it off.

Oh, man.

Mike, seriously chill with the kid. Get him outside and run him around until he's hungry enough to eat whatever. One of the best pieces of advice we ever got from our docs was that there are three things you can't force a kid to do: eat, go to the bathroom, and go to sleep. If he's six and you've already had him into counseling and you're worried about ADHD, it really makes me wonder if you're getting a little too intense for the kid. He's going to grow up and develop into a fine young man no matter what you do. He'll learn to eat other stuff. He'll be a polite, constructive member of society no matter what mealtime rituals you instill in him. So why fight over it? Maybe family counseling for parenting advice would be helpful. It's always nice to pick up tips and other techniques from other parents and pros in the field.

As to the apples, he's six years old. Sometimes when you're that age you start out in the day thinking you'd like some apples. So you ask for them. But when you get around to eating lunch, what seemed like dessert in the morning looks like an extra helping of fruits and veggies, or you get filled up with delicious PB&J, and so you don't eat it. I know I've done the same thing and my chonological (but perhaps not mental) age is considerably older than 6. How much do a couple apples cost? Is the toll on you, your wife and the kid worth the value of the lost food? And no, it's not the principle. Kids need to learn to throw away food. They shouldn't take it if they're not going to eat it, but more harm comes from forcing people to eat all they take than comes from throwing away the excess that shouldn't have been taken. Just tell the kid the next time he asks for apples that you'll only give him one slice because he didn't eat any the last time, and that if he eats it this time, he gets more next time, but if he doesn't eat it, he gets none next time.

Don't turn things into a battle of the wills with a 6 year old boy.

Edit: By the way, my older son who went through the same phase now eats anything, including authentic Chinese stuff my wife and her mother eat, including a lot of stuff I can't even force myself to touch.

+ 1000 Best advise I've read on OT in a long time.