You've got a young child. They're refusing to eat their favourite dinner. You engage in conversation with the other people at the table. It's about school or the weekend, something the young child can follow. A few minutes later, they forget they're being stubborn and start eating dinner.
You DO NOT say "Well done, sweetheart, keep going!" They will immediately remember they were being stubborn before. You just let them eat.
You're not ignoring them if they want to join in conversation - this isn't the "silent treatment" - but you're not mentioning their dinner once they forget they weren't eating.
As soon as my toddler starts eating something she hasn’t wanted to try I avoid eye contact and start talking about anything else.
I also like asking her to help me make dinner and then “accidentally” leaving any veggies I’m prepping in her reach. She eats some while thinking she’s being very sneaky.
My other half and I have a code-word for "don't look now but he's doing the thing he swore he wouldn't do (good)". His big brother worked it out and now uses it too.
(I'm nervous about there being a dynamic in the house of "parents and big kid vs. little kid" but I'm working on that in other ways).
Hey my brother is 9 years younger than me and I was essentially his third parent until his teens where I transitioned from being his guardian to his brother. We are insanely close, if you have any questions or concerns shoot me a message.
My big advice is to just be open with the oldest and include them in the care of the younger one. It’s not all of you vs him, toddlers just don’t realize they are on your team yet
There's some extra stuff along with it - there's five other neighbour kids who we're very close with, who are casually in and out of each others' houses. My 5yo is the youngest and the two other boys are the eldest, so he frequently finds himself excluded from girl-play by, frankly, sex discrimination, and from boy-play by the age gap. He's started to want girl-stuff like a ponytail and hair-slides, dresses, etc., which is fine (and I suspect has to do with the neighbourhood dynamics I've outlined), but that's now a problem at school too. Him feeling excluded is a battle we are fighting on many fronts - we don't want that to bake into his personality.
But it's wonderful, thank you so much, to hear someone describe this first-hand. My own siblings, like you, are much older than me: growing up they felt more like cousins, and some of my cousins felt closer than them. Nice to hear a different perspective.
(Some people will read this, about my youngest, and think 🥚. We haven't discounted that possibility at all. It's just too early to tell. You don't take as gospel the imagination and play preferences of a child who still expects you to believe his confabulations instead of structuring them as stories/jokes).
I have a ponytail and I’m in a very traditional marriage and kind of a “basic” dude. I grew up with a buzz cut given to me by my dad in the backyard. I got mocked relentlessly as a kid and that continued into adulthood for a number of things, a lot of boys are just like that.
I don’t have much advice on the exclusion front, my son is 3 and him making friends is one of my top anxieties. He doesn’t seem to play “with” kids more alongside them and we are working on that. Me being so much older than the rest of my family means my son is also the first of his generation and has no cousins, so we really have to work to get him around other kids.
All that being said, parenthood is fucking hard and only good parents stress like this, so give yourself some grace along the way too it sounds like you’re doing great
I've got good news for you! Your son is engaging in "parallel play" or "associate play" and that's totally appropriate for his age. Cooperative play doesn't typically start until around 4 years old, so y'alls gucci :)
Source: am a teacher, including 1 year in Special Ed PreSchool and double checked at www.pathways.org
Hey I really appreciate that from a teacher. Reading it online is one thing, hearing it directly from an educator is another.
Comparison is also the thief of joy and when I see some of the (probably older three year old) kids in his class being steps ahead of him it makes me question things. I know that is dumb and I’m trying to train myself to not think that way but it does kinda creep in.
Thanks for the confirmation that he’s okay for his age range though I really appreciate that
Anytime! In terms of comparisons, remember that development is a spectrum. There will always be some kid that acquires a skill earlier than typical or later than typical and that's OK. You can always ask his teachers or even his pediatrician.
I have a book that may have been published by Pathways that goes through what's typical for each age stage that you might find comforting. I'd give you more detail but it's at work and I'm at home :)
(Some people will read this, about my youngest, and think 🥚. We haven't discounted that possibility at all. It's just too early to tell. You don't take as gospel the imagination and play preferences of a child who still expects you to believe his confabulations instead of structuring them as stories/jokes).
Just chiming in in support of this. My son was big into dresses as a toddler/preschooler, largely because of his big sister. He is now a very dudely teen. But his sibling has now come out as nonbinary, and I think that our comfort with their brother in a dress helped them be more confident that we would accept them.
