Should kids be forced to eat what is on their plate before they can have dessert? Dan and I watched the two children of friends of ours this past weekend. Saturday evening we ordered in some pizza and both children, 2.5 and 5 years old, ate only about half of a slice of pizza. Personally I don’t think this was very much but I really didn’t want to force them to eat if they were no longer hungry and Dan agreed, children should eat as much as they can. But how does dessert play into this? Should they still get dessert? On one hand, if they were full there isn’t really room for dessert, but what about after an hour or so, should the children be punished for not eating their dinner but not getting a dessert or treat later on in the evening. If you tell a child that they can’t have dessert unless they have eaten all of their dinner, the child may stuff themselves beyond what is necessary to get dessert and then of course stuff in dessert right afterwards. This doesn’t seem healthy at all to the child. Of course do you want a child to not eat what they should i.e. their dinner but still get a piece of cake that isn’t healthy? Dan and I talked a while about this and it really hard to come up with a good solution. One suggestion was to not make dessert a regular part of dinner and maybe save it for a special “Family Night” dinner where you get dessert no matter what. Its definitely an interesting topic, anyone have any personal experiences or comments?
There’s ALWAYS room for J.E.L.L.O!
I think the easiest way to decide is to think about the kind of person you want your child to be in the future, and then work backwards. Be consistant, have a routine, and reinforce positively. Also when it comes to food maybe education is the key. Obviously if your child has only had 3 marshmellows to eat all day then they are missing out on valuable nutrition and need to eat something healthy. There should be a good nutrition guide somewhere. All I know is there have been countless times that I have wished I stayed healthier when I was younger and that I had learned how to live a healthier lifestyle.
That being said… for me … there ALWAYS is room for J.E.L.L.O.!
On the food issue, I think it is important to remember that children under about 4 or so have a stomach that is supposed to be about the size of thier fist, so for the 2.5 year old half a slice is a full stomach. That said kids also have very high metabolisms especially during a spurt, I’ve seen our little one (2 years old) eat 2 hot dogs, then 45 minutes later raid the frighe for another one. So no if the child eats an adiquite meal then is hungry later for desert that ok, but if they really didn’t eat then when they get hungry later make them a ’snack plate’ cheese, balogna, etc. Healthy finger foods they can snack on.