Do you make you children eat their dinner?

[Dandygal1976]

My sister and I will be at complete opposites tomorrow for Christmas dinner. I never make my children finish their meal but she will insist hers do. I have taught my children to start with the veg and go from there but to stop when they are full - I have never made them eat beyond when they say they are finished. What is this obsession with making children finish their food. I have never seen a healthy child starve and surely it is good for them in terns of weight. Perhaps this trend has started from rationing and never stopped?

No. Teaching kids to eat beyond their appetite is not a good thing to do.

I never force food, I do remind my 2yo that he still has dinner left occasionally though as he's easily distracted at this age
If he doesn't eat it then I'll put it in the fridge incase he wants something an hour later as i don't want him skipping dinner and thinking he can fill up on toast and bananas instead.

Chocolatecoffeeaddict - I think some people are just grazers. Can you not take advantage and have lots of fruit, crudites, yogurt etc and just let him graze? If I was left to my own devices I would be a grazer.

When ds was small I wouldn't force anything, but would try to be sneaky to get veg into him. Carrots or broccoli would get whizzed into mash to make fun orange or green mash (he was quite gullible!) and then made chunkier as time went on.

Once he was older (10ish) I would let him leave anything he didn't like but would insist most of the veg had to be eaten. I would give him veg he was ok with and portions small enough it wasn't too onerous with tiny amounts of new veg to try again. If he didn't eat his veg there would be no deserts/snacks later. It has worked ok for us and he eats most veg or, more recently this summer, shovels down a good plate of chopped salad now as long as there is apple in it. I believe this is because he has become accustomed to the taste and texture of vegetables which would never have happened it there wasn't some consistent "encouragement".

Half an hour after leaving his dinner he will be raiding the cupboards looking for cake.

We have found removing the cake, biscuits, sweets etc from the house is a game changer. The first couple of times they realise there is nothing in is eye opening to how reliant they have become on sugary cake like snacks, then they get used to it. If ds is hungry now he'll have an apple or banana as there is nothing else, whereas before if there were cakes/biscuits fruit wouldn't even get a look in.

I encourage my DD age 4 to eat more because as a poster said above, she's a 'take two bites and get down' type of child sometimes and then complains she is hungry. It's a good gambit at bedtime so we remind her to eat more at dinner as there won't be bedtime snacks if she doesn't. Lunch I'm not so bothered.
I was a fussy eater and hated being forced so I never force her at all. I don't even bother asking her to try new things.

No never. I was made to as a child and left to stare at a plate of food for hours, if I didn't eat it was put in the fridge and brought out the next day for each meal. My father went as far as cooking the exact meal several times over a few days. It was grim. I suffered from anorexia from a young age as I had such an unhealthy relationship with food. Something I only managed to get a grip on when I left home and was able to sort my own food.

Veg, protein then carbs
Have to eat it all if they want pudding or leave it if they're full

No. Never forced to finish anything. If they have eaten no veg I will say they need to eat some if they want something else after but dont insist on it all being eaten.
I also encourage ds to have a bite of things he says he doesnt like but actually hasn't had but again this isnt forced.
Usually they r just left to get on with it at their own speed which works pretty well.

I ask my dn to eat and will encourage her to eat more of the meal because otherwise she’ll fill up on pudding or biscuits etc. Every child is different and as a parent, rather than judge other mums for doing something different, you should realise that actually they may want to do the best for their child.

I never force my kids to eat everything. But I put it on the side so if they come down later and say they are hungry then they can have Whats left of their tea.

No I don’t and I try and make meals as relaxed as possible. However, I’ve been very lucky in that my kids have always been quite good eaters as it must be very hard if you have a child who doesn’t eat or is very picky

No I don't but I do make it clear that there isn't anything else until the next meal. I don't encourage snacking between meals

Veg, protein then carbs

You dictate the order In which your children eat their meals?

