Not everyone has the same house rules and this was S. U..
This site is only helpful if you actually want advice. If you want everyone to agree with you, then you are on the wrong site.
Who the hell are you? What are you even talking about? And who is forcing you to be here?
Yeah, it's probably better that you flounced. You aren't open to actually being helped.
Forcing a kid to eat everything on his plate three times a day is a recipe for obesity. Experts on this subject actually tell people that they should leave some food on their plate.
You know how to create food issues in a child? Make food an issue. A child should never be forced to eat all the food on their plate. We only require our children to try a bite of each food, and then if they don't like it or they are full they are welcome to be done. If they are hungry later they are always welcome to fresh fruits or veggies, or their left overs from dinner, but nothing else. Studies have shown that things like forcing a child to eat everything on their plate and forcing them to eat at times when they are not hungry ends up contributing to obesity later in life.
You removed your question, so thanks, TF---
Well, when so many people give you the same advice... maybe they are overwhelmingly right?
If you choose to lord over a child by forcing them to eat what they don't want to, prepare to have a really shitty relationship with them. No one likes to be forced to eat beyond what they want. Go get therapy if this is really your hill to die on, because you have issues. Big time. And this WILL create food issues in the future. Being forced to eat foods to the finish is a cheap, crappy way to have power over a child. If there are leftovers, then put them away, the food won't go to waste. This is just irrational behavior.
What has his doctor said? Is he healthy or malnourished? I would suggest you let him stop eating when he is full, and prepare smaller portions for him, or allow him to choose his own portions. If his body is telling him he is not hungry, forcing him to eat is not serving a purpose. Have him stay at the table until the rest of the family is done, then excuse him.
What the what?
Oh...so you force your kid to sit til he completely finishes his meals 3 times per day.
I had a father like you.
But he was only around for dinner.
You say til your plate was clean.
I used to feed Lima beans and Brussels sprouts to the dog.
And sit til I was done or bedtime...whichever came first.
Guess what?
I still don't eat Lima beans OR Brussels sprouts.
What's the point?
We don't all have the same viewpoint for sure, however I think many parents on this board are fairly educated on mealtime challenges and how to work through them. Food is to nurture your body, and should not be a battle of wills. I suggest a loving conversation with him that you are working on letting him listen to his body and that you will provide small healthy meals. If he can't eat them, you can wrap them up for later and if he dislikes them, he can help make a PB&J or he can go hungry.
Missed the earlier post, but I can speak to you as a parent who's had a child complete eating disorder treatment: The only time you want to push the "eat everything on your plate" idea is when your child is actually at risk of needing a feeding tube due to serious health issues, like our son was. We had to push the eating everything concept as part of his treatment.
It's no fun and can cause all sorts of problems in kids who don't have eating disorders. I wouldn't go down that road if you don't have to for medical reasons.
Clean Your Plate - teaching a child to eat when they are not hungry is not smart. Period.
A "house rule" that makes no sense and is actually unhealthy is - sorry to be blunt - a useless rule. "Just because" isn't good enough.
Just because your parents did this rule, doesn't mean it's a good rule. My mother cleaned my ears out with a HAIR PIN - do I do that to my kid? NO CHANCE IN HELL. Why? Because it's NOT SAFE OR HEALTHY.
Autism - sensory processing - among other things - make this rule U..
It's not "same viewpoint", it's that we LEARNED from the past, and from current HEALTH knowledge.
If you want them to "clean their plate", give smaller portions.
If it's a new food, give a couple of bites worth. To make a child eat a whole bunch of a new food is unfair. Try one bite is what we do at our house.
You know how people politely say it isn't you, it is them? Yeah, sometimes it really is you.
It doesn't take an aeronautical engineer to figure out your question. I'm not sure why you'd flounce. As you stated, not everyone has the same rules. Ours are clearly different than yours. It seems that YOU are the one who can't stand it if others have different views than yours.
Let me pose a question which might help you to answer your own:
When you are full, do you "clean your plate?" If you do, I expect that you have a weight problem. If you do not...why would you expect your child to do so?
So if this poster is a SM and believes in a clean plate and her spouse doesn't, then she's lost this fight. Stepparenting is a series of compromises regarding the children and if she's worked up on dinner then it's going to be hard when there are bigger issues, IMO. If she is this upset about a clean plate...have fun when the kid does something truly awful. I think that many times (myself included) new stepparents get wrapped up in stupid things because it's the only thing we can control.
FWIW (for everyone else), we ask that children either finish their dinner or stay til we are done and can be excused then. Often times, if she just stays, she'll eat a bit more, and staying til we are done is a very reasonable timeframe. Good dinner = treats and snacks. Bad dinner = none. There's no point in ruining dinner time or teaching her to overeat or dragging out hated lima beans for breakfast. Oh, and turned out the peas that my stepson hated? He's ALLERGIC. Sometimes kids do know their own bodies better than we think and we need to pay attention. Food struggles are not a hill to die on in this house.
