Lori Alexander believes in force-feeding children

[2xx1xy1JD]

I gave up on food and sleep battles with my oldest. It drove me crazy that she was so picky and that she refused to sleep in her own crib - but she was otherwise a really good kid and it was obvious that this wasn't a matter of "obedience". It seemed as though she really wished that she could eat her veggies to please me, but she just couldn't stand the thought of it.

So, we stopped making it about obedience, and brainstormed practical solutions.

The basic plan was:

1. Eliminate the worst of the junk, which would fill her up and prevent her from eating real food.

2. Make a list of foods from each food group that she would tolerate.

3. Look up the required number of servings for kids her age of each food group.

4. Plan a menu around those guidelines, using the list of foods that she would actually eat.

5. Maximize her involvement. At 2 or 3, a child can understand a chart with different color blocks representing servings from each food category. By 4-5, they can come up with food lists. At 6, they can read labels to avoid trans-fats, and understand that some food will clog up the tubes that carry our blood. By 7, they can make their own menus for the week, based on the number of servings from each food category, and can do all food preparation except the actual cooking.

6. Introduce new foods without coercion. Offer a taste, but allow the child to say no. Get a kid-friendly cookbook with pictures, and have the kids look through it and select recipes. Use "food bridges" - if a child likes chicken nuggets, they may also be willing to try chicken in other forms. My daughter also expanded her tastes the most when we travelled. Hubby's family is filled with great cooks, and she developed a taste for omelets, grilled chicken kebabs, rice patties stuffed with spiced meat, grilled whole fish, shawarma and other Middle Eastern specialties.

7. Pay attention to taste and technique. This is going to sound controversial....but some kids are born food critics who won't eat crappy food. One day, I was watching Gordon Ramsay on Food Network, and he sounded a lot like my kid (except my kid doesn't swear). I had given up trying to please her, because she was so fussy, and realized that the stuff that I was offering wasn't really appetizing. It occurred to me that saying "she would eat it if she was really hungry" really wasn't saying much - I mean, would you have a chef in a restaurant tell you that you would eat their food if you were starving? So, in conjunction with points 1-6, we started to cook better. I don't mind putting in the effort if someone appreciates it and actually eats the food. I don't feel exploited, because the kids pitch in and help with the meals. My kids can make chicken stock, matzo balls, finely chopped cucumber and tomato salad, guacamole, baked Asian salmon, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, grilled cheese, pizza and scrambled eggs.

8. One meal, two ways: We allow for some variety for different tastes, with the same basic ingredients. One kid was scrambled, one sunny-side up, one a plain omelet, and the adults get omelets with lots of herbs and spices. I'll also do a big salmon, with 2 different marinades on each half.

9. Avoid having food battles on an empty stomach. Sometimes, food will be less than ideal, and that's ok. We got into a bad pattern for a while where my kid would get hungry, become hypoglycemic, turn into a raging monster incapable of rational thought, and refuse to eat while screaming that she was hungry. So, the "she'll eat is she's hungry enough" idea would NOT work with my child (as a baby, we'd bring her to the hospital with dehydration a few times because she'd refuse formula when she was sick), and the key was to avoid getting to the point of being really hungry.

It's a work-in-progress, but my basic goal is to have kids who are capable of planning and making nutritious meals for themselves. I don't see choking down food that you hate, that someone else decided that you should eat whether or not you were hungry, as a life skill.

[jjmennonite]

In our family there was just me and my daughter, so I cooked things we (translate her) would eat. I don't eat things I don't like, so why should she? She is 19 and healthy and has no food issues, so appearently it worked.

[TXDuck]

Someone asked why can adults have food preferences and children can't? Well, most responsible adults eat foods they dislike like veggies, and learn to avoid too much ice cream. I don't know too many five year olds who have the self control to do that.

You do realize that just because a kid's a "picky eater" doesn't mean they get whatever they want. Like others have stated, it's not a case between "eat this healthy meal or these decadent cupcakes". No, it's a case of you must try what's on your plate, don't make a fuss about it, and if you really truly "can't" eat it, then you can have sandwich/cereal for a snack afterwards.

