How do I deal with the McDonald's party

telecaster

This is a hypothetical situation which will undoubtedly become realized at some stage.

I'm a vegetarian. I do the cooking. I don't think I'm overly fussy about food, but I generally don't eat anything with more ingredients than I reckon it should have. I dodge MSG, hydrogenated fats, aspartame and all that kind of additive/sweetener/preservative nonsense. It could be said I eat very well, all fresh food pretty much.

My baby daughter is 11 months. We feed her what we eat ourselves...porridge, pasta, vegetables, rice, brown bread. Occassionally there's a biscuit and some ice-cream.

The day will come however when it's some relative or friends birthday and their parents will decide to have a McDonald's Party.

I'd like my daughter to enjoy special occasions with family and friends.....but jesus, how could I ever send her to McDonalds with a clear conscience? To me they don't sell happy times, they sell TERRIBLE products that stretch the definition of 'food' to its limits.

So, does anyone have any experience of such scenarios? Swallow your principals and pay the price for socializing your child or have an ingenious set of excuses ready for why your child can't go for their Crappy Meal?

SarahMc

Well, your dd is probably never going to be invited to a McDonalds party, as they are so passe now, but she will certainly be invited to parties where there are chicken nuggets, club orange, shop bought fairy cakes, rice crispie buns, tesco birthday cakes, pinatas filles with Es.

Hey you might have a few of those parties yourself. Swallow your food principles when it comes to children's parties.... Hell, yeah!

Nevyn

Mine have never had an invite to such a thing.
I think you maybe jumping the gun just a little on this and if you bring her up knowing that McD's is yuky then she won't want to go there.
My two would rather go and eat sushi or pasta then McD's.

Davidth88

Anybody driving from the Dublin area to Kerry on a regular basis will know there are very few places to stop and use the toilets etc.

One of these is the McD in Roscrea.

We stopped there recently , and I got my little one ( 18m ) a happy meal. With careful choosing this contained the following:-

4 ' Chicken Nuggets'
1 Apple
1 pkt of cut fresh fruit
1 bottle of water
( Oh and a toy suitable for ' three and older ' according to the bag )

She ate 1 nugget , ALL the fruit , we drank the water in the car later. The changing facilities are very good , we also gave her a sandwich and a bottle of milk that we had made before had left home

Although it's never ever going to be perfect McD has made the effort to change , of course we could have chosen

Burger
Fries
M/shake

But we didn't !

The moral of the story, if your little one is invited to a McD party ( do they still do them ? ) then there are healthy options there although I would say they may leave hungry

You may of course still question their policies re marketing at kids etc ( rightly in my opinion ) but that's not the issue here

RIRI

As a general rule I feed the wee man to within an inch of his life before he goes to these type of things (never been invited to mcD's though). When he gets there he's not as inclined to scoff a heap load of rubbish as he's already full.

If they only get sweets & crap at birthday parties occasionally I really don't see much harm in it tbh. If all of the food they eat otherwise is healthy a few sweeties won;t kill them

telecaster

Thanks guys, I really like the 'feed him to an inch of his life' technique

And I'm very glad to hear that McDonald's parties are passe

\m/_(>_<)_\m/

telecaster wrote:

So, does anyone have any experience of such scenarios? Swallow your principals and pay the price for socializing your child or have an ingenious set of excuses ready for why your child can't go for their Crappy Meal?

well i would prefer to have my kid have a crappy meal once in a while that have no friends, and grow up a social outcast from her school mates and mark my words that is what will happen if you stop her from going to all her school mates parties...kids can be so cruel.

\m/_(>_<)_\m/

Thaedydal wrote:

if you bring her up knowing that McD's is yuky then she won't want to go there.

yep, i can see that happening :rolleyes: sure all kids respect their parents wishes, that's why none of them smoke, drink, get in trouble.:rolleyes:

Shelli

no kids I know would have a party in Mc D's these days. But no matter what, kids parties wherever they are will have a heap load of junk food and sweets, it's part of the party treat, especially when the kids are younger and tend to have house bound parties, older kids seem to be opting for "group outings" more than parties, cinema, zoo etc.

As long as it's just the occasional treat then I wouldn't stop my child from having some sweets a a party, or stop them going. If your child is veggie just explain that to the host when you get the invite, that way they will still be able to enjoy the party and the host will no doubt have some suitable treats ready. It's more and more common these days.

di11on

Its all about balance and lifestlye.

