War on the table, why children like to use food as a weapon against their parents

My nephew is 4 years old. When he eats, he needs to put an Ipad in front of him to watch cartoons. While watching, his mother stuffs rice into his mouth. Every time he stuffs a mouthful, his mother reminds him to \”move his mouth\” so that he will remember. Swallow it, otherwise you can keep it in your mouth. My neighbor\’s girl is 2 and a half years old. She is a very picky eater. She only eats French fries and pasta every day. She refuses all other foods, especially vegetables. Whenever she sees a meal she doesn\’t like, she will scream in protest (every time The next time I heard screams, I knew they were having dinner). A mother told me in the backstage of the public account that her child is 1 and a half years old and is very thin. She is always worried that he will not eat enough. As long as he can coax him to eat more, he will use any method. Give him toys during meals, and make him laugh while using his mouth. When he opened it, he quickly stuffed it with a mouthful, and his grandparents took turns chasing and feeding him. The child still refuses to eat. Sometimes he secretly stuffs a mouthful of food into the food, and the child becomes nauseous and vomits out everything he has eaten. This is not a meal, this is a power struggle! The above examples are all real stories that happen around us. It should be said that no parent cares about their children\’s eating, but there are more and more children with bad eating habits and picky eaters and anorexia, and the older they are, the worse their habits are. . Why is it that feeding our children has become the thing we invest the most energy in but produce the least? Because we have focused on the wrong thing. What is important is never just the thing itself, but the child\’s emotions and voices behind the thing! Starting from the introduction of complementary foods, parents\’ attitude is always \”one more bite is one more bite\” and they always try to trick their children into eating more. When the children want to touch the food, the whole family stops them and say, \”No, it\’s dirty!\”; the children don\’t eat as well as they should on one day. If there are too many yesterdays, the mother will blame herself, become anxious or even angry. These constitute the child\’s initial understanding of eating: it is stressful, dirty, and the mother will be unhappy. The child has never even experienced the experience of the whole family having a relaxed and happy meal together. When anything is associated with negative emotions, he will instinctively avoid it. When a child starts to avoid eating, we instinctively want the child to eat and eat more. No one likes to be controlled, and no one likes to have their boundaries violated, but when it comes to eating, we are controlling and violating every day, consciously or unconsciously: controlling how much and what they eat; what should be theirs In our own affairs, we use all kinds of tricks, such as coaxing, bribing, conniving, intimidating, beating and scolding. This is why many children get worse at eating as they get older, because their self-awareness is awakening and they don\’t like to be controlled like this. So you may succeed the first time, but then the child will resist in a more violent way. This is actually the child\’s own way of expressing, \”I don\’t like being controlled by you like this. I\’m very sad (angry). You did succeed before, but I will resist. I will never let you succeed again!\” So! , a war began with no smoke visible on the dining table. The child begins to understand that he can use food as a weapon of resistance to escape from his parents\’ control. After all, if the child doesn\’t want to eat, no one can make him eat! Refocus and do our part to end this power struggle,What we need to do most is to refocus, draw boundaries, and clarify the rights and responsibilities of parents and children when it comes to eating. 1. Give up controlling your child’s eating. Eating is the child’s own business. Whether they eat or how much they eat has nothing to do with us. We need to trust their body’s instinct and let them decide for themselves. It is our business to prepare meals for our children. It is our responsibility as parents to ensure that every meal for our children is nutritionally balanced, rich and varied. We need to control the first step of what goes into their mouths. What we still need to do is to let go of anxiety and worry. In fact, after experiencing \”constant defeats\” for so long, you should also understand that arranging meals is useless. It is better to return the children\’s affairs to the children. Every time the whole family eats with the children, instead of feeding the children around the family. Let the children understand that \”eating is such a natural thing, and parents also need to eat.\” Each meal time should be controlled to 30 minutes, and no tricks will be used to coax the child to eat. If the time is up and the child does not eat, then I tidied up calmly (note that calmness is the key word, silently reciting the first item, \”This is the child\’s business\”, then naturally I am calm) and ended the meal. If the child is hungry later, he or she needs to wait until the next meal. A rare hungry meal or two will not make the child sick, but it will make the child understand, \”I need to eat when it is time to eat, otherwise it will be gone.\” 2. Restrict bad eating habits. Eating is an instinct. When parents want to control the instinct that their children should control by themselves, things will get out of control. But good habits need to be cultivated and need guidance from parents. When parents compromise their principles and indulge their children\’s bad habits in order to allow their children to eat, things will get even more out of control. So we need to focus on establishing good dining habits. Yelling, watching TV, and feeding during meals are behaviors we need to control, and this is definitely our responsibility as parents. The next time the child yells again while eating, tell him in a calm tone, \”You can\’t yell while eating. If you don\’t want to eat, you don\’t have to eat.\” The next time the child wants to watch TV while eating, tell him, \” It\’s meal time, don\’t watch TV while eating.\” Next time when your child asks you to feed him, tell him, \”Eating is your own business, you have to eat it yourself.\” At first, the child will definitely protest, and may become Even more \”intensified\” because these are the \”rules of the game\” they have set up. They understand too well, \”As long as I cry and refuse to eat, my parents will compromise and I can do whatever I want!\” Therefore, they will cry louder to express their protest and test our bottom line. But as long as we insist on implementing Article 1, the child’s “chip” against us will no longer exist. For too long, I have seen too many parents struggle to put food on the table for their children. But what you see is only the child not eating, but you do not see the emotions the child wants to express, nor the cross-border issues that arise in the parent-child relationship. This is the real reason why children use food as a weapon to fight against their parents. . Without recognizing this, the war at the dinner table will continue. May we all look at the matter of eating with peace of mind, may weWe can all give our children the power to eat. I hope we can use our own actual actions to tell our children that eating is such a natural, happy and relaxing thing!