That picky eaters don't exist in a famine swept country is almost completely irrelevant. There probably aren't many eating disorders of any type when food is that scarce. However, famine in one place doesn't magically make disorders in other places disappear.

[holierthanyou]

YPestis- I don't think anyone was saying it is acceptable for children to grow up without eating vegetables. What I heard was the general consensus that it is healthier/more appropriate for parents to offer their children a variety of healthy vegetables, and that it is ok to accept that a child might not be able to tolerate broccoli, and so when the parent is cooking dinner s/he can cook up some broccoli and cauliflower together, so that the child can pass eat the cauliflower and be allowed to leave the broccoli behind.

[SquirrelySquirrel]

How does one force a screaming 15-month old to eat twenty bites of something she doesn't want? Really? 'Cause i really don't know. If he shoved the food in her screaming little mouth, wouldn't she have spit it out, or choked on it? She's a baby, for pete's sake. I'm having bad dreams here of her father's huge hand clamped over her open mouth while she's trying to cry and it's making me feel really, really ill. WWJD? I don't think he'd do that.

Seriously. I can't even fathom how he accomplished it, and I don't want to.

Cooking for my little family of 3 is a nightmare half the time, but I roll with it. My husband has IBS and can't handle a lot of grains or veggies. Our daughter is very sensitive to spices and acid, and genuinely dislikes a lot of things the husband and I love. And I still have sensory issues I haven't outgrown when it comes to certain textures (I'm imagining someone shoving 20 bites of mashed potatoes (something I've never been able to so much as swallow) down my throat. I'd hurl all over them and have nightmares for years. That poor baby.). So it's either make the same old same old that we all can agree on and digest, or make 5+ different things every night. It gets old, but what can you do? The kitchen will never be a battleground in our home.

[dawbs]

heck, not only should kids be allowed to not like something, they should be allowed to 'not feel like it' today.

I don't want peanut-butter-and-jelly today. I like PB&J, but I don't want it today. So I'm having leftover chicken for lunch.

My kid likse PB&J, but Friday, she didn't want it for lunch either. (she wanted yogurt, rice cakes, and steamed corn, apparently)

My family always offered a lot of side dishes...so saurkraut for dinner (ick, sorry, but, ick)? Take 1 bite (I got around that eventually) and then have a roll with jam and the veggie sides and some of the sausage. There's bound to be something you can politely eat on the table.

[TXDuck]

(I'm imagining someone shoving 20 bites of mashed potatoes (something I've never been able to so much as swallow) down my throat. I'd hurl all over them and have nightmares for years. That poor baby.)

Appropos of nothing, mashed potatoes were the first time I realize the kid's not just being stubborn. We try them again every few months, and every time he gags on them. Wonder what it is about them.

[SquirrelySquirrel]

Appropos of nothing, mashed potatoes were the first time I realize the kid's not just being stubborn. We try them again every few months, and every time he gags on them. Wonder what it is about them.

I've tried them several times as an adult with no luck. They look and smell sooo good too! :( I've never enjoyed things with a mushy texture, but they're the worst.

[BoomerLynn]

Just hopped over to check out the entire post on her blog. Ryan sounds more like a sorry excuse of a human being than a "good Daddy." My heart breaks for that poor little girl. I read through the comments and found this frightening little gem:

I loved this post! My son is almost four and has Autism, so routine, rules, and boundaries are crucial in his development. We enforce every rule of ours to the T, and he has benefited so much from it!

The thought of an autistic child being put through this makes me ill.

[lilwriter85]

I just, for the first time, left a message for dear Lori. First thing this morning I'm wondering how someone forces a 15-month old to eat. I can't get away from this. Did he beat her between bites? Withhold her air? It sounds just horribly horrible, awfully awful. I'm all for letting a toddler know that she isn't going to get her way all the time. But how does one get a toddler to chew and swallow food she doesn't want? What Lori glosses over and praises as her son being a "good daddy", I have a feeling went down much, much more evil-y.

