Parenting

[Nectaris]

Yeah, I actually have no more patience with my other half being picky about food than I do with random people on the internet. I'm battering down most of the pickiness with persistance.

I will say to be careful with the way you are persistent. I will say right now that my Dad's persistence only has made things worse, not better.

Edited October 1, 2013 by Nectaris

[Husky51]

I agree with the premise of not liking something (food) because of an early on experience at home. My mother always overcooked the liver... like shoe leather, always! I hated it, but had to eat it... surprisingly, the very BEST liver and onions I ever have had in my life was aboard my ship in the Navy. I even went back for seconds, but missed out because others got there ahead of me. We were only 150 man crew and a very small galley. Other than that one time, I still don't go for it in the restaurants.

 

Now this is odd, I love cheese, but detest scalloped potatoes and potatoes au gratin. Yet I love potatoes and will put grated cheese on a baked potato... go figure. If I am eating at someone's house I will eat a portion of these items, but not ask for seconds...

 

I disliked cottage cheese, rice and tomatoes as a young person, I'm not sure why, but now I like them a lot. I have eaten some rather odd things over the years; steak, eggs, fish, octopus, squid, sea snails (haven't gotten to escargot yet). All raw...

 

I've tried to teach my kids to not say that they hate some sort of food until they have tried it at least once.

[Pokemonfan13]

However, tasting something without knowing what it is can be dangerous. x3 I was in Jordan and a local was ordering food for us at a restaurant. I tried a fried patty of something, and only after I swallowed was I told it was sheep's brain. xP Funny thing, dad liked it but after knowing what it was he could not eat it. He tried, but he could not get it down.

 

 

I tend to ask questions about my food before eating it if someone who does not know my preferences cooked. Otherwise I could end up with a tongue scorched by spicy or something else nasty. Sadly I couldn't ask too many questions in the situation above because only one person spoke english and he was not always available.

Edited October 1, 2013 by Pokemonfan13

[MasterWeavile898]

However, tasting something without knowing what it is can be dangerous. x3  I was in Jordan and a local was ordering food for us at a restaurant.  I tried a fried patty of something, and only after I swallowed was I told it was sheep's brain. xP  Funny thing, dad liked it but after knowing what it was he could not eat it.  He tried, but he could not get it down.

Lol, yeah, sometimes once you learn what something is and it sounds gross you stop being able to eat it. I can't remember ever having that problem, I usually try things, even when they sound gross at first. On a similar note: My mom keeps telling me that if I don't know something I dislike is in my food I won't even notice. It's agitating because I've shown her multiple times that she's wrong. Recently we had a stew with with zucchini (which I dislike) and potatoes (which looked pretty similar in the stew and I do like) in it. I had barely been eating for a minute when I noticed that some of the "potatoes" had horrible texture, so I stopped eating those "potatoes". Eventually my mom commented on me not eating the zucchini and I was like, "Oh, that's why it tasted funny." (She made me eat more though, bleah)

[tjsweepers]

At 2, I really don't think your cousin is watching the shows for the plot. Probably more that there is a color or noise or something simply appeals to him that's in the girly shows. Who knows, maybe he just likes the sound of barbies voice. Nothing girly in liking the sound of a girls voice...

 

So um yeah, a friend of mine with 2 smaller children was at the park when my daughter and I were there and us adults stood together and talked while the kids played. Her son started trying to get her attention, he's 4, and was calling okasan, Japanese for mother. She waved but never really acknowledged him until i said that he was saying mother.

When i asked how her son learned the word in a different language she said she wanted her kids to be multi lingual and got these dvds that her kids watched. She doesn't know Japanese. I know some. But the whole point of a language is to communicate. The way I see it if her kids say something in a different language that nobody around them knows, how will they get what they get the confirmation they need? I mean, isn't that how we learn? The child hears a word in conjunction with something and puts it together. then try's to emulate the word to get the thing.

Dink Dink Dink with a waved sippy cup gets juice and a lesson in the r sound.