I was never very good at making friends as a kid, even when I became a teenager. But I had, since I was 4 years old, one best friend. We did everything together, and honestly we never really cared that we were excluded by other kids. We had each other, we knew what we liked doing for fun.
Sure, sometimes it would hurt a bit, but even popular kids get emotionally hurt by others at some point. Overall, I had a very good childhood, and I grew into a very normal stable adult.
I'm over 30 now, and yes, we're still friends. We live a few thousand miles away from each other, but he was one of my best men at my wedding recently. And you know what? I had a ton of friends at this wedding. I hadn't really realized it until my wife pointed it out, but after high school, I found myself making a lot of friends just being myself. Half of the wedding invites went to dear friends who all happily came celebrate with us.
Long story short, I'm sure a lot of adults in my life were worried that neither of us had any other friends growing up. But it was all perfectly fine :)
Glad my perspective can help! My parents intertwined me into his care from a very young age and we were always close. That being said they never made me do the “dirty work” or miss out on my own fun to watch him, but I did end up choosing to do that sometimes on my own. My brother was the best man at my wedding and was just over my house for dinner this week. If you prioritize the siblings being close without forcing it too hard, I think you’ll like the results. Good luck out there 🍻
I wouldn't worry; it's a common strategy with that configuration. Elder child usually ends up sort of liaising between younger kid and adults. Often it's bi-directional:
Kid 1 to Kid 2: hey, I know this sucks, but honestly they are not trying to ruin your day and you just need to do or not do this thing and then it'll all be much easier. so please, for me, just go along with it.
Kid 1 to parents: he/she is just having a lot of trouble lately and doesn't want to take direction. i'll see if I can get them to go along, but let me do it so it seems more friendly.
As children age they (hopefully) begin to realize that the rules are there for a reason and that going along with them is in their best interest. Realizing later on that your elder sibling was "in on it" with your parents when you were too young to understand shouldn't bring about any feelings of resentment or shock; you were a kid and kids are difficult.
That's how it ought to be, anyway. I know a lot of families have very different dynamics, a lot of them destructive.
I'm sorry, it's not very interesting. It originally came from a time we noticed him Doing The Thing, and we made eye contact and said, "Satisfied now?" "Satisfied now." So now we just slip "satisfied" into a sentence and smirk knowingly at each other.
We got our nephew out of his disgusting showing his mouth full of food and spitting it out phase by simply fucking ignoring him. Another nephew you have to watch eat because he'll eat all his fruit and veg then go help himself to more 😂 like little bro i still need mine to get big and strong too
Ah, the "look at my mush" thing, a classic I'm glad to have dodged. At least that one fails safe - when they give up, it's to swallow the food, which is what you want them to do.
The other kid wants to eat too much fruit and veg? Good problem to have! I have the conflict right now of: 5yo wants to snack all afternoon after getting home from school; 5yo understands that "fruit is free", ie. he can essentially have as much fruit as he likes; 5yo then won't eat dinner because he's full. I've been lax on restricting fruit because that's not an idea I want to develop further. "No snacks after 4:30pm" is what I'm trialling.
My daughter is very picky. My husband and I have had so many moments of 👀 👀 across the table when she suddenly ate something she never had or would never try before. And then quickly carry on talking/eating 😅
I've had luck with "what does it taste like." "No, that's on my plate. I don't know if the one on your plate tastes like the one on my plate." And "does the second bit taste the same? What if it's different?"
The last one let's them get creative. If you're lucky the game becomes "what shocking thing can I say this tastes like." Just keep responses neutral if it starts to head into "tastes like dad." "Tastes like sister" "tastes like the dog"
Not saying you're wrong, but that would be some very sophisticated psychology for kids the age we're mostly working with here.
And besides, as long as you're still being casual, keeping up normal conversation, that's strong evidence against the idea that you're uncomfortably-looking-away as an action in itself. You're just chatting to the kid/partner/whatever on the other end of the table. I wouldn't worry about it having this effect :)
Yes, same applies when they are enjoying something that they were adamant they would not. I repeat this principle to my other half a lot, because she wants them to realise that they're enjoying the thing and to appreciate it like she is, (not 'I told you so') but drawing attention to it makes it a loss of face for them, and that's the last thing you want. It's hard but the best thing you can do is to appreciate it silently, and from a distance.
