How many times have you put food on the family table only to hear the words, "I'm not eating that!", or " I don't like that!". Getting kids to eat, is one of the hardest jobs of a parent. You have to be part psychologist and part dietician to work it all out and get proper food into them. We don't know all the answers to this problem, but we would love you to share your experiences with us so that we can pass them on to others with similar problems.

Kids! Who would have ‘em eh. But now that we’ve got them, what do we do with them, especially when they won’t eat anything you put down to them. We have all been through that at one time or another; some of us are still going through it!

This short article is not about making sure that feeding your kids is the politically right way to do it - healthy diets, nutrition etc. It is simply about getting them to eat. So, how do we do it?

Sheila and I have two very adult sons. The eldest is a university lecturer in computers and the other is a Police Officer. However, 30 years ago – they were little tearaways who would not eat a thing we put down to them. We could never produce a meal that all four of us could sit down to, eat and enjoy together. One would eat meat, but no vegetables. The other would eat vegetables, but no meat. Sheila and I were no problem. We knew what we liked and cooked accordingly. Because we both worked, and had different working hours we shared the tasks of preparing meals.

As a prison Governor, I worked alternative weekends and was permanently ‘on-call’ by radio pager whenever there was an emergency in the prison – which was quite frequent. Sheila joined the service once the lads had left school and found their own way in life and set up their own families. They are now going through the same feeding problems that we had thirty years ago.

We have three grandchildren and receive regular feedback on how they are coping with the same problems of ‘what to feed the kids?’ One memory that relates the problem quite vividly is when we took the youngest one to the hospital because he would not eat anything except for Heinz baked beans and sausages. Sheila kept threatening him that he would turn into a baked bean or a sausage if he kept on eating them. The doctor’s advice was quite simple and clear. "If he wants beans and sausages let him have them, he will soon tire of them and his diet will change". The doctor’s advice was correct. Within a couple of months, he sickened of beans and sausages and to this day, he cannot look at beans and sausages without feeling nauseous.

Earlier this year I had to return to the UK from Spain to attend my mother’s funeral. The weather was so bad – snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures that the funeral had to be delayed for two weeks. I took the opportunity to head south and spend some valuable time with the grandchildren.

One of my fondest memories was when I was preparing a meal for everybody. Two of the grandchildren were sitting at the table watching me prepare the meal. I was preparing a side salad of orange, yellow and red peppers. As I was slicing the peppers and placed them in a bowl, I sensed that there was something ‘just not quite right’. I was on to my fifth pepper and the bowl was not getting any fuller. I placed a mirror strategically and watched what was happening behind me. Each time I sliced a pepper and put it in the bowl, two little hands snaked out and grabbed a handful of peppers, which rapidly disappeared – they loved raw peppers. This is great, I thought. Sweet Peppers contain vast amounts of vitamin C, which young bodies need for healthy growth and development.

While at my other son’s house, little Sam was very particular about what she ate. Nothing seemed to please her. "I don’t like that!" was a regular statement at mealtimes. However, she loved to walk around with a ‘German’ sausage in her hand. This was very reminiscent of thirty years previous; her dad would run around the room in his baby-walker, chomping on a pork chop, or a handful of potato chips and a chocolate biscuit.

I am sure many of you have similar stories to relate. We would love you to share them with us, so we can add them to the main page of this article on the website at Bill & Sheila's Cookbook. Your story would become a separate web page all of your own.