A friend of the Gay Uncle’s recently revealed that, while she’s been down the line with her two daughters about things like sleep training, remaining in their own beds, toileting, discipline, and most other markers of good parenting (in Gunc’s opinion) she’s been a wimp about food. “I make different meals for every member of the family, every night.” When Gunc asked her why she did this, she sighed. “Food just seems so important.” The G.U. agrees. Which is exactly why he believes that parents need to take control of their child’s consumption habits before the get cemented into something screwed-up and problematic. Kids don’t know anything about nutrition or food balance. It is YOUR job to educate them, not placate them. We have enough issues with food in this country without adding more!

There are many ways to accomplish this goal, but for this particular case–when kids are treating mom like a combination of waitress/customer service agent/short order cook–he suggests the following protocol:
1) Announce that “ordering” dinner each night is going to end, and that the family (or at least the kids) will begin eating whatever mom selects each night. Set a time for this to occur a few days or a week after the announcement. Mark it on the calendar with the kids. Count down each night.
2) Get buy-in from the kids. Ask them to come up with a list of things they like to eat for dinner. Write these things down on pieces of paper, with simple pictures if you like.
3) Inform kids that each dinner needs to include a balanced selection of elements. Color can often be a useful category [e.g. Something off-white (some sort of nuggets/sticks/fingers), something green (vegetable), something yellow or red (fruit, sauce). Or you can go deeper and do it by food group categories like Protein, Grain, Fruits, Vegetables. Insist the kids come up with a few items in each of these categories. Add some into the sort yourself if they don’t. The kids can even create sample menus using these elements.
4) Use these kid-created meals as a guideline for the first week of the new protocol. If you want to offer selection to the kids, do so within the context of this kind of balance, e.g. “We need to have a vegetable tonight. Do you want broccoli or peas?” DO NOT GIVE THEM ADDITIONAL CONTROL
5) Insist that dinner is the time for eating this meal. Do not offer other options later if your child claims they’re hungry later, unless they’re pre-ordained healthy snacks (carrot sticks). This does not mean you need to retreat into old-school tactics like “You’re going to sit here until that plate is clean.” This is nonsense.
6) Lay off the nagging. Unless your child is showing signs of malnutrition–dizziness, diarrhea, extreme weight loss–they’re not starving, and they’re definitely not going to starve themselves to death.