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 never said any such thing. I said I'm not big on telling my kids, "do what I say"--in response to you saying you expect them to do what you say. They are polite and respectful without me ordering them around.
It's quite a jump to telling me my dd is disrespectful because she won't eat two bites of broccoli, but if she is, so are your kids. You said below that if they don't follow the two-bite rule, you just say, "oh well." Do you need a link?
Why do I need a post number to say that I won't force my dd to eat something she has an aversion to?
I am a stay at home mom and I can see the advantages for the children in both situations. As far as daycare being "best" for children goes, I wouldn't say it is better than choosing to take care of them yourself, but it isn't worse either.
Gosh, I'm sorry that I can't seem to make this clear. I'm not saying it would be a battlefield for anybody else--I'm saying it would be a battlefield for *us*. That's why we dropped it when we saw it wasn't going to work. I'm sure it works fine for most families who try it--it just doesn't work for us, and I won't force it. I don't understand why some posters (not you) insist my dd is disrespectful because she won't eat 2 bites of broccoli on command, but whatever.
That's too bad about Kohl's! I hope you got the right socks anyway.
Yes, getting sent to her room was a typical approach with dd as well. However, I did not want to do this over food, and nor did I want to spend every dinner time sending her to her room over and over again.
It sounds as if for both you and PKA, the "bite rule" really isn't a rule, in the sense that neither one of you imposes consequences if it is not followed. As I said before, then I would not really think of it as a rule. My problems with it have to do with when it is enforced as a hard rule.
Edited 8/30/2009 3:47 am ET by rollmops2009
Well, I think we also had a couple of different approaches getting mixed up in this thread. Originally one post was about how the child had to eat something from each of the foods served at each meal (i.e. in your example, the poster would want the child to eat the meat course as well) in order to get a cookie/dessert later. It sounds like your approach is quite different from that.
Lemme ask you, if you are out at the new Ethiopian restaurant and you ask one of the kids to try XYZ and he won't/doesn't is some kind of consequence imposed?
One poster enforces a 2-bite rule, but I don't remember the post number. The child must eat 2 bites, if he does not, the 2 bites are saved in the fridge and next time he is hungry he must eat them before he can get a meal. My BIL used to do something similar.
As already stated, that is where my problem comes in. Encouraging kids to try foods at the dinner table is not a problem, even if you choose to refer to the activity as a "rule." But the above is a way to force kids to eat specific things and that is why I said several times that I can't see any good way of actually enforcing such a rule. The other way the rule is often enforced is to withhold dessert if the benchmarks are not met. That is not "forcing" in the same way, just making a really unhealthy coupling in the child's mind.
The other point I have tried to make a few times is that because I did not usually get compliance easily, I was really careful about what I called a "rule." I get that if you have generally easy-going kids, you need not be so anal-retentive about terminology.
I did and do serve liza nuggest when she wants instead of another type of chicken. it was only about ayear ago she grudingly agreed to try roasted chicken and later shake and bake. (which thus ends my chicken repertoire) . I can even remember one of my brothers kids haveing nuggets at thanksgiving in stead of turkey
*shrug* It really has not ever been a big deal to me if she ate something different -- it's just not a battle I"m willing to fight and the fact that I loathe cooking probably has something to do with it too. I'd much rather have her at the tabel interacting pleasantly with me than endure the endless onslaught of power struggles that would arise from the latter. Liza can go for DAYS arguing with me.... LOL..I'm honestly just too lazy to go there.
oh yeah we have the fabric thing too -- "it's weird fabric feeling mommmaaaaaa!" is a regular exclamation in our house... it's gotten SLIGHTLY better over the past 2 years as she's had to wear alot of costumes on stage she couldn't complain about and that blessedly carried over into real life.
When Liza was little she would only go to restaurants she had "been to before" which as you can imagine posed quite a challenge to adventurous new dining -- she once RAN out of a bagel shop convinced the shop was on fire b/c of steam from the bagels -- It seemed like for an eternity the only place we could go wa sa local family type diner place. I nearly lost my mind. that too has gottne a little better with age but she still, upon approach of a new restaurant starts hyperventilating and tries to bolt for the car.
the child is serioiusly going to be the death of me.
LOL, we have not had the hyperventilation, thankfully, but dd has real resistance to restaurants. I always chalked up to her having been dragged out to eat with us too much, but I may have to reconsider. It could just as well be brain waves across the ocean from her younger twin.
Once I cooked some broccoli that had a worm in one of the stems. Dd saw the worm and wanted to know where I bought the broccoli. I was dumb enough to tell her. For the next 2-3 years, at every meal she would enquire where the veggies had been purchased before daring to eat.
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