Why Must Kids Be So Ungrateful?

Tantrum about what? A toy that she wants? Sure she can have it. A food she wants? Sure why not? Kids only throw tantrums when they are not properly taught any manners. If they are, they know when to keep quiet.

And what's so wrong about giving kids what they want? If it were my child I'd make sure I know what she likes to eat and provide that for her, of course, in moderation. Say, if she ate her greens in the afternoon she'll be given whatever she loves at night.

Being Daddy Hitler has no charms except for your children to resent you later in life. You are the parent that would end up in the old people's homes without your child coming over to even visit you out of love, but out of 'duty'.

Next time smack the ungrateful slut across the face with the back of your hand.

Should she continue to resist, throw her out of the house after you have peed on her. Crumple up a brochure to the nearest place where she can sell plasma, throw it at her, and change the locks.

I had the kind of dad I am now. I turned out just fine. My brother turned out to be a civil engineer that went to West Point, my sister, as much of a bi-polar crazy as she is, is a nurse. None of us have ever been in trouble with the law, addicted to drugs, had kids out of wedlock, or anything of the type. My grandparents were even harsher to my dad and his 6 brothers and sisters. My aunts and uncles all turned out okay. The method works. Give a kid an inch and they'll take a mile everytime. But you make the decision for them until they can start making them on their own and you bypass that entirely.

As far as being obligated to visit them, as harsh as my dad was I never felt he was mean for the sake of being mean and especially not now that I'm old enough to see just how much of a stone cold bitch the world really is. All those times he told me no or pushed me harder he was making me tougher and making me want to succeed. The world isn't going to hand itself to me on a platter and it isn't going to be kind and I would be doing these children a grave disservice coddling them.

And as far as the nursing home, when I can no longer take care of myself I'm eating a bullet. Solves that problem right there.

Is that your "professional" opinion, Flashy?

Well, somehow, I doubt Flashy has any actual idea how to raise children or any semblance of knowledge about them.

Children need some directioin in even day-to-day activities like meals, otherwise, they end up like the people Flashy claims to be helping in his job. So I suppose it's no small wonder that he's advocating the laisse-faire parenting - it's job security for him.

Still, though, I think it's important to really beat into the ground that a kid isn't being ungrateful or disrespectful of a parent when they balk at eating a dish like liver and onions. It's just an unfortunate truth that, I'd wager, a pretty big minority of people like it. And for tweens and even teens?

I really think the best way to go about it is provide an entree, and then just offer up a bit of one's own liver and onions - by the time they hit their teens, they'll usually try a bite or two. If they like it - great! Buy it up and have it more often. If not, then it's something to grab at a restaurant every once and a while - not like you're not going to have decades to eat it once they're out of the house .

Isn't liver really cheap in the store? I don't know but if you hated it as a kid, why give it to your kids?

I feel that JCD wants his kids to live through the same dislikes he had as a kid.

That makes no sense to me. An educated person is usually a little smarter than to redo that whole scene.

This is just one example but its usually a person that ain't too sharp that hits his kids cuz he got hit as a kid.

It teaches an important life lesson: Sometimes you have to do things you don't like.

Bull. It doesn't teach shit. I see as dumb parents that want to toment their kids.

The only excuse if if you are dirt poor. Whoever buys the food for the family should buy what the family will eat.

The only time or place you ever HAVE to eat some crap you don't like is when parents pull that shit.

I think I mentioned a while back in this thread that my brother was one of those picky eaters who really liked potatoes when he was younger. It wasn't that it was all my mom gave him to eat, just that fries, meat and vegetables would come off his plate in that order. He also stopped eating pork for a year when he first saw Charlotte's Web and I told him ham and bacon came from pigs (I actually thought it would help him to want to eat more pork. That's seven year old logic for you. ). In that instance, I don't see where saying "Eat your bacon 'cuz I say so" would do anything but scar the kid further.

Ironically, my mom got on her excercize kick when he was about four and five and forming his first long-term memories, at he has better eating habits that I do, and I was the kid whose would snatch up and eat turnips of all things in the store.

