it's all in what works for your family
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it's all in what works for your family
| Sat, 07-18-2009 - 6:38pm |
I don't believe that children that have parents that work outside of the house are at a disadvantage... I also don't believe that children that have a parent that stays at home somehow benifit.

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I agree with this. However, if you have a kid who does not cooperate easily, you tend to pick carefully what to demand obedience on. My idea is that if I issue an actual order, "you must eat one bite!" for example, then I better be prepared to make sure that the child complies. It also means that past a certain point, I rarely issued a direct order without having considered ahead of time how I would obtain compliance if it were not obeyed.
Seen in that light, certain orders become unworkable, the 1- or 2-bite rule among them. This especially holds with small kids. What I mean by that is that by picking carefully what to order, I was slowly able to establish that direct orders would result in compliance. But it took time and care, so picking things that were either not enforceable ("you must go to sleep now!") or else only enforceable by demeaning methods (for child and parent) were not likely to build up the compliance and respect of the child.
absolutely right,dress codes.
this sub-thread gets me thinking.
i wonder how many families eat together as families.
We employ the "taste it until you can claim you don't like it" rule. It's rarely used at the home dining room table where we eat as a family most nights. I am not an adventurous cook, so it's rare that I cook something entirely new that would be subject to the rule.
We do go out to dinner quite often as a family and we try a wide array of ethnic restaurants. In the past month, we've had dim sum at a Vietnamese one, tapas at a Spanish one. I delighted that they're game to try lots of different foods; it's a very rare occasion that one of my boys will order chicken nuggets for dinner at a restaurant.
My son and daughter liked the Spanish restaurant so much they got a tapas cookbook and plan to try some recipes for dinner soon (I may have to invoke the two bite rule for myself as I was not fond of some the food that they liked.)
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