 

 

[TikindiDragon]

However, tasting something without knowing what it is can be dangerous. x3 I was in Jordan and a local was ordering food for us at a restaurant. I tried a fried patty of something, and only after I swallowed was I told it was sheep's brain. xP Funny thing, dad liked it but after knowing what it was he could not eat it. He tried, but he could not get it down.

Yeah, see that's the stuff that's 100% psychological. I've seen plenty of people happily eat something, only to go slightly green when told what it was.

 

@Nectaris - Been working on him slowly for a decade now, I think I'm cool

[Pokemonfan13]

Well, sheep's brain isn't something that's particularly good to eat anyways, since scrapie is essentially the same thing as mad cow disease and our Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. As far as I know it hasn't been proven but also hasn't been disproven that eating scrapie-brain could cause the disease in humans. [if I remember correctly it at least doesn't species jump to humans as easily as mad cow, but the cows probably got mad cow from eating scrapie sheep byproducts.]

[MasterWeavile898]

Yeah, see that's the stuff that's 100% psychological. I've seen plenty of people happily eat something, only to go slightly green when told what it was.

True dat. It also works in reverse. My sister is obsessed with France for some reason, well one time we were eating something, I don't even remember what, and she said she didn't want any. When she was told it was a french dish she immediately decided she loved it. The same sister has also been known to love certain dishes until she learned my mother didn't like them, all of the sudden she won't eat them. (She can be a little spoiled)

[7Deadly$ins]

Yeah, I know, many people think its normal for kids of age 2-4 to sit in front of the TV and just watch whatever comes up on Disney Junior etc., maybe even for hours on end. (It's often easier than to actually do something with your kids).

 

That age is when many junctions for future life are set, and I fear for our society when everyone just goes "TV will suffice".

 

 

@tikindi: it's hard to learn the differences between proper critique, entirely inedible stuff and just "dont like it as much". If kids are more or less forced to eat everything, its bad too. I can see why one would not want to make a big fuss about it in another house, where you are visiting - but in a restaurant, if the food is not what I expected, its even good to let them know - maybe it was not their intention to make bad food and it was an accident - also, they just can't know what you like and what not, so that might actually be GOOD feedback.

Didn't say I thought it was normal. Said I didn't see the problem with those shows. You said that if your kids watch TV it would be programs "of your choosing" and not those listed, which is what I was responding to.

[whitebaron]

As for the foodstuffs: I always thought, I don't like salmon. My mum ate it often, and I tasted it every now and then. Being with my wife, turns out I did just not like the smoked variety, and would eat sushi and fried salmon almost as my favorite dishes.

 

@Nectaris: It highly depends on who is persistent and why - in a relationship, it usually is more about convincing the other to try again, while in a parent/child-situation its often more about condeming one to try again. The major difference is that you often have your own choices to make in the former, and can' help it in the latter.

 

 

About children teaching foreign languages: It's all well and stuff, but please make sure to

 

a) don't let them learn it themselves from just DVDs (it gives no feedback, and even worse, if you don't know the language yourself, your kids will be utterly disappointed)

don't try to teach a young kid (<6) a language yourself that you don't have native speaker qualities in. (even tempted to say: that isnt a mother tongue to you). It hurts more than them learning it a little later.

 

@7Deadly$ins: Well, neither of those shows are educational OR have any content. Not even social attitude will be trained. So what are they good for, except to dumb down kids and sell toys? No, thank you, no Barbie-Shows for me.

Edited October 2, 2013 by whitebaron

[Cecona]

Why do you keep saying barbie? The show I mentioned has nothing to do with barbie. You probably don't even know what the show is about or even seen an episode.

[whitebaron]

Why do you keep saying barbie? The show I mentioned has nothing to do with barbie. You probably don't even know what the show is about or even seen an episode.

It was an example I made earlier of completely useless shows, which Sofia tries not to be by having moral and etiquette as guiding principles. The show has other issues, but I explicitly did not take something that tries to be educational as an example.

 

I still don't think Sofia is for toddlers, but that's another story.

[lightbird]

B ) don't try to teach a young kid (<6) a language yourself that you don't have native speaker qualities in. (even tempted to say: that isnt a mother tongue to you). It hurts more than them learning it a little later.