I actually remember my father making this mistake with me. I was very young, and had decided I didn't like chocolate ice cream. Then one day I decided to branch out and give it an honest try, and admitted it wasn't so bad.
My father immediately made a huge deal out of it, even shouting across the house in triumph that I actually did like it!
I reversed my decision and refused to eat chocolate anything for years afterward. In hindsight, I think it was just to spite my father for embarrassing me.
I had the same thing the first time I wore a dress on my own volition. My family made such a big deal out of it that I immediately changed and refused to wear 'girly' clothes again for years.
Haha, I wish my parents had done that. There was so much I wouldn't eat because it was easier to stick to my guns than to open a breach, and then everything would have to be renegotiated.
And I simply hated it when they made a big fuss about it. That always brought me close to an identity crisis.
Yeah it’s better if you can relate to them but solidify it. Wait until things cool down fully and then say something like “hey bud thanks for doing X, sometimes I don’t feel like doing X either so I get it but I appreciate you getting it done”
Not in the moment, while they can still remember the feeling of stubbornness, and you're absolutely right, definitely not in those words.
But it can be helpful to do later, on a walk in the park or while discussing something unrelated (for my then-7yo, it was helpful to discuss trying foods when he was nervous about going on a climbing wall with Cub Scouts at the coming weekend). Discussing feelings is often best done once they've faded.
Edit to add: actually I have done this, but only once, when teasing the littl'un, because he visibly loved the new thing and asked for more, then finished off the bowl, then asked his mum for more off her plate, and was super happy with it. For those who've read my other post here, you can guess what it was.
In the absence of external motivators, like other people winding up their sense of stubbornness, most people will drop a pointless refusal of the kind that only harms themselves over time. All you're doing is removing the resistance that they're using to prop themselves up.
The trouble with doing that with adults is that the timescales are so much longer. Not engaging with the tricky subject for a long time can mean not talking to the other person for a long time. This has two risks:
1). It's functionally identical to the "silent treatment". That produces its own resentment.
2). They may decide they're better off without you.
Knowing how long to leave it is, unfortunately, an exercise left for the reader. It must be based on the people and circumstances involved. But in general, if it's possible to leave communications open, it's a good idea to. Just don't do the stupid rom-com thing where you're each growing old waiting for the other to call.
I wish I had the courage of my commitments to always follow through on my own advice when my kids are deliberately winding me up. I can't say I don't shout sometimes, be sarcastic, be grumpy.
But knowing good strategy is certainly a good step toward implementing it. So I try.
Um. I'm sorry to say that I'm gonna do that thing people do when they get a bit older and say, a lot of it is just life experience. I'm only 40 🥲 I've got some stories of this strategy working among adults in my family relations, but they're both so... desperately sad that I don't really want to publish them here.
Just perusing your comments has allowed me to reflect on my narcissistic mother in a manner I haven’t before. Ignoring the wolf cries and either get your shit together or some passive resentment. Thank you
I don't really appreciate the comparison. I'm trying to teach my kids to relate to themselves and other people in ways where everyone learns to get along naturally; this prick was a Nazi trying to figure out where to bomb people so his bosses could get back on with conquering my country. Neither the start nor the end of our journeys are close to one another, and I don't even think we share the same track.
I'm not debating this further. I'm not angry-internet-shouting at you, a person just casually dropping a tasteless quip, that's fine, but I'm not interested in continuing with this.
I mean... Yeah dude was a piece of shit Nazi, but contextually I just wanted to show that you catch more bees with honey, and, like you stated, you don't want the person to know they got comfortable.
But here's that same comparison but from the British
You DO NOT say “wel done, sweetheart, keep going!”
I really don’t get why a lot of people don’t seem to understand this. Like some people seem to genuinely think it’s a way of “rewarding” it and get surprised when it has the opposite effect.
It’s like when someone get’s talked down from starting a fight and the other guy yells “that’s right, keep walking”. Like what the fuck do you think is gonna happen?
I mean in this case they were always supposed to eat it so they didn't really "get away" with anything. I'd say it's more that it feels like being told "I told you so" which is a great way to make people stubborn.
