by Mary C Gesteland

Created on: February 14, 2009

Unfortunately, mealtimes with young children can often end up being an everlasting struggle between parents and child. In the household I want to talk about, there is an only child, let's call her Abby, who is very intelligent and very willful. She is the perfect copy of her father, Andrew. She knows which of Andrew's buttons to push, and he constantly responds negatively.

When Andrew and Abby's mother, Anna, sent Abby to daycare, Abby heard all the other children talk about how they hated vegetables. Thus, not wanting to be different and wanting to fit in, she decided to hate vegetables, too.

When she decided to continue hating vegetables at home, the battle began. Anna would put the food on Abby's plate. When Abby refused to eat the vegetables, Andrew would step in and insist Abby eat her vegetables. Then Abby refused to eat all of the food.

It is well known that if you put too much food in front of a small child, they look at it with trepidation. How can I eat all of that is their inner question. In the process they lose their appetite. When Abby's father insisted that he put the food on Abby's plate, Anna would ask him not to put too much. Andrew, however, said It didn't matter, he would see to it that she ate all of it. (What is the adage, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.) Abby would say, "No, I won't." Therefore the problems escalated into shouting matches, until the evening meal became the most unpleasant part of everyone's day. Most mealtimes Andrew would send Abby to her room and Anna would find her later sobbing.

Anna, being also very intelligent, but not so hard headed as her husband, decided she needed to find a solution to this problem. How do you get your child to eat her meal and still be able to have peace between father and daughter at dinnertime?

She noticed that when Abby came home from school, she was always very hungry, starving actually and would eat almost anything. So Abby's mother changed Abby's dinnertime to right after school. Abby was served a little bit of everything and ate it all, because she was hungry and no one was paying any attention to her. Then two hours later Abby sat with her mother and father while they ate their meal, so she could tell them about her day at school. After a few days, Abby was asking to taste what they were eating and eating a bit with them. - Ah, that is the beauty of a simple resolution.

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