After yet ANOTHER night of power struggles, angry words, punishments and overall aggravation over dinner, I am reevaluating my plan of attack. See, here is my problem. I'm viewing this dinner ISSUE as something I must attack. Well, the dinner I make is for my child, one of the people I love most in the world, not for my enemy, for the love of pete. So attacking it is probably the wrong way of thinking.
Eva is the world's SLOWEST eater. Yes, Sam, she may even have Ivy beat. She automatically finds something wrong with her dinner every night, takes forever to eat it, nibbling off itty bitty bird bites at a time, then alternately chewing and storing them in her cheek like a hamster, all the while fidgeting, talking, going to the bathroom, asking a million questions and essentially turning dinner in the Mac household into a marathon that sucks the ENTIRE evening dry. Interspersed are complaints of tiredness, questions about what privilege she will lose if she doesn't eat, temper tantrums if we try to make her eat and questions about why Charley always finishes first. BECAUSE she ACTUALLY EATS HER FOOD.
So, here's my plan. My child will not starve. I will serve her dinner and give her 25 minutes to eat it. IF she finishes, great. IF NOT, fine too. She won't get any snacks or such later on. 25 minutes. I will not nag, I will not help, I will not yell, I will not bribe. 25 minutes. That's it. Because I want to enjoy 5. and 6 and 1o and 25.
You heard it here. I wrote it so I can't change my mind.
and here is what i want to say to my daughters every night for the rest of their lives.
' "The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you;the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace." '
I have my peace. My family.
Talk about lucky.
Tiff
5 comments:
you are so funny! ha! bill and i are in the midst of embracing TV and you are shunning yours. we have watched more tv in the last month than in the last 2 years! bill just bought a new tv and it won't even fit in our cabinet and the whole point is that i don't want our house set up around the tv. i hate walking into a house when the tv is the centerpoint of the whole house and everything is set up around the big black altar. ugh!
as for dinner- good luck! our kids can eat or not eat but they need to stay at the table while we talk and have dinner- kinda the same thing as your 25 min rule now. it works for us. jackson is picky but he eats a huge breakfast when he doesn't like dinner.
GREAT plan! That's pretty much what has worked for us. I always say that the rule is... You not only eat WHAT we eat, you eat WHEN we eat. I will not ever deprive my child of food, so "losing dessert" is out of the question for any other transgression. But the way I see it, if you don't have room for the "good" stuff, you don't have room for the "junk" stuff. If she doesn't eat dinner WHEN we eat and gets hungry later... fine, she can have her dinner back, but dessert if off the table (literally and figuratively). So with that rule in place, dinner is pretty peaceful. (Except for the Addison screaming and trying to feed the dog... got any suggestions for THAT?) Good luck!
We have the same problem. I stopped fighting too. Samantha gets a treat if she makes a good effort of eating. If she chooses not to eat then that is fine too. She just can't have her treat. Also if she doesn't like what she is having, she has the option of cold cereal.
Hey, I just blogged about food issues, too! That's funny. Theo and Eva would make a great married couple and they would save a bundle on the lack of food that they will eat. :) Of course, they may kill eachother.
Your girls are just stunning!!
I think you're so smart to not make an issue of this! I am a terribly slow eater and mealtimes were always a nightmare for me (and probably my parents). It's a wonder I don't have an eating disorder...mealtimes were a time of stress and crying for me, and I never associated food with pleasure. It was only as an adult that I was finally able to appreciate food and actualyl enjoy mealtimes. So definitely don't turn it into a battle...she'll eat and be fine!!
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