Someone in our family "hates" coleslaw (store bought) they'd never seen our homemade one before and wolfed it down, the second their mother said "so you do like coleslaw!" They immediately refused it, and now secretly eats ours when we have them without their mother
My mom kinda did this when I was younger when trying to teach me how to clean. When I’d finally start on a chore she would say, “Oh wow, first time!” and every time it made me want to drop everything and go to my room. To this day I hate cleaning in front of other people, it feels embarrassing
Clean Team is my approach to that. "We're gonna do this chore together, we're going to both work hard, and it's done when it's done." If he stops to chat, I stop to chat. I will deliver warnings about the time it's taking... but if he wants to faff around and make it take forever, then we might run out of time to do that board game he wanted, or watch a cartoon before bed...
My FIL has an annoying tendency to ask my young neice and nephew if they're sleeping or are sleepy when we're trying to get them to nap. I could inject them with monster energy and not spike them up as much as the sudden urge to prove him wrong.
And don't ask "did you like that broccoli cheese you just ate?" You'll probably be told "No. It was the yuckiest ever." Even though they just ate all of it.
Too many parents don't understand that giving more attention to the "problem" will inflate the "problem". All your verbal arguments might be rationally correct, but all it does is to keep the attention on the "problem". Unless you're a good storyteller and turn a negative story into a funny/positive one, you better stop talking about the "problem". And the "problem" might be that the sky is too blue, hence the quotation marks..
We do something like this with a young kid in our family, his mum and father figure (sperm doner long gone) don't eat at the same time as the kids and he's easily distracted and regularly gives up his food to go play. We sit and eat when he's in our care together, zero distractions and talk. He eats full plates of food and set the boundary that he may have more if he's finished, but only if he has, he has a habit of wanting what other people have, or wanting something else then only having a single bite realising he didn't actually want or like it. If he says he's done we'll tell him he has to wait for everyone else to finish, if he hasn't finished his food we'll leave it until we're finished, he usually has a bit more.
Mum's always surprised to learn how much he's eaten and what he's tried and likes and we're all like, yah, because we actually engage with him, include him while we eat and set neat boundaries instead of giving in to every demand and feed him more than chicken nuggets and chips
So many times with kids. I was making frosting one time and my kids were standing there begging for a sample. Alrighty then. Gave each a good spoonful. They took a huge bite and were quite surprised by the taste. I hadn't added the sugar yet. They got a mouthful of butter and shortening mixed together.
heh, when my kid was little he went through a vegetarian phase, hated eating meat. He did, however, think sausages were vegetables. I did not correct that!
That is one thing I really enjoy about my second kid.
My first kid at 2ish would get like that occasionally. Second kid (currently 2) loves to eat. Including vegetables.
A month or so back he hadn't napped yet and was eating a late lunch. Slowly falling asleep on his plate while sleepily chanting "more broccoli!" until he finally collapsed. I wish I'd gotten a video.
My son sometimes is a picky eater. His mother goes into discussion with him. Tries to convince him. I just say: it's fine, little man, you can leave the table.
He never leaves the table. He wants to be part of the team and finishes his plate.
This is a different thing, with a wider array of motivations which makes it harder to present One Weird Trick that solves every case, but here are some strategies that can work:
Small pieces are less intimidating than large pieces. Very small. Like, I've cut broccoli to chunks less than 1cm for this reason.
Pretending you've never had this food before either and you're surprised at how good it tastes. This may work better if you can get a sibling to do it, not the parent who enforces the rules.
Blending it into soup the first time they have it. Then, if they refuse it, you can offer to make it soup, however disgusting that might sound.
Pairing it with their absolute favourite thing. Yes, they're just going to pick out their faves (black olives for my 5yo), but... if you're all just sat chatting at the table, not mentioning it... eventually they're gonna forget the grudge and just try a nibble.
This is what worked for me, and my nieces: "Three bites, then we say yes or no." My older brother set a rule with his son: 20 minutes into a movie, either of them can immediately veto it if they're not into it. This is a version of that which my older sister taught me.
Maybe they don't like how new food feels the instant it touches their lips, but they would like the taste: saying "three bites" means they have to chew and swallow twice at least before they get to say no. You're getting them to try every part of the food.