Care to tell why learning more than one language as a young child is detrimental?

 

My brother started to go to school two years before me (we've 2 years' difference in age). I picked up Russian by browsing his grade school reading exercise book which came with both Latvian (native language) and Russian alphabets and text translations. Then, when he started to learn German (we both ended up going to a grammar school that had first foreign language emphasis on German, not English), I picked up what he was learning faster than he did. My father doesn't speak German, my mother has poor understanding of it. Us kids learning German didn't hurt anybody.

 

 

 

Speaking of picky eating - I used to be much pickier, but since I have a lot of food allergies, as of last year I'm trying to eat most foods that I know I'm not allergic to, but which I just don't like. That said, I generally take issue with tomatoes. I just can't stand the taste. I won't gag on them, I just really dislike them. Then, when I went to the UK for two weeks last year, I ate chicken tikka massala on several occasions. It took me buying ready-made tikka massala sauce to realize that most of its weight is tomato puree. Go, spices. x3

Now, boiled leafy vegetables are a different thing. I will readily eat fresh salads, will tolerate sauerkraut, but boiled leaves - mercy, no, it's the texture that makes me gag, and we got a lot of root (with boiled cabbage) and sorrel soup at grade school lunches (early 90s in post-Soviet Latvia, poor times and soup stretches well). The weird thing is, I know that we didn't eat such soups a lot at home, so I have no memory of gagging on boiled leafy parts before I started schoo.

 

Anyway - long story short, if someone pays for/cooks my food, I will try to eat most of it. Unless it's one of the many foods allergic to, because then, sorry, I will pick those parts out. I value my health/physical comfort more than being polite to someone.

[whitebaron]

Care to tell why learning more than one language as a young child is detrimental?

Actually, learning more than one language is good. But the focus here is on learning it properly. People who don't know the intricacies (read: are of native speaker level) will teach it to you in some ways wrong, which can damage your language understanding of that language for your whole life. It is better to learn it a little later, than to learn stuff that impedes your progress later on.

 

So, if say your mother with limited german skills would have tried to teach you, it might have hurt your ability to speak the language in the long run.

 

As for your learning from textbooks: You reading them is a clear cut case of already old enough to learn yourself. Also, textbooks typically are proof-read and thus do not contain many errors. It's why I gave age 6 as a barrier to that as well, since at that age a) kids start reading start to realize that not everything their parents tell them is universal truth.

 

 

Anecdotal evidence: You are a second child. Those usually learn faster, as they have someone to compare and make up to. Actually, they have to, or their brother would have been all over their stupidity.

[raybrd]

And some "picky eaters" may be suffering from Sensory Processing Disorder.

Sadly, I have that. It is nothing to laugh about.

[TikindiDragon]

Actually, learning more than one language is good. But the focus here is on learning it properly. People who don't know the intricacies (read: are of native speaker level) will teach it to you in some ways wrong, which can damage your language understanding of that language for your whole life. It is better to learn it a little later, than to learn stuff that impedes your progress later on.

Totally OT obs on this - I used to work with a Spaniard who *hated* it when Americans attempted to speak Spanish to him. Turns out that because they'd all learn Spanish from Mexicans that, combined with a US accent, made it almost impossible for him to understand them.

 

So, yeah, learning a language from someone that has a heavy accent may not help you with other speakers of that language. (And, as addendum to that, I learnt German from a Bavarian, and I'm told my German has a noticeable Bavarian accent).

[prpldrgnfr]

I put my daughter in a Spanish Immersion program starting in Kindergarten. She's in 4th grade now, is functionally bilingual and biliterate, and speaks Spanish without an English accent.

[whitebaron]

I put my daughter in a Spanish Immersion program starting in Kindergarten. She's in 4th grade now, is functionally bilingual and biliterate, and speaks Spanish without an English accent.

