About making decisions that prevent war

In households all over the world dining rooms turn into war zones at mealtimes. Some kids won't eat their food, others don't want vegetables, most would be quite happy just pigging out on sweets. Enough to make Moms go completely crazy. Dad doesn't care, just as long as he can have peace and quiet at the table. But no such luck. The same arguments rage day in and day out, year in and year out.

"Mom, how many sweets can I have"
"Two"
"Can't I have four?"
"No"
"Three..?"
"I said NO"
"Why not?"
"Because I said so"
"Awe come on, Ma, why not? They're just little sweets."
"Because...[long explanation]..healthy..[long explanation]..bad for your teeth...[long explanation]...didn't finish your carrots..." lecture, lecture, lecture.
"Well Courtney's Mom...."
"I'm not Courtney's Mom, I'm your Mom and I say NO! Now just because you argued, you're having zero sweets!"

What's the real issue here? Two people with different agendas? Maybe, but the real issue goes deeper than sweets or food. We're dealing here with Mom's conditioning on the one hand (If you don't eat healthy food you'll die tonight!), and her child trying to flex his/her decision making muscles - without the authority to act on the other hand. That's the real issue.

You see, when she was little, Mom was taught a few basic rules, some good some bad. She was taught not to eat sweets before a meal (good), and to eat all the food on her plate (bad). If she did not do the latter, last night's remains would reappear to haunt her at breakfast the next morning, lunch the following day and dinner next Sunday. When she ate all her food, she was told she was a good girl (very bad) and was given a sweet or two as a reward.(Even worse - no wonder she eats when she's feeling depressed. Deep in her subconscious she knows that when she eats she's a "good girl", because it's been programmed in there long, long ago!)

What about Dad? Well, as a kid he would eat anything he could lay his hands on 24 hours a day, so no problem here. For him it's simple - I eat when I'm hungry and that's all the time.

So what is it that Mom is afraid of - that her child will be malnourished, or turn into a raging pimple? Perhaps its the wastage factor, who knows? But is it worth having repeated wars about these things every mealtime? Logically, there must be a better way to educate without the drama.

Let's consider the child for a moment. If you don't like being told what to do, why should your kid? We far prefer making our own decisions and we learn best from our mistakes, and very little from lectures. So, before we discuss how the "mealtime war" was sorted out with my (then) 7 year old that would pick at her food in between "sweets negotiations," here's the underlying philosophy.

I read many years ago that it is pointless pressurising a person to eat. Better to teach a child that it's okay not to finish everything on her plate - and relieve her of this guilt thing about eating. She should be clearly educated about the benefits and shortcomings of various foods so that she understands what to eat first in case the appetite runs out early.

When first raising the issue, the first trick is to pick the moment. It's aIl about timing. Try the standard lecture in the heat of an argument and you're heading for failure: Here's how we made the turnaround:

Choosing a time when she was receptive on the way to school one day, I steered our chat towards the nutritional values of the various types of foods, explaining why one should start with vegetables to get the maximum nutritional value. She learned the consequences of good nutrition to her health, skin and well-being in years to come. We also discussed why the best tasting things (sweets) were the worst nutritionally and why they come at the end of the meal. She enjoyed participating in the discussion and found it easy to agree on many of the points raised - even offering examples herself.

The next step was very important. We agreed that at "dishing-up time" she should decide, with a little gentle guidance, how much of each food item she wanted on her plate. That way, with her new nutritional knowledge she was not only making decisions about her own future health and well-being, but it was her choice how much she wanted. If there was a type of vegetable she didn't like, she was not forced to have it. Children's tastes change from time to time, and something she didn't want to eat six months ago she's happily eating now.

So we put our new philosophy to the test. She ate half her food and then asked if she could have sweets.

"What do you think?" I asked.
"Perhaps I should eat the vegetables first?" she responded
"Your choice." I said.

She finished the veg, pushed the almost empty plate aside and asked:

"How many sweets can I have?"
"It's your body - have as many as you like."

She helped herself to one sweet, closed the lid and didn't mention sweets again that night. And it has never been an issue since - why should it be, when she's making the decisions? And that was four years ago.

The issue was probably never the food. The issue was who was making the decisions. Will this exact example work with every child? It might work with yours, it may need modification. But if we train our kids to make little decisions when they're small, they become adept at making big decisions when they're big. And people who make decisions end up in charge of people who can't or won't. Now, which one of these would you like your child to be?

When teenagers rebel it's often because they get sick of being told what to do. It's not about what's being done, it's about who's making the decisions about what's being done. It's not about the wonderful privileged upbringing that they're receiving, it's about personal self worth and feeling in control of one's life.

When children are encouraged to make their own decisions surrounding homework, what marks they want to aim for in exams and what sports they would like to participate in, the child usually comes out on top. It's not what we think about our child's marks, its what they think about their own marks that is important. There should always be parental guidance, and there should always be clear boundaries. But let your child decide. If you don't set this up when they're young, they won't know how to do it when it really counts - when they're older.

I figured out long ago that it's her life. If I teach her to make decisions today, she'll gradually get better and better at it, and I'll have less to worry about when it comes to making the big decisions in life that really matter. If you give a person the authority to make decisions, before long they'll be making some very good ones. This principle applies to adults just as much as it does to kids.

Now, if I can just apply the same principle to bed-times...

Paul du Toit (November 2003)