Ack... 9 years and I still don't understand him.

[crazy_canuk]

My ds is 9 yo and he still manages to baffle me. 

Why does he refuse to eat his noodles for lunch beacuse he has only a spoon with which to eat, no fork?  Why didn't he pack a fork in his lunch bag if it was so important to him?

Why does he prefer not to eat the peanut butter toast he asked for at breakfast when it doesn't have strawberry jam on it (that he didn't ask for)?  Why doesn't he get the jam out of the fridge and smear it on top?

Sadly the answer is.....because Mommy does too much for him.  Sigh.  I still cannot believe he would rather go hungry than eat with a spoon or get jam out of the fridge.  That just blows my mind.

Need to change that somehow.

[ollyoxenfree]

Without knowing more, the answer may be to let him go hungry. After a couple of missed lunches, he may decide he'd rather eat what's provided or help make lunch so he's satisfied with what's in it. 

Does he help you pack up his lunch in the morning? If it's part of his routine - somewhere between cleaning up his dishes after breakfast and brushing his teeth, say - then he'll learn to make sure he has everything he needs for lunch. 

At about age 10, my kids were making their own lunches. I checked to make sure there was something other than snacks in the bag before they left for school, but they could make their own sandwiches or put left-overs in a thermos, pick out a piece of fruit and grab something to drink.  

[crazy_canuk]

Alas, it's a personality thing.  That's just the way he is.  Most times I am able to accomodate his personality but I don't catch everything all the time.  He doesn't deal well with unexpected change, if that makes any sense, and those are the times that I cannot anticipate his behaviour nor understand it at times.  He does go hungry if he doesn't like the food presented to him.  He would go all day and into the next with no food, if it became a power stuggle and he felt like he didn't have any control.  He is that persistant and it has both an upside and a downside.  I have that knowledge but sometimes I forget or have no time to work with that.

He does put his lunch together for the most part.  We still prefer to put the thermos together since he cannot reach the microwave and food temperature needs.  The rest he does himself.  He is very autonomous for many things but other things he refuses to do.

He's a wonderful kid but he certainly is quirky.  Some days he wears me right out.

[LynnS6]

I feel your pain. I keep threatening my ds with "self-care boot camp" this summer for similar reasons. I have at least 'trained' him that when I serve him ice cream, he is capable of going to the drawer and getting out a spoon! (He doesn't like to dish up the ice cream because it's 'hard' and he doesn't like to get his hands messy.) My 7 year old has far more kitchen skills than he does!

[meemee]

a different kind of quirky kid here.

why oh why will she chop and measure, steam, boil, fry and spend hours in the kitchen cooking up a storm and then not eat it and expect me to make her a quick something. i just dont get it. 

there are days she is in a chopping mode and chops up a bunch of stuff because she wants to chop. real fine. no zuchini chopped fine is no good at all.