I also can't get away from this like you and other posters have mentioned. Force feeding a 15 month old sounds very harsh. I checked out Lori's Pinterest page yesterday, and I wasn't surprised when she had a pin for To Train Up A Child. I also agree with you, other stuff probably went down.

[Witsec7]

I also can't get away from this like you and other posters have mentioned. Force feeding a 15 month old sounds very harsh. I checked out Lori's Pinterest page yesterday, and I wasn't surprised when she had a pin for To Train Up A Child. I also agree with you, other stuff probably went down.

My parents were excellent at this kind of torture. I will not go into details, because frankly the behavior was criminal Suffice it to say after having to eat one's own vomitus for meals a few days in a row you learned to swallow anything regardless of revulsion. And no it just didn't stop some stuff from coming back up and starting the whole ugly cycle all over.

I guess everyone here can now understand why I wish horrid things to happen to Lori, her Son and DIL, I'm absolutely guilt free in my imaginings.

[Koala]

I also can't get away from this like you and other posters have mentioned. Force feeding a 15 month old sounds very harsh. I checked out Lori's Pinterest page yesterday, and I wasn't surprised when she had a pin for To Train Up A Child. I also agree with you, other stuff probably went down.

Lori has scads of horrific child training advice. She even had a couple of posts in favor of Michael Pearl.

http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2012/03/pray-for-michael-pearl.html

http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2012/03/breaking-their-will.html

If you want to get a clearer picture of the type of person Lori is, click on her "Child Raising" Label under her most recent post:http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2012/06/emma-isnt-boss.html

She is a truly vile human being.

[StarrieEyedKat]

Just hopped over to check out the entire post on her blog. Ryan sounds more like a sorry excuse of a human being than a "good Daddy." My heart breaks for that poor little girl. I read through the comments and found this frightening little gem:

:o :x :cry:

[valsa]

Interestingly enough, my SO refuse to do that with me. He knows what I don't like but if he accidentally cooks something not to my liking, he refuses to prepare a separate meal unless it's very simple (like pasta).

That's one of the main reasons I feel I will never cook my kids a separate meal if they don't like what's in front of them.

So you're lazy and apparently incapable of cooking for yourself and that's why you'll force your kids to eat something they don't like or go hungry? (as opposed to providing them with healthy alternatives, most of which they can prepare for themselves (provided they're not as lazy as mom) after toddlerhood)

[lilwriter85]

Lori has scads of horrific child training advice. She even had a couple of posts in favor off Michael Pearl.

http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2012/ ... pearl.html

http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2012/ ... -will.html

If you want to get a clearer picture of the type of person Lori is, click on her "Child Raising" Label under her most recent post:http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2012/06/emma-isnt-boss.html

She is a truly vile human being.

I read the" pray for Michael Pearl" post and it disgusted me. She is pretty vile. I have only recently gotten into Lori's blog. She fascinates me in several ways because she is a tad different from other fundies. She only had 4 kids which she choose to do so, but yet she goes and encourages people to have a lot of kids. This might sound bad of me, I hope another fundie blogger with more than 4 kids shows up one day on Lori's blog and calls her out. Lori and her family are a bit more privileged than some of the other fundie families we read about here. She is also dumb about a lot of things and I think ZsuZsu Anderson is more intelligent than Lori. Lori's blog title "Always Learning" is a fucking joke. I guess Lori has no desire to learn about Lydia Schatz or the other cases connected to Pearls' books.

[Guest Anonymous]

My daughter is what you call picky about her food. If there is something I am making for dinner that she doesn't like, she will make herself a turkey or peanut butter sandwich or soup or something. I have never forced her to eat anything that she didn't want. Luckily though, most of the meals I cook she likes.