So no, not forcing a kid to eat what they don't want to won't always turn into disaster. YMMV.

.....?

No, it just means that kids don't get to make all the decisions in a family.

You don't need to be a dictator to get a point across with a child, and being the kid that needed to know why something was wrong and have a reason that made sense to stop doing an action, I don't believe kids need to be entirely in the dark on a lot of things. But I don't see much point in buying a kid any and every toy they may want when it'll end up tossed aside and forgotten by next week, or letting a kid eat any old junk food they feel like because it tastes good. I can do what my mom did and just not introduce shit like Cocoa Puffs and Cap'n Crunch ( ) into their diets to start with, and they won't know what they miss. End of story.

You do realize that your brother is a little kooky in the head, right?!

Spare the rod, spoil the child.

And the family members had a choice: eat or don't. I'm not running a restaraunt here and my house isn't a democracy. But nobody forces the children to eat and nobody forces the children to go hungry. The choice is entirely up to them.

And for the record the children to get to make recommendations come grocery day. But ultimately the decision is mine since I'm the one with the checkbook.

It also makes you appreciate that, when you move out, if you want to you can have Ben & Jerry's for breakfast and Domino's every night (until you are fat and broke).

Plus, years down the road, you may be in the supermarket and go "Huh. Liver & Onions. I haven't had that in years." And either buy it or be grateful.

Yeah, but not because he was a picky eater as a kid.

You enjoy making them suffer?

Yup, control issues.

When you give the choice of liver and onions or just cereals for dinner, what CHOICE do the children have??

Yup, control freak.

Uhm.. did you even read what I wrote?

I read it.

A lot of it I agree with, but some things I don't. Until and unless you're making your own money to buy your own shit, there's not much wiggle room for your own personal freedoms. I think I've said the same thing to Diacanu in the past when he was talking about how he hates the way things are run in his house. It's also what I tell my brother when he's begging for shit he doesn't need and expecting the rest of the world to take care of his ass, when he contributes zero to what little finances we have, and is a selfish little prig to boot that never lifts a finger to help clean. Why the fuck should I encourage that ungrateful behavior?

I think that's the point that JCD is trying to instill in his kids. And arguably, food may not be the issue in which to fight over, but I'm not a parent and I don't know JCD's kids, so...

People absolutely do need to learn that they won't always get their way and they will sometimes have to do things they don't want to do.

However, I don't think it will ruin a kid for life to bother thinking ahead to find a happy medium between what they like to eat and what is healthy for them. I don't see the point in punishing them with nasty food just for the hell of it.

When she was younger, daughter objected to sprouts. She ate plenty of other veg (she loves spinach and broccoli), so I didn't see any reason to go to war over one thing, When her dad and I were having sprouts, I'd cook her an extra-large portion of peas, or green beans, whatever...

She happily eats sprouts now. I strongly suspect that's because I didn't make a big deal out of it.

What did she choose?

She chose to not eat the liver & onions. She ate the sides though.

So what are you complaining about then?

Being of middle european/slavic ethnicity..

I WATCHED my old man eat pigs knuckles

turkey gizzards..

pigs tails..

blood sausage..

Ox Blood soup..

I don't even want to think what he wouldn't eat when he was a kid

My dad was evacuated to the north in the early days of World War II. He returned to London with a taste for tripe.
Tried to make my sister and I eat it.
Once.

Traditional wedding feast, huh?

That she would turn away what I put on the table with the sweat of my brow. Not even with a "thank you, but no", but rather with "I'm not eating this garbage".

My old man whould have knocked my teeth out and then sent me away without dinner for talking like that. My mother would have made me sit at the table until it was eaten, even if it took until the end of time. Me, I simply said "don't, but you're not getting anything else for dinner. Eat it or do without."

it was the grounds for the divorce...

The choice is up to them to eat or go hungry. But even if they think what I buy is total shit, they can at least acknowledge the effort made by me. Hence, ungrateful.

So if she'd said, "no thanks" instead, there wouldn't be a problem?