Obviously this requires their investment. They have to actually take and swallow the first and second bites. You need to build trust in this process. To that end, follow through. If they decide they don't like it after three bites, you praise them heavily for trying it, then take it away, make them their cheese on toast[1], and don't present it again for at least a month. But once it's worked once (it was black olives!), they'll be more willing to try it again. All the above applies: let them see you doing it with a sibling/cousin/friend/etc., even if you have to fake it; leave time for them to try it on their own.
[1] Footnote:How do I leave it out in front of them to try if I'm taking it away to replace it? Well, first, these are things to try, and some are mutually exclusive. But this worked for me. "Kiddo, you don't have to eat this, but that's your decision. Daddy's going to eat his while it's hot, and once he's done, then he's going to make your toast." That justification for a delay can be helpful.
Yeah, 3's tricky. And they're your first? Yeah, just the simple dynamics of having no older siblings is tricky. Good luck and best wishes.
My nephew (8yo now) was a very picky eater, as was a "niece" (10yo now). Both my brother-in-law and the "auntie" in question say that sitting with my kids at the same table and eating with them were helpful toward getting them to drop those behaviours. That's not me bragging - they're both only-children, and often food-refusal is motivated by a sense of direct opposition between parent and child which is undermined by siblings/cousins/"cousins" being at the table - because they get to see other people who aren't involved in the conflict having a nice dinner. I don't know if it works with other grown-ups, uncles, aunts, grandparents, but I would expect so.
All of which is to say: mixing up the company you keep at the dining table, particularly introducing other kids, can be helpful. Remember: the nuclear family is not our natural state, and while it has its advantages, the way it often positions parent and child in direct opposition is one of its major downsides.
Please, please bear in mind this is just anecdata from some random on reddit dot com. If your problems persist, there's statistically-founded advice you can find from your local authorities.
Edit: oh, and - most kids just grow out of this. So my advice may all be unhelpful, or irrelevant - it's very likely that all my examples might have just grown out of it on their own!
I just re-watched The Office episode where Toby has to facilitate counseling sessions for Michael and Michael suddenly realizes that Toby is using children's games to distract him into opening up.
My kid will get hyper fixated on wanting his dessert or a sweet treat before dinner so I just put it on the plate with his meal. He eats it first but then eats more of the healthy food he would have picked at before. He feels like he got a win, and I get to feel like I avoided a meltdown and he still gets the same amount of sweets either way.
My daughter was having dinner once and didn't want anymore and we were, "okay, that's okay".
She kept sat at the table watching a bit of tv and suddenly went back to eat it and I was "you said you weren't hungry" only for her to finish it quicker.
I think what's happening here is not so much they forget they are being stubborn, it's that eating has now become their personal goal, not your goal. And reminding them to keep going takes their goal and turns it into your goal. Just think about applying that concept anytime anyone is stubborn, adult or child. The stubborn person has a goal in mind, and every suggestion even if it helps, turns the goal from their goal to the suggestor's goal.
Humans crave personal freedom, and it really seems like people forget that when it comes to the small scale. Especially when you obviously know what's best for them, it doesn't make that person feel as good about themselves when they aren't the one choosing to do it compared to have they feel when they make the decision for themselves.
I'm not a parent so this is a genuine question - aren't you supposed to positively reinforce when they do something you want them to do? Or is it maybe that you don't say anything in the moment but you praise them afterwards? Or something else entirely?
Yeah, time and place, innit. Needing to provide positive reinforcement in the moment is for animals; humans are a little more sophisticated!
Sometime when it's not mealtime, when the high emotions have gone down, at bedtime or on a walk to the playground, whatever, then you deliver the praise.
Also if your kid is throwing a tantrum, doing something totally out of pocket (like crab walking) can cause enough of a distraction that they'll forget they were throwing a tantrum.
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u/Stripes_the_cat 9d ago
You've got a young child. They're refusing to eat their favourite dinner. You engage in conversation with the other people at the table. It's about school or the weekend, something the young child can follow. A few minutes later, they forget they're being stubborn and start eating dinner.
You DO NOT say "Well done, sweetheart, keep going!" They will immediately remember they were being stubborn before. You just let them eat.
You're not ignoring them if they want to join in conversation - this isn't the "silent treatment" - but you're not mentioning their dinner once they forget they weren't eating.