What's going to impact on your child's health is what you give them Monday to Sunday... what they get fed at an occassional birthday party, while you may not like it, is not going to impact on their long term health.

So, I agree with the poster that said, "swallow your food principles when it comes to kid's parties". You've got to see the big picture here and think of your child's overall good.

McDonald's/cakes/nuggets/burgers really aren't going to be a problem once in a while.

mcauley

SarahMc wrote:

Well, your dd is probably never going to be invited to a McDonalds party, as they are so passe now, but she will certainly be invited to parties where there are pinatas filles with E's.

Where might I find such a party??

/Apologises and leaves...

Nevyn

E numbers, the chemical food enhancers that are added to food for flavour and colour.

mcauley

Thaedydal wrote:

E numbers, the chemical food enhancers that are added to food for flavour and colour.

Of course I knew that, I hardly thought they were offereing narcotics at childrens birthday parties.

Oryx

Youre already doing a good job of feeding your child, and that will influence how she eats as she grows older. But you wont have total control for long anyway. All you can do is set up good habits and hope for the best. She'll probably eat the odd greasy burger when shes older, same as she'll get her ears pierced and meet unsuitable boyfriends.:D But she will have had the best start you can give her.

I dont think the odd happy meal or sugary party treat is going to hurt.

EcoGirl

My son is vegetarian, and he was quite happy to skip the nuggets, sausages etc at parties, along with the jellies and other non-veggie sweets. And yes,he ate the rest of the 'treats' but we were okay with that because it was such a rarity.

He never got invited to a McDonald's party, thank God. I don't know what we would have done, as even their chips aren't veggie.

A lot of it depends on their friends too - we've tended to mix with like-minded friends whose parties were a good balance between treats and good food - or for example, providing quality sweets with few or no 'e' numbers.

It helps too that we're home-schooling, so he never got into those awful loops of 'invite every child in the class', so everybody has to do it, and there's 30 parties a year.

(But before you all think it, he has plenty of friends and has been to plenty of parties!)

oh well

telecaster wrote:

Thanks guys, I really like the 'feed him to an inch of his life' technique

And I'm very glad to hear that McDonald's parties are passe

would agree with this. arrived early at a house party one day (by prior agreement with party parents) to find the family dishing out bacon and cabbage to their own kids. when I went back to collect my daughter later on, found that all the party food was just pure cr*p.

Lothaar

OP - We're not vegetarian but, by and large, we have the same attitude to food as you: feed her what we eat (always have); all fresh food; healthy choices and as little additives as possible. Our daughter eats very well. When she goes to a party, we let her at it. The fact is, she eats well 99% of the time and that is what matters. A little pig-out here and there isn't going to make a difference.

We also try to educate her so that she can make good food choices herself. It works to an extent... but all of her friends harp on about McDs, sweets, crisps, etc. We can't shelter her completely from these things and we can't deny that they DO taste nice, particularly to the undiscerning child's palate. She's going to want them now and again anyway.

There is something of a junk-food culture when it comes to parties, with cr@p handed out all day and usually a little party-pack of cr@p given to the kids on their way home. When we host a party it feels like we're expected to do the same.

You *could* try to influence parents of your daughter's friends by holding a 'healthy' party on her birthday. Feed them only homemade sweet and savoury treats, organic produce, etc (make sure it's actually nice, though). Perhaps even include a little box on the invitation asking about allergies or food preferences.

Organise the party in the way you would like to see parties organised. You may be surprised at how many like-minded parents there are out there. If they see somebody break the cycle of junk, then they are more likely to copy you. Or, at least, they'll think about the food they're providing at their parties rather than just going with cr@p cos that's the norm.

kelle

Have a read of this link
I have never come across a venue that does healthy food at children's parties, so I think it's unfair to single out McDonald's.

kelle

telecaster wrote:

The day will come however when it's some relative or friends birthday and their parents will decide to have a McDonald's Party.

I'd like my daughter to enjoy special occasions with family and friends.....but jesus, how could I ever send her to McDonalds with a clear conscience? To me they don't sell happy times, they sell TERRIBLE products that stretch the definition of 'food' to its limits.

Hold on, do you think she's going to be invited to parties EVERY day??? My son has been invited to 11 parties in the past 2 years - that is an average of one party every 2 months. I don't think eating crap in that time span is going to make any difference to their general health.