I’m fat as fuck.
One thing that has contributed towards it was the ‘ finish your plate ‘ mentality of my parents and grandparents -regardless if I was full halfway through.
It took me until I was 43 until I could leave food on a plate.
The conditioning of childhood is carried for a long long time.
My DD is a perfect weight. She has NEVER EVER been forced to ‘ finish’. We simply encourage her to eat her veg .
So no, I don’t force her. And she has a great relationship with food. Thank god.

Definitely not. There's a lot of evidence this is why people grow up to have issues with food. Serve healthy meals, eat healthily yourself and don't make an issue out of what they eat or don't eat. I know there's some days I'm just not overly hungry, kids are no different. My mum once told my child to finish her dinner or she wouldn't get her dessert (fruit/yoghurt etc) and I explained to her that we don't bribe our children over food, and she hasn't done it again!

Every child is different and as a parent, rather than judge other mums for doing something different, you should realise that actually they may want to do the best for their child.

It is my sister in the OP I was referring to. I do not believe I was being judgemental - just wanting to see what other people think of the two scenarios.

@FenellasRedVelvetDress - I was fat because I often ate unhealthy foods because I was hungry and didn’t finish my meals. I have a hormonal condition but ever since I started to make an effort to finish my dinner plate and not snack, ten years ago, I started to maintain a perfect weight. Everybody is different. What works for your dd wouldn’t work for my dn.

My philosophy is "eat it or don't eat it, there is no more until..." If they have eaten less than usual I ask "Is your tummy happy?"

The only thing that irritates me is asking for something then not eating it as it wastes food for someone else who may have wanted that portion.

I talk about how tastes change and they have everything on their plate, but are free to try it that time or not. Every so often they do trys something and the effort is always praised.

I can understand why there was pressure to clear plates post-war in continued/ recent history of rationing and basic, bland foods. In such a calorie rich world of freely avaliable, desirable foods, forced clearing of plates and overriding natural appetites is a disaster.

No but I try to teach them not to take loads if it's a take from a communal plate type of meal. What I mean is it's fine to ask for 2 potatoes if you're not that hungry. If you're not hungry and put 6 on your plate that's not very considerate.

No I was made to eat things as a child. I still don’t eat those things.
I’ve never made DD, she eats well but always likes to leave something on the plate. Her choice. As long as she isn’t complaining she is hungry I don’t care.

I remember I accidentally served DD up a huge plate of pasta when she was about 2, enough for an adult. MIL was furious I didn’t force her to eat it all. Just because it’s on your plate doesn’t mean it isn’t too much food.

I do sometimes. I usually know the difference between them not eating because they just want to rush off (and then ask for biscuits in an hour) and they genuinely not wanting to eat.

No never,I was anorexic from the age of 7 until 16 and the force feeding I had done to me was horrific and inhumane!

I've never forced any of mine to finish a meal and 2 of our DC are asd,our DS17 who is asd went a whole year where he would only eat 2 foods but I kept calm and never forced him or lost my patience with him and now he'll eat anything and will try any kind of unusual food at least once,he actually loves eating out now at different restaurants.

Of course not.

No, but they are trained that nobody even asks to leave the table until one adult has finished. Once one adult has finished they can ask. That means that there's no speed advantage to not eating, as they'll be sitting there anyway.

Dc3 is 7 and sits through about 1 meal every week without eating anything at all, and probably only finishes 1 meal per week. My mother spent our childhood alternately begging, threatening, bribing and cajoling my sister to eat and praising me for being "a good eater", then when I hit puberty replaced my plate with a side plate and shamed me for having an appetite. Eating disorders agogo in our family including sister being seriously ill and threatened with inpatient treatment for anorexia (and another sister being bulimic for years which I'm pretty sure my mother still doesn't know about).

I make no comment either way about what my children eat, just stick to the not asking to leave the table til 1 adult has finished rule. Anything else is too loaded and likely to do harm imo.