3 ms·

Regardless of what you serve, forcing children to "clean their plate" even when they aren't in control of the portion size is very common and leads to strangely

Regardless of what you serve, forcing children to "clean their plate" even when they aren't in control of the portion size is very common and leads to strangely adversarial relationships with food as well as skewed ideas of fair portion sizes themselves. Much better to allow them to serve themselves and permit to go back for more, while still maintaining a "eat what you take" rule, than force them to choke down an amount of food they didn't choose until they're feeling physically unwell. If they don't eat enough, they will reach a steady state eventually. If they over-choose, they will regret that and correct in future. Some level of veto is necessary to prevent gaming of the system, but there's a difference between "you can't choose a single spoon of rice for your main course and fill up on ice cream later" and "eat this half-kilo of pasta because I said so and you'll sit here until you can miserably force it down".

aredox 3y ago
Tell me you've never had kids... You will "force" (let's admit it's not really force, but more nudging) children to clean their plate because they can't come back later and ask for food anytime they want. Learning to eat at fixed time, and to share a common meal (which is also a social bonding ritual), instead of expecting to be served at any time on a whim and live their life aloof of other's schedules, is part of socialisation and education.
- adhesive_wombat 3y ago
  No one's saying you don't have mealtimes, this all happens at a mealtime. You just don't overface them with huge (to them) one-shot platefuls and make them eat it with a combination of threats and guilt. They can ask for seconds if they want, strictly at the same mealtime, and it's obviously better for them to take less at first and do that rather than take too much because then they actually do have to eat it all. They will quickly learn not to undereat and expect to be allowed to raid the snack store later (not that we had a snack store as such, but even if I knew there was, say, a cake to be had, "consequences of your own actions" would be the phrase used while being firmly denied access).
- DoItToMe81 3y ago
  It isn't, you're just failing as a parent to set boundaries.

aredox 3y ago

Tell me you've never had kids... You will "force" (let's admit it's not really force, but more nudging) children to clean their plate because they can't come back later and ask for food anytime they want. Learning to eat at fixed time, and to share a common meal (which is also a social bonding ritual), instead of expecting to be served at any time on a whim and live their life aloof of other's schedules, is part of socialisation and education.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago
No one's saying you don't have mealtimes, this all happens at a mealtime. You just don't overface them with huge (to them) one-shot platefuls and make them eat it with a combination of threats and guilt. They can ask for seconds if they want, strictly at the same mealtime, and it's obviously better for them to take less at first and do that rather than take too much because then they actually do have to eat it all. They will quickly learn not to undereat and expect to be allowed to raid the snack store later (not that we had a snack store as such, but even if I knew there was, say, a cake to be had, "consequences of your own actions" would be the phrase used while being firmly denied access).
DoItToMe81 3y ago
It isn't, you're just failing as a parent to set boundaries.