She went away to 6th grade camp for four days in Feb. with her class. I was a little concerned about meals because she is picky but I thought if she was hungry enough she would eat anything, right? NO. I got a call from the camp nurse 2 days in telling me they were concerned because she just wasn't eating. She would have a bowl of cereal in the morning but wasn't eating lunch or dinner. They offered her peanut butter and jelly for dinner instead of the usual dinner but she wouldn't eat it because she said the bread and peanut butter tasted disgusting and soggy (her words) and she just couldn't eat more than a bite. I know that may seem like she is a brat for not eating but she just really couldn't eat the food and cried every night about it because she was hungry but afraid to force herself to eat because she was afraid it would make her sick. It was a nightmare!

[velly]

Wow, this post is severely disturbing. I have huge anxiety issues and even now, at the age of 24, if I am having an anxiety filled day I cannot eat and I will cry through an apple. I remember these issues since I was younger but thankfully I had a HUMANE mother who understood I was having issues and HELPED not FORCED (this was different for my fun die father, however). It is thanks to her understanding (and sometimes, her frustration) that I am now ED free. You see, from experience, forcing your children to eat aggravate problems that might already be there (like my example) and because my father was less understanding and force fed me for a long time my anxiety spiked and I turned to an ED. I was anorexic from ages 14 to 19 and I sometimes still suffer my small relapses. Force feeding was my downfall and created such amount of anxiety around food that when I could I STOPPED eating.

They have no idea the harm they're causing to that poor child... just reading these posts has made MY anxiety rise today.

[julie paradox]

When I was about twenty I firmly believed my parents had Royally Screwed Up.

A few years later I got on the internet. Hoo boy...

Exhibit A:

I couldn't eat most cooked vegetables. Cooked tomatoes were disgusting; onion made me retch, and realising this was what made my mother stop trying to get me to eat it. Sunday lunchtime she would put aside a portion of raw cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, whatever for me to eat separately. This went on for years.

(Oddly enough, I absolutely adored brussels sprouts.)

I also couldn't eat cheese sauce. There were other things as well, such that "Julie eating something different" was a fairly normal occurrence. The only time I remember having a problem with this was when I hadn't been told ahead of time that the meal was something I didn't eat so I had to get my alternative while everyone else was eating (wow, I've just realised that this still makes me annoyed. Oh dear). As a teenager I was occasionally offered Indian or Chinese takeaways and didn't like them. I didn't even eat pizza.

For quite some time, consuming more than a small amount of chocolate, orange or cheese gave me a migraine. Mind you, I liked both chocolate and orange as well as cheese in any form other than sauce ;-)

None of us liked cold lamb fat, though.

When I was at university the group I was spending the weekend with had cooked tomatoes for breakfast, and as I was Really Hungry I tried some, and liked it. Over the next few months I introduced practically everything I'd previously disliked, including fairly hot curry.

Not prawns. And I can't really cope with raw fish, or meat that's leaking Actual Blood.

When Older Spawn was little he had a very limited range of food. My sisters decided it was karma.

[samithemage]

I was a terribly picky eater as a child. I would only eat a very limited amount of foods. I ate fish sticks every meal for months when I was 3 because it was the only thing I would eat and since I was so skinny my mom was desperate. She often tried to trick me into eating things (hiding cauliflower in mashed potatoes, etc) Only once did she ever try to force me to eat anything. I was about 6, and she had made stove top stuffing for a side dish. I refused to even try it, and eventually, she got so frustrated that she tried to force feed it to me. I love my mom and in general she was great. I can only assume she was at her wits end with me and snapped. I gagged and spit and puked and eventually she was horrified and stopped. It's the only time she ever tried anything like that. However, to this day I can't eat stuffing, bread pudding, or any other "soggy bread" type of food. I've outgrown most of my pickyness and will eat almost anything and will try anything at least once, but I've never been able to eat stuffing. Force feeding kids defeats the purpose. It forms negative associations with foods that are hard to overcome. I've nannied for years and I've always tried to introduce lots of different foods to my kiddos, but always made sure there was enough in the meal that they would eat. The rule was always try a bite of something new, and as long as it was something that they didn't gag on, but just thought was "yucky," to try a bite the next time it was served. Anything that was gagged on or really truly detested was pulled from that kid's menu unless they later expressed an interest in it. The idea was always to make food a positive experience not a negative one. The only kiddo I had with autism and sensory issues was allowed to eat whatever he wanted. The other kids were always given healthy meals with the option to avoid something they truly didn't like. I never wanted any of my kiddos to end up with food issues because I forced them to eat something. I managed to make main dishes that all of the kids would eat and serve a variety of fruits/veggies that I knew would cover all the kids tastes.

