March 15, 2011 The Dinner Dance: When is Enough Enough?
When to end dinner? The answer seems like it should be simple: you end dinner when everyone has eaten enough.
If you have a dawdler, the kind of kid who can spend 45 minutes eating, chatting, playing, and then eating some more, you know that deciding when to call it quits isn’t always so clear cut.
But even if you have a focused child, the kind who gets right down to business, figuring out when to end a meal can be tricky: your child says she’s done, but you’re not convinced that 2 bites of chicken and a swig of milk are going to do the trick. And the last thing you want to deal with is a whiny, fussy, hungry kid 20 minutes after the dishes are done.
That’s why parents say they are always pushing Two More Bites. Recent research provides a different explanation.
Research shows that parents don't usually even ask their preschool kids if they are full. When they do ask, however, parents don’t believe what their children say.
When preschool children try to claim they are full, they are frequently met with the following kinds of responses:
- Disbelief – “But you’ve only had a few bites. You can’t be full.”
- Encouragement – “You can do it; finish a few more bites.”
- Pleading – “Please just eat this much and you’re done.”
- Bribing – “There are cookies waiting when you finish up.”
(And if you find yourself under the table trying to persuade your pumpkin to open up, you know you've moved beyond bribing!)
In fact, when it comes to reporting satiation, parents are more likely to believe their infants than their toddlers, even though toddlers are more capable of communicating. Read The 2-More-Bites-Tango: How YOU Can Take the Lead.
Your heart is in the right place—you want your kids to be nourished and you don’t want to operate like a restaurant— but pushing kids to eat more than they want doesn’t just risk teaching them to overeat. It teaches them they don’t have the right to know when they are full. And that’s a more serious problem.
Knowing when to end a meal is complicated.
Because you don’t actually know how much food your children need at any particular moment—a truth that’s tough to live with—and because as long as there is food or drink left on the plate the meal can still be “in play,” it’s hard to know what to do.
But how you end the meal matters.
- If you are a person who can trace your after-dinner sweet “need” to childhood, you know what I mean.
- And if you have a hard time putting your fork down as long as there is food on your plate, you also know what I mean.
Mealtimes serve a variety of functions, only one of which is to keep your kids fed.
When you think bigger than the food you realize that it’s during mealtimes that you are also:
- Shaping your children's relationship to food and teaching about who controls their bodies. (Is it you, or is it them?)
- Instructing your kids on the rules of eating. (You eat, you don’t play. You sit on a chair, you don’t stand on it. You put food in your mouth, not on the floor.)
- Teaching your children how to engage in a structured conversation, where there are rules about who speaks and when it’s alright to interrupt.
- Exposing your children to the wider culture through conversation with parents and siblings.
And the list goes on...
When mealtimes become centered on food problems—on getting kids to eat more, to eat less or to eat in a timelier manner—these other functions of the meal become subverted. In other words, you’re not only shaping your child’s relationship to food, you are shaping your child’s relationship with you, with siblings, with the world…no pressure!
I’m not saying you shouldn’t hurry things along, or create an environment conducive to eating.
I am saying that you have to be conscious of the lessons (all the lessons) that your kids are learning and make sure that you teach the ones you intend. About food About rights. About interactions. About life.
For more on this topic read Raising Lawyers.
~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~
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Additional source: Laurier, E. and S. Wiggins. 2011. “Finishing the Family Meal. the Interactional Organisation of Satiety.” Appetite 56: 53-64.
Reader Comments (7)
Great post, Dina! I'm going to share on The Lunch Tray Facebook page.
A very timely post for me! Just yesterday we had a little 19-month old for a guest who ate beautifully an entire meal all by himself. Sitting opposite to my little one, who is six months older, and to whom eating is an experience that involve ALL senses. And his hair. Also the floor and the walls. (But he enjoys his food! And he feeds himself! That counts for something, right? Right?)
Well to put it mildly I came to realize that enough might be right now and that my son probably is ready for a little more resistance and a little more of a challenge when it comes to table manners. Even though he still is my baby...
Thank you for an excellent post!
This is a thought provoking article and I see myself doing this with my 4 1/2 year old all the time at dinner. However, I wish there was more to this article.....like suggestions on what to do instead, how to read the "full" signs, dealing with hunger after the dinner, etc. I know every child and every family is different, but with a topic as big as this, and life shaping as this, it would be nice to have some jumping off points too.
I hate you for making sense. My toddler is so skinny. He had a lingering cold for 2-weeks and actually lost weight - we can see every bone. To put it in perspective - he's turning 2 next month and his 6mo brother is only 3lbs less... 6MO is in the 50% for weight.
That said - I grew up in a 'clean your plate' family and have struggled w/ weight and eating issues for much of my adulthood. I try to do the right thing - variety, family meals, etc. I never force feed -but I definitely will offer ice cream more frequently after he doesn't eat a lot at dinner - just to get calories into him. This is probably not a great tactic.
Can you share suggestions for getting through the toddler stage where playing seems to be more interesting than eating? My boys are great eaters in general - but my skinny little guy seems to have less of an appetite lately and I'm thinking it's because he'd rather be playing. I refuse to chase him around the house w/ food.
Thanks everyone for your comments - and the nudge to provide some practical solutions to the problem. Look for them in next week's post.
Dina
I love reading your posts and getting a different perspective (or being reminded about one I once had) on eating. I have watched meal time battles with my sister's family and swore to never create issues over food. Easier said than done! All of my children tend to be underweight and the temptation to feed them more or feed them junk to fatten them up is a tough one to combat. Especially when doctors are encouraging me to put weight on them with statements like "there are worse things than ice cream" and "isn't there something that he likes that you can give him unlimited access to?"(even though he didn't touch his dinner). Just a note to the mom with the skinny very underweight child- it took us 6.5 years to identify that my daughter's slow weight gain was related to her undiagnosed Celiac Disease. If you think there is a medical issue, trust your gut and find it.
Cindy,
Many doctors put the fear into parents, exactly as you say. But most underweight kids are only underweight in the sense that there is a distribution and they are on the small size. Everyone doesn't have to be the same size/weight to be healthy,and I've seen many parents who were pressured to feed their kids more who now have kids who overeat. The habits we teach in early childhood are so important.
Weight isn't that important. What IS important is whether the child continues to grow on his/her own trajectory; is alert and physically active, etc.
Thanks for the heads up about Celiac Disease. It's something for parents to consider.
Best,
Dina