You are forcing this child into an eating disorder. It was S. U. to you because you don't agree with the majority of moms who responded. Maybe instead of deleting your original post, you should think to yourself.. Hmm. Maybe I'm not doing this right? Especially if most moms are stating that they don't force their kids to sit and eat every last bite of their meals.. Maybe I can change it up a bit.
I read your question last night before you deleted it.
I agree with the other moms.
Letting him sit there and finish his meals for an hour is NOT a good idea. It is going to cause many, many problems as he grows that can't be undone.
Parenting can be hard and step-parenting can be even harder. Perhaps a parenting class for you and your husband would work? Usually a park district, library or schools host them.
We sometimes only parent how we were parented, and not all of us had the best parents.
ETA: Perhaps there is background information missing? If so, please update. We can only answer based on the information that you provided. If a bunch of random strangers are all seeing it the same way....well ya gotta wonder.
I think I read your question before you deleted it, you were making your 5 year old clean their plate?
When I first saw the title, I was going to respond: i have one of those kids! My oldest seriously takes forever to eat. Once she was at the table for 1.5 hours. I then started limiting her time, and she has gotten better at it (she lacks focus sometimes).
My mom made us stay at the table until we finished eating. Silly rule that causes power struggles. In my house, you can determine when you are done eating, just ask to be excused. If the food is still on the plate, I worry about the person being hungry later, but it's their choice to eat or not. You cannot control someone. It just creates power struggles and problems.
you say we aren't being helpful because what you are looking for there isn't an answer to. You are creating a problem with your house rule, and most of us mom's here look at prevention. So if something isn't working, you look at what might be causing it.
I agree with TF. Some kids (and some adults, including me) do better eating several smaller meals/healthy snacks throughout the day. I think I'd be really unhappy if someone stuck some food on a plate and told me I had to eat every single bite (regardless whether I was hungry or not) or I couldn't leave the table. I'd possibly start to look at family mealtimes and food as things to dread instead of wonderful things to enjoy. And perhaps I'd develop an unhealthy relationship with food over time.
I'm sorry, I can't agree with anything you're doing here. Don't force him to eat. Let him serve himself. When he's done eating, let him be done eating. If he's hungry 2 hours later, let him have a slice of cheese and half an apple. Is he malnourished? Is his doctor concerned about how under weight he is? If not, then you're doing a pretty good job of messing up his natural relationship with food. People should eat when they're hungry and not eat if they're not. It's simple, but it's something many of us have been trained AWAY from.
You might win this food power battle, but your gain will REALLY be your step-son's loss.
S. u??
Hmm...
"not so S. you" would be MY take.
That said, I looked over the answers, and I think you received some pretty good ones.
I feel badly for your step son.
I feel badly for YOU!
Take your marbles and go home then...K?
I was raised with that "clean your plate" thing, and while I don't exactly have an eating disorder, I have a pretty uneasy relationship with food. In my case, it only worked because my mom served pretty small portions, so my siblings and I were really hungry a lot of the time. But I still remember some late nights alone at the kitchen table. (My mom remembers, too, and she has apologized!)
I actually started out that way with my own kids, but had to step back and ask myself why I was fighting that battle. Hadn't I learned anything?
Your step son is going to have major food issues if he doesn't already. Stop doing this. He should learn to listen to his body and eat when he is hungry.
I recommend you discuss this with a doctor so they can educate you and you can see how damaging this is to your stepson.
The advice you get from other mothers is only S. U. if you aren't open minded enough to try to learn something from it. If you can't even consider that your house rules are too rigid, then you are setting yourself up for some major heartache when your child gets older.
You can diss everyone here all you want, but YOU are the one with the child who sits there for an hour at the table. Your pediatrician would not approve of what you're doing. But with the attitude you're showing here, it's obvious that you don't care how much knowledge and experience other people have, even professionals. All you care about are your house rules. Your child is suffering right now because of it. And your household will too as she gets older.
Some problems require thinking outside the box and you have to approach them sideways instead of head on.
If something's not working then try something else.
My Mom was big about 'cleaning your plate' and my sisters record for sitting there with her mouth stuffed like a chipmunk and not swallowing was 4 hours.
Honestly there were too many food battles when we were growing up.
I made a conscious decision to never fight over food with our son.
That doesn't mean he gets junk food when ever he wants.
We offer healthy choices and it's up to him whether he eats or not.
If he chooses to not eat - it's no big deal.
Fortunately he's not a picky eater and the only thing he'll always turn down is liver and onions (I make it for myself sometimes - I'm the only one in our house who likes it).
I didn't get to read your post before you pulled it but there is never just one way to do things.
