Parents of picky eaters are always looking for creative ways to get kids to eat, but one mom’s viral dinner time tip has some people divided. Darin Nicole, a popular vlogger who posts parenting tips on TikTok, recently shared this straightforward advice for ending food battles: Don’t give kids a choice about what they eat.
Darin Nicole says she and her husband make and serve one meal for dinner each night, and if their kids choose not to eat it, they don’t get other options. Whatever food doesn’t get eaten is left out on the counter for the rest of the evening. The kids can choose to come back to it later or eat it as a late night snack, but they can’t ask for other snacks.
“They have the option,” the mom explains. “They don’t have to eat it, but they’re not having anything else the rest of the night … That’s how it works in this house.”
Darin Nicole and her husband say dessert is available for anyone who’s cleaned their plate. But if the kids have food left over, “whenever we get an ‘I’m hungry,’ they [need to] eat their food that they didn’t finish at the table,” says Nicole.
The mom’s no-nonsense approach to feeding kids has gotten mixed reactions on social media. It was shared by Good Morning America, and some commenters on the show’s Facebook page took issue with the idea of making kids clean their plates to earn treats and refusing to give kids choices about what they eat.
“This is why kids grow up resentful,” one person writes. “I have better things to do than to force and manipulate my kids into eating things they do not enjoy.”
Another person argues that we would never expect an adult to eat something they don’t want to eat, so we shouldn’t do it to children. “I would HATE it if someone forced me to eat liver or something I absolutely dislike,” they write. “Their taste buds change as they get older. My daughter would never eat meat when she was younger, now she enjoys chicken and a cheeseburger.”
Other parents agree with Darin Nicole that kids shouldn’t be given choices. “I’m not a short order cook, you eat what I cook,” one person writes. “I never catered, I never fed nuggets, peanut butter and jelly, nothing. I fixed healthy food and veggies. He only hated pork chops. Big deal. This is why kids grow up to be snowflakes. Stop catering to your kids so much!”
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) advises a flexible approach when it comes to picky eaters. They suggest offering at least one food you know your child likes at every meal and giving kids a choice between healthy offerings so they feel like they have a say in what they eat.
They also advise against using food as a reward or a punishment, but they do back up Nicole’s stance that parents shouldn’t make multiple meals if their child refuses to eat. “Tell her that this is the meal you’ve made for the family,” AAP guidelines state. “If she doesn’t want to eat it, save it for the next meal.”
Picky eating is a common problem for a lot of parents, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Just know that whether your child thinks chicken nuggets are an entire food group, or they end up eating last night’s dinner for tomorrow’s mid-morning snack, you’re definitely not going through it alone.