Why I Hate Kids’ Menus

01/11/2012 By 4 Comments

Chicken FingersMy son was a picky eater.

No, let me rephrase that, because “picky” is a gross understatement.

My son practically didn’t eat from the time that he was about 18 months old until he was about 5.

It sucked. Getting him to try foods was a joke and getting him to eat the five not particularly healthy things that he would eat was an epic battle most of the time. I would put his food in front of him and in an instant it would be on the floor after he would perform a dramatic swipe with his tiny arm. I suspected that perhaps he was a spoiled prince, reincarnated, and imagined him bellowing, “I SHALL HAVE NONE OF THIS!” before demanding a beheading or a court dance or something.

The foods that he would (sometimes) eat were frozen waffles, ham, these packaged noodles with a powdered sauce that probably contained a lifetime’s worth of sodium and chemicals, Spaghettios, and, of course, chicken nuggets and French fries. No vegetables, no fruit, no “real” food. He was in, like, the negative 20th percentile for his weight and he had to start drinking (expensive) PediaSure to supplement his nutrition. It was maddening. It was very much this (NSFW language ahoy!):

As frustrating as it was to hear, the advice that we just needed to be patient and to keep offering new foods no matter how staunchly he refused them was correct. After many tears and many skipped meals, he eventually got over it. I’m happy (read: relieved as hell) to report that at 10 years old he is now a healthy eater with a varied and healthy palate.

All of this is to say that I get the utter exhaustion that comes with parenting a picky eater and the eventual point of just wanting a picky kid to eat SOMETHING.

However.

I hate kids menus at restaurants. Hate them.

Let me explain.

Eating out at a restaurant is (or should be) a treat, an event, a special outing for a special meal. I’m not talking about hitting up the drive-thru on the way home from a recital, but a place that has, say, flatware not made out of plastic. My son is starting to exit the kids’ menu demographic, but he still is offered one from time to time, and I’m always disappointed to see the same old tired offerings of pizza, chicken fingers, fries, and hamburgers, especially when that is not the fare of the restaurant.

I can understand that desire to just have the kid eat something so that the parents can enjoy their meal, too, but kids’ menus are such a great opportunity to introduce or reintroduce (again) foods to kids. I’d really like to see kids’ menus be smaller versions of the regular menu. That way, there’s no option of a chicken finger fall-back and kids start getting the idea that their pickiness isn’t okay.

I realize I’m being idealistic here, but there’s no way that my kid would be cool with eating sushi now if he had always been allowed to just order some fries instead.

When you take your kids to restaurants, do you let them just order from the kids’ menu? Or do you urge them to try something that the restaurant offers to regular diners?

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Filed Under: Eating Out, Picky Eaters Tagged With: ,
About Kelly

Kelly wears many aprons: mom, wife, breadwinner, writer. She delights in getting her hands dirty in the kitchen to make deliciously healthy meals or sinfully decadent desserts to share with others. She blogs about her life at kdiddy.org.

  • http://profiles.google.com/dawnknudtson Dawn K

    We usually allow the kids menus, but request that they modify it some how, such as their pizza needs to have a veggie, a side besides fries, etc.

    The 9 year old is a bit picky, but our 20 month old is pretty open to all things, so she usually is up to sharing whatever I order.

  • http://allaboutavacakes.com Jenna

    I do one of two things:  either what Dawn does, allow an item, but with a healthy side, or, I order something off of the regular menu and we split it.  Portion control for me, and she’s not automatically inhaling the most unhealthy stuff on the menu.

  • http://twitter.com/DCZia Roberta

    It depends. I agree that most kids’ menus are pretty tired and just, ugh. But they’re catering to the masses – what can you do? We are lucky in that some of our neighborhood restaurants have great kids’ menus, with smaller portions of regular items from their menu, like real pastas, fish tacos, etc. My daughter doesn’t really like chicken nuggets or fries, so we never get those (and regarding fries, I have NO IDEA how she can be my child. It’s all kinds of wrong.). I let her choose her “entree” from two options, which may or may not be on the kids’ menu, like pasta or grilled cheese or a burger. Then I order some healthy-ish side dish that we all share, and order something for me that I think she will like to try. She pretty much always ends up eating something from everyone’s plate. We don’t eat out that often, so it’s definitely a treat, and I don’t worry so much about the health aspect.

  • Maureen Reinsel

    I whole-heartedly agree with this. We almost never order from kids menus for our 18-month old son. We will sometimes order two side dishes, or share what we order with him. There are a couple of places near us (in MI) that have good kids’ menus. Our son is allergic to milk, too, and so many things on kids menus are cheese-based.

    I would love to see a menu that offered everything for which it was possible in a regular and small portion. That way, people who don’t want a big meal and kids could have a wide range of choices and enjoy what the chef is capable of cooking.

    While our son is very young still, he appreciates good food (seriously – you should see him eat; It is kind of insane). I love watching him eat real food in real restaurants. I love that he knows that the dry chicken fingers (what a gross name for a food, BTW – fingers? of chickens? REALLY? WHO WANTS TO EAT THAT?) are gross and the carne guisado is good. I love that he loves good barbecue and spicy chili and salad, instead of chicken “dinos” or whatever.

    Furthermore, not to get on a soapbox or anything, but children’s menus just perpetuate the nutrition problem we are having with young people these days. They further limit, rather than expand, their palates, and make them think that fried, greasy, carb/fat combo foods are the norm, rather than amazing, rich, interesting and nutritional food.