The right way with one kid will be the wrong way with another kid (or even a sibling).
Parenting requires flexibility in some areas and it's tough to know when you should bend vs stand firm.
In a hundred years from now, will it really matter or make any difference if the kid swallows that particular mouthful of food?
No?
Choose your battles - it's up to you to decide if this is a hill worth dying on.
I didn't see your question. From the answers it may have been about having a child eat everything on their plate.My daughter started out with finding ways for her son to eat every thing. Nothing worked. She never forced him and tried to make cleaning his plate acceptable to him. Eventually, she learned that he has sensory issues. When he ate more than he should or ate too fast, he vomited. Another factor for you to consider when deciding about how to feed your child.
About you comment about all of us only have one view point. Yes, we seem to have one view on this question. If you read answers to other questions you'll find we have differing views. I've found over my 50 years as an adult that a concensus of opinion indicates that they might be right and worth trying.
I suggest house rules are for helping our children learn healthy ways of living. Scientists and sociologists have studied eating habits and reasons for eating disorders and found that battles over food often causes eating disorders. "Clean your plate" is no longer accepted as positive parenting.
Clean your plate was common during the great depression when food was in short supply. We were to use every bit of food because there might not be enough food later. We now have more than enough food making it less important to clean our plates.
Another common phrase was "consider the starving kids in China" as if the food we didn't eat could help then. As a result of the World Wars and increased technology we now knew children were starving; hence that truism.
We live in a different world now. Technology has exploded allowing us to be more aware of who we are and what actions help us and which ones don't. I'm 72. When I was a kid, there were few studies in behavior and health. We did learn mostly from our parents. Our knowledge has greatly expanded. We have instant access to information via the Internet. I urge you to learn more about parenting and house rules. Our world is Changing so fast we have to be willing to learn and grow.
I always wonder why mom's ask questions when they are only willing to hear "acceptable" answers. We are mom's from many different backgrounds and experiences. We are all different and frequently have different answers. Your question has mostly the same answers because we have all experienced eating issues with our children. Some of us have learned on our own. Others, like you, have learned from others. Why ask a question if you don't expect a different view than yours? What a boring world we'd have if we all thought alike. No one has to agree with any of us. You don't agree. OK So what's there to be mad about? Unless, on some level you feel we may be right and need to defend yourself.
Maybe you would make a better pig farmer than human mother, baby pigs LOVE to eat and would certainly enjoy your "house rules" of eating whether they feel like/need it or not.
I missed this one!
Sorry you felt answers were U. - everyone's responses below sound pretty bang on. I'm guessing you just didn't view things the same way.
From what I gather, this was about making kids eat everything on their plate. I didn't think people did that anymore - but I do have a friend who sticks leftovers on plate in fridge, and kid has later in evening when hungry. Works for them but I think the kid is just a slow eater.
I myself don't make a big deal out of mealtimes - because for us, it's more about the family sitting down together at some point - and talking about our day. That's what it was in my house growing up. If you truly hated supper, you got up and made a sandwich or cooked an egg. Or had extra salad that night. So that's kind of our approach - and I stick sauces etc. on side. I don't go crazy accommodating everyone's tastes, but I also don't force them to eat something they don't like.
My child has a sensitivity to tomatoes. Actually breaks down the inside of his mouth a bit. Well, didn't I feel awful trying to get him to eat tomatoes - I figured he'd eat it at everyone's house so let's try the food 3 times rule ...
Sometimes we think we're helping them ....
Realize moms have different points of views - and it's nothing personal.
Good luck :)
I can't see the question but I can get what's going on from the response of the other responders so I will add my 2 cents. Don't force a kid to eat when they are full. I know people who go by the clean your plate rule or trying to make the kids feel guilty with there are kids starving in other countries so eat your food. A lot of those kids are overweight or have other issues with food because of cleaning their plates. I know it can be frustrating when you have spent time cooking and they don't want to eat it but at some point you have to let it go. If you don't make food an issue he won't either.
I don't make my daughter eat all of her food because I have a friend with 3 kids who made them eat everything on their plates and all 3 have weight issues. They will eat when they are full because as adults they still believe they have to eat everything on their plates.
How do you feel after you force yourself to continue to eat when you are full? Do you eat everything on your plate? Use that to imagine how your son feels when you force him to eat. He just may not like what you've cooked. As you know we all don't like the same things. Cook foods he likes.
I think the issue is no one agreed with you so you are upset. I have had questions that other people didn't think the way I wanted them to think but that's why we have this forum. Others can bring a different light to your questions. Some will do it in a positive way and some are negative no matter what. Just roll with it and keep going. Good luck!!
Hahahahahahahaha!!!
You obviously haven't read the answers for any other questions. I doubt that you'll be back to read this, but thanks for the laugh.
And yes, I agree with everyone else who responded.
