How to force children to eat dinner

Dec 20, 2010 by Anna Migeon

Many cards and letters have come in asking whether or not children should be forced to eat their dinner.

The short answer is that of course children should be forced to eat their dinner.

The long answer is that they should be forced indirectly, not directly. We need to gently and in all cheerfulness block off all other means of eating and therefore, of survival, so that a child is forced to eat dinner in order to survive. It sounds more brutal than it need be.

The examples of two different little girls will illustrate:

When little Meredith, who is human and growing and therefore tends to find herself hungry every day, wants to eat, she eats. She…

Three Bad Tips for Feeding Hypersensitive, Orally Defensive or Sensory Processing Disordered Children

Nov 23, 2010 by Anna Migeon

Amy, age 8, will only eat a few things: little beyond a certain brand of macaroni and cheese, bean and cheese tacos, very smooth mashed potatoes and apple sauce put through the blender again.

As a baby Amy had trouble sucking. She grew slowly. She finds most foods too salty, spicy, lumpy or gritty, or even too hot or cold. She abhors all toothpaste. Once she threw up when she licked a sticker. She screams at the dentist. If she tries something she can’t swallow, it triggers a higher level of resistance, even to what she would normally eat.

Diagnosed as “hypersensitive to oral input,”  or “orally defensive,” Amy isn’t your run-of the-mill picky eater. It’s not her parents’ fault. It’s not all in her…