Nanci and Thomas Kuykendall

>In our house, I never tried to force my girls to eat anything, ....Our rule for our kids was that they at least had to taste everything on their plate and if they didn't like it, then they didn't have to eat it!
>Kim

I'll go you one better. Our kids do not even have to come to the table and eat when we do. BUT! I will not make them anything else, and if they skip dinner, they go to bed without. I tell them that I am not a short order cook, and this is not a restaurant, it's our home. Needless to say, they almost always come to the table to eat when we do, and almost never refuse what we are having, even though we exert no pressure in that direction aside form the standing rule.

My kids are phenomenally "good eaters" and eat all kinds of things, even when we have never had it before, without a word of complaint. All veggie dinners, meatless dinners, pastas, homemdade soups, down to fun stuff like barbecued chicken are all equally a hit in my house. I don't ask them to try everything on their plate either. I just let them eat what they will.

Much like unschooling, I figure that if I put a variety of healthy choices in front of them, they will get what they need, and leave what they don't. We have to be especially carefull with my highly allergic and sensative eldest child, and I want him to have healthy attitudes about food, even though there is a lot of it that he cannot eat.

Nanci K.

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