[Zoom]

I've been thinking about this tread a lot today. I have a niece who is almost two. She is a grazer. She will try most things but it takes her a while to eat. She also likes to eat food on other peoples plates. We tend to pass her around at dinner. She is allowed to come back to the table. Her favourite veggie is broccoli. She will eat pretty much anything. She is also very stubborn. I shudder to think what these fundies would do with her. She is a great little kid with a mind of her own. Shudder.

Also I am an adult. There are certain things I won't eat (raw carrots (texture issues), olives and liver (taste issues)). I also have allergies. I have no problem eating out. A usually know what I can and can't eat from an allergy point of view, and from a taste/texture point it isn't hard either. If I don't know if I can eat something I eat before I go. Not hard.

[kb2]

My family would play the "monster under the table" game to get me to eat things I wasn't a fan of (but I never got sick eating them, I just had regular pickiness). They would say, "We sure hope the monster under the kitchen table doesn't eat kb2's green beans!" and then look away from me. Then I'd eat a few green beans. Then they'd looks back and gasp, "Oh no, the monster ate some of kb2's green beans!" And as a little kid, I thought this was hilarious.

But I was never forced to eat, it was usually that dessert was held hostage behind a few very small bites of the food I didn't like.

There seems to be a theory that large exposures to food a kid doesn't like will make the kid like it because in one sitting they'll learn to deal with the flavor/texture, but that just doesn't seem true. There's supposed to be a period of time when every kid is a little picky, when a dislike of green beans some Tuesday in March holds no predictive value for how much they'll like them on a Wednesday in April, and so you're supposed to reintroduce foods constantly, but there's no recommendation to force large quantities. If a kid declares a food disgusting, you're probably not going to win the kid over to the food that night.

But there is a kid in my family who fell off the growth curve and is now the shortest kid in her class. We don't know if it was a few years of picky eating or if she got the short gene (if so, her siblings got the tall genes, because they were much taller at her age). Her parents tried the you-can-only-eat-what's-for-dinner-for-everyone while serving things they knew she liked for breakfast and lunch, if only because they didn't want her to grow up eating only cereal and chicken nuggets and by dinner she'd already eaten both of those every day. It's hard to say what the right thing to do is--it's hard to acquiesce to cereal all day every day, but it's also hard to watch your kid fall off the growth curve while you're following all the official recommendations of what to do with a picky eater. Like I said, it could have just been an attack of the short gene (we really do have random short people all over the family), but if it wasn't I don't know what I would have done differently from her parents to get that kid taller.

[samurai_sarah]

Lori's praise for her son's treatment of his daughter makes me sick. And then she calls the baby "blessed" for having parents that force-feed her, and keep her on the floor during mealtimes, like a dog. What the ever-loving eff? :evil:

[Witsec7]

Lori's praise for her son's treatment of his daughter makes me sick. And then she calls the baby "blessed" for having parents that force-feed her, and keep her on the floor during mealtimes, like a dog. What the ever-loving eff? :evil:

Her son is on sick fuck.

[samurai_sarah]

Her son is on sick fuck.

And I can't get over the fact that Lori claims that her granddaughter will grow into such a well-adjusted human being, thanks to this sort of treatment. The only thing that'll probably do is give her food issues. My grandmother used to hassle my dad with cabbage. I say "hassle", because his experience was nowhere near as horrific as the ones you, and others here mentioned. But 50+ years later, he still refuses to even try cabbage. Thanks to his experience, I was allowed to be a very picky eater. No processed foods was the only rule I remember.

[Koala]

When on earth does that poor little girl get to sit at the table and actually eat? I still can't fathom them sitting there eating while she cries for food.