Hi all,
It's been a while; good reading all the success updates too
Bit of advice please from mothers, fathers, guardians:
Is a 2yo capable of manipulation? I think yes, although in very basic forms ie tantrums etc to get own way.
What techniques have people used successfully to get their 2yo to eat proper meals?
Is it horrible of me to send her to bed without a meal at that age if she won't eat what's served at dinner? Will she understand the 'lesson' & eat next time?
I believe in boundaries, rules & discipline to make a child feel safe to start exploring the world & also to know what's expected of them in life.
Please help as I'm doing my head in & would really appreciate any tips/advice!
Thanks
We have a 20 month old at the moment, and a 9 year old. Both boys.
With the 2 year old stage, sending them to bed without food is not going to work at all, and is not fair on the child, and you'll feel awful on top of it..
But, we never let the tantruming child win; we don't give in to what they want which is causing the tantrum, but distract them with something else, such as going outside to look at the birds, or the moon, or a cat etc.
We are dealing with a small child who hasn't learn emotional control yet, so it requires patience (which can be very hard).
My sister is a classic with this; she has 4 adult kids of her own, and grandkids now, and I've watched her in action with her brood for 30 odd years. When the kids would start "arking up", she simply takes the attitude of "ooo; cracking a wobbly are we?" and ignores them for the most part until they calmed down.
More serious breaches were met with "If you don'y stop XYZ behaviour now; I'll give you a smack" And she made sure she backed up the threat - most important.
We follow this same rule very consistently. Of course, you never want to smack your kids - and we very rarely ever have to. My 9 year old son got his last smack when he was about 4. Nowadays, if he misbehaves (which is rare at the moment) he is threatened with loss of priviledges such as no XBox etc. It works.
Too many parents I've observed do this; promise a dire consequence to their child for not behaving, then do nothing at all. The kid quickly learns that the parents are pathetic, and will rule the house within months.
I read somewhere that it can take up to 12 attempts to get a child to try a new food and like it. I reckon it's about right.
We keep trying our 20 month old with foods from time to time that he previously pushed away (literally pushed away
), and sometimes he will eat it, and away you go.
Our solution is to put a variety of different things on the plates and add the stuff he hasn't tried or doesn't like to the plate.
Getting upset when they don't eat the food you've selected also makes their eating experience an unpleasant one, so they are more likely to not want to participate in it.
So at this age I would be trying to ignore the mess they make, keep up the variety and relax, make it fun and keep trying.
Sometimes this is not easy; especially at the end of the hard day, you just wanna get it over with, clean up and put the feet up, and the child is firing on 12 cylinders..
It's great fun, isn't it?