Six sample consequences for children's disagreeable dinner table behavior that will eliminate misbehavior as well as food refusal

Jul 28, 2010 by

1.  Don’t let them finish their dinner if they won’t cooperate and follow your rules at the table. Screaming, whining, complaining, whatever it is your children are doing that you don’t want to send them out into the cold cruel world in the habit of doing, make getting food dependent on doing things your way.  Be unemotional about it. Absence makes the stomach grow fonder. The desperation will shift from you to them.  While in the immediate, this consequence means they eat less, in the long-term they will eat more. Hunger turns eating suddenly into something kids want to do.  While pushing food creates resistance, pulling it away increases desire. As Elaine Gibson writes in “Useless Power Struggles,” “We can’t make children eat, but we can make them wish they had.”

2.   Send them to their room, along with number one.

3.    Make them eat alone at…

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How to get kids to eat at the table, Part II: Lindsey's question

Apr 3, 2010 by

In response to my previous post, “How to get kids to eat at the table,” a reader named Lindsey asked the following question:

“What if I’ve been doing all you listed above since my children (now 6 and 4) were babies, and they still don’t eat what’s put in front of them?

It’s not that they’re not hungry or that they don’t like what I make. They poke their way through each meal, sometimes playing (even when asked to stop), my son will turn his nose up at things, but we require him to taste everything. They dawdle, and my husband and I always finish every meal way before they do.

I feel as though I’ve tried everything. Do you have any suggestions for that? Other than that, I enjoy your posts, and thank you for all your insight.

Lindsey , Thanks for your excellent question! It really…

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