Mom Cooks Her Toddler a Special Meal When She Refuses to Eat This One Food. Now, Her Husband Thinks They Should Stop Giving in

A mom is questioning whether she should stop preparing separate meals for her 3-year-old daughter after her husband suggested they might be rewarding bad behavior.

The mother explained on Reddit that their daughter is generally a good eater. She and her husband have put a lot of effort into building healthy eating habits, and most of the time their little girl isn’t picky at all. There is, however, one big exception: she absolutely refuses to eat soup.

According to the post, the child won’t eat anything “soup-adjacent” either — that means stews, beans, chili and similar dishes are all off the table. If it looks or feels too much like soup, she won’t touch it.

The mom said she usually just avoids serving those kinds of meals at home. The real difficulty comes up when they’re invited to relatives’ houses or when her own father cooks big one-pot meals for the family.

“My husband thinks that we should continue to enforce with our daughter that what the rest of us are eating is the only option,” she wrote. “He says that giving her something else will just teach her that if she refuses to eat her dinner she’ll be rewarded with something different, and it’ll cause her to become picky.”

The poster disagrees. She feels her daughter’s aversion is very specific — only to soup or “soup-ish things” — and points out that even adults have foods they just don’t like. She turned to the online community to ask for advice.

One commenter said they sided more with the mom and shared the basic guidelines their own family uses to manage pickiness.

“I think you and your husband both make good points. Personally I’m with you: even adults have certain foods they don’t like, and little ppl are allowed to have preferences,” they wrote.

They went on to explain their approach: “The rules we tried to enforce (we’re not too consistent, which is its own problem) are: you don’t have to eat something, but you have to try [and] if you’ve tried and still don’t want to eat it, you can eat something else on the table, or just go for a piece of black bread (we settled on that because it’s a fairly wholesome food that he will usually eat, but he doesn’t LOVE it, so it’s not gonna incentivize him to skip meals).”

Another person emphasized how important it is for parents to respect their children’s stated preferences.

“Modeling bodily autonomy to your kids and LISTENING to them when they state preferences is so important,” they said. “If they tell you over and over the same thing it’s not a tantrum or manipulation. Show your kid the respect you’d like them to show you and others.”

They added that modern parenting research tends to support this approach, even if older generations don’t always agree: “Science supports this, parenting models have been updated and grandparents aren’t always on board with things being different now. Hold the line for your kid.”

A third commenter said their priority is simply making sure their children eat something, even if it isn’t the main meal.

“May not be a popular opinion, but I just want my kids to eat something, even if it means heating up some meatballs or another quick preferred food,” they wrote.

They also shared their own experience as a former picky eater: “I was a picky eater when I was young and there is some trauma with being forced to eat something you have a texture/flavor issue with. I grew out of it. I won’t send my kids to bed hungry, even if it means they eat a granola bar and applesauce while I’m reading to them before bed.”