Most likely, programs like that are driven by native speakers. It's what makes them work so well. did you try to teach her as well? (don't know your motivations behind this and/or your origins)

 

 

Accents are often a problem, but if you learn with bavarian/mexican accent, at least those people should be able to understand you well. :-)

People have trouble understanding each other speaking the same native speaker language due to accents - that's nothing new and nothing really bad.

[Husky51]

I live in the US and never really thought about it before, but I learned that other languages have different accents just like the English speaking people in the USA do. We here know the difference if a person is from the South, or the Mid-West or from New Jersey or the New England states, etc. When in college I took Conversational Spanish for the Peace Officer or Public Servant, I learned that Spanish, spoken in difference parts of Spain or Mexico, etc has the same pattern.

 

Folks from different areas sound differently even if speaking the same language.

[lightbird]

I live in the US and never really thought about it before, but  I learned that other languages have different accents just like the English speaking people in the USA do.  We here know the difference if a person is from the South, or the Mid-West or from New Jersey or the New England states, etc.  When in college I took Conversational Spanish for the Peace Officer or Public Servant, I learned that Spanish, spoken in difference parts of Spain or Mexico, etc has the same pattern.

 

Folks from different areas sound differently even if speaking the same  language.

True. I live in a country the size of West Virginia, 2 million people in total and there are at least 2 distinctive dialects from the "standard" version of Latvian. Eeeyup. I live in the capitol, so my pronunciation is run-of-the-mill, but I remember spending a week in orchestra camp near the Russian and Belorussian borders as a teen and I remember how (to my unexposed ears) unusual I thought the Latvian pronunciation by the local hosts sounded.

 

An acquaintance from my school has a mother who is from that part of the country, and although he can understand the dialect, he hasn't been taught it enough to it to be able to speak it as well.

Edited October 2, 2013 by lightbird

[prpldrgnfr]

Most likely, programs like that are driven by native speakers. It's what makes them work so well. did you try to teach her as well? (don't know your motivations behind this and/or your origins)

 

 

Accents are often a problem, but if you learn with bavarian/mexican accent, at least those people should be able to understand you well. :-)

People have trouble understanding each other speaking the same native speaker language due to accents - that's nothing new and nothing really bad.

I didn't try to teach her myself-I can't speak it and I'd have an English accent. My motivations were to re-level the playing field (we're in SoCal, so *lots* of Spanish speakers) and to give her an advantages later, she should have more job options, an easier time getting one, and she should get paid a little more.

[whitebaron]

I didn't try to teach her myself-I can't speak it and I'd have an English accent. My motivations were to re-level the playing field (we're in SoCal, so *lots* of Spanish speakers) and to give her an advantages later, she should have more job options, an easier time getting one, and she should get paid a little more.

Good thinking. Though I wish such stuff was not necessary. Immigrants should rather learn the language of the country, and not the other way round... But I guess you're having loads of illegals in socal, too?

 

Its what I like about canadian immigration/permanent residence: they actually value your language skills.

[7Deadly$ins]

Good thinking. Though I wish such stuff was not necessary. Immigrants should rather learn the language of the country, and not the other way round... But I guess you're having loads of illegals in socal, too?

 

Its what I like about canadian immigration/permanent residence: they actually value your language skills.

Being bilingual increases your understanding of the world. I don't see teaching children more than one language to be anything as racist as that. When I have children I'll probably teach them two languages too, it's better to have that than not.

[senyi]

Being bilingual increases your understanding of the world. I don't see teaching children more than one language to be anything as racist as that. When I have children I'll probably teach them two languages too, it's better to have that than not.

This. It's not going to harm your child if you have them learn another language. I personally find that being bilingual is better in the long run, and I wish that I learned English later in life and learned Cantonese (or Mandarin) first. Personally, I find that it has more pros than cons.

[whitebaron]

What the ... ?

 

I just said that I wished it was,not necessary to pick the language based on immigrants in your area. Free choice would be better. This has nothing to do with racism.

 

Imagine being relocated from eg socal to vancouver. Spanish is almost extinct there, but french and chinese are as common as english. If the language was chosen freely, the reasons for the choicw would probably still apply. Since it is based,on a local situation, it almost (she could move away) renders it void.