to have sent 4 yo dd to bed with no story for this..

[camperli]

Having dinner in a hotel and had (pre) ordered a fancy dessert for dd.
She was off having a play in the kids' playroom when dessert came and when she came back I offered her mine (same as we had ordered for her) as they had not brought hers and I was too full to eat all of mine.

DD refused to eat mine and insisted at length on having her own. Eventually I thought, well, we have ordered and paid for it so we may as well get it, so I asked for hers to be brought. They brought a child sized version of mine, not so pretty or so much. She tasted one bite and then pushed it away and said she didn 't like it and wouldn't try any more.

I'm afraid I saw red, marched her to our room immediately and sent her to bed with no story. When asked by very tearful dd why she was being sent to bed, I answered that her behaviour had been selfish and greedy, but I'm not sure that that is an explanation a 4 year old can understand. She has fallen straight asleep.

I am still really angry, but don't know how to explain this come tomorrow morning. Also not sure if my reaction is appropriate.

For me, whether OP is being unreasonable or not is based around whether her DD knew whether her dessert, and her mother's dessert were the same thing.

Because a conversation along the lines of "DD, why don't you have my dessert instead, it's the same thing as you have ordered and I've only had one mouthful"

is a huge step from (imagine the desserts were named chocolate cake and super-dooper chocolate surprise respectively despite being the same thing - not beyond the realms of possibility if it's a kiddie menu)

"DD, why don't you have my chocolate cake and we'll cancel your super-dooper chocolate surprise. Otherwise it's wasteful."

YANBU to be cross in the first instance, YABU to be cross in the second. Simples.

Because you are not sure if your reaction is appropriate I'd like to tell you that it was totally inappropriate

your child hasn't done anything wrong - she tried something, didn't like it and left it - what's wrong with doing that?

Oh and the way I read the op:

The OP ordered two desserts - one for her and one for her child.
The OP's dessert arrived, she tried it and left it.
The DD's dessert did not arrive in time.
The OP tried to get DD to eat her own discarded dessert instead.
DD didn't want the discarded dessert, wanted the one she had ordered.
The OP chased the missing child sized dessert.
It arrived.
Child tried the dessert, she tried it, ddn't like it and discard it (just like her mum had).

ecobatty the waste of one pudding (pre ordered so even if not delivered to the table, it probably would have ended up in the bin) is hardly comparable to the waste of the world's resources your ds has consumed in order to visit his relatives in 4 continents.

Actually, Yabvvu by referring to it as dessert. It is pudding.

YABU

Why order the pudding before you've had the main meal anyway - there is a strong possibility that you and/or she may be too full to eat it and it will be wasted.

Also kids learn from what we show them - you ordered the pudding and left it. She did the same and was marched off to bed......

TBH I have never understood the logic of punishing a child for not eating a pudding. I am of the school of thought against punishing for not eating generally but when it's for not eating pudding, which is usually unhealthy anyway, I just don't get it.

Sorry but yes, YABVU

I do hope all this extensive travel by the ecobatty family has been on foot or bike, otherwise that's their eco credentials up the swanee.

I imagine a wasted dessert rather pales into significance next to a number of carbon-guzzling plane flights.

Oh earlyriser - so much quicker than I was

Actually ds has not wasted the world's resources visiting family. He has consumed them and we are quite aware that it is unfortunate that maintaining a relationship with our families requires us to travel so much. But hardly a waste to go visit family, surely if any travel is worthwhile that is it.

All of us in rich countries do consume too many of the world's resources. It would be great to tackle that in a more structural way, but that would require changes that most of us are not yet ready to make. Perhaps we will get there before it is too late.

But if we can at least avoid wasting, that will have absolutely no negative impact on our quality of life whatsoever and given the volume of waste has the potential to have a significant impact on overall resource use. So we do try to teach ds this.

"8.3 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK every year.

Reducing food waste is a major issue and not just about good food going to waste; wasting food costs the average family with children £680 a year and has serious environmental implications too.

If we all stop wasting food that could have been eaten, the CO2 impact would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 4 cars off the road."

(from lovefoodhatewaste.com)

ha ha ecobatty, so it's not waste if you think it is important?

Hypocritical at all?

It's not waste if it's used. I'm not judging anyone's consumption, just the stuff that gets ordered and thrown away.

Yes I would like to change a lot of my consumption habits, and I would like others to change theirs. But I don't expect anyone to give up things they care about. Don't see why that is hypocritical.

Now if you are seriously telling me that you enjoy ordering food and then not eating it and throwing it away .

I think food is just as "wasted" if it is consumed by someone who neither wants nor needs it as it is if it is thrown in the bin

I totally get that ecobatty but you are coming across as preachy when really you are also consuming more than your 'fair share' of the world's resources. Who is to say that leaving a pudding is more or less wasteful than the luxury of flying to visit relatives- and make no mistake, it is a luxury. The people in developing countries (the term 'third world' is pretty derogatory) do not have the same access to flights to see their families.

Interesting take on reducing consumption there, ecobatty

I recommend a name change to econotreallybothered

But when that someone is a 4yo it is about teaching them to think about whether they want/need it before they ask for it, not about what happens to that particular item of food.

It is about creating the habits of a lifetime. Do we want them to always over-order, on the basis that if they don't want it they can just throw it away, or do we want them to order only what they are certain they will eat, on the basis that they can then order some more/something else later if they are still hungry?

I much prefer the latter as an attitude, and if we all had that we would waste a lot less food.

Or do we teach them that we are entitled to travel extensively whenever we want and sod the environmental fall out?

No of course not but you don't need to dress it up as some world-saving ideology and expect us all to be impressed by it.

(To econotreallybothered), not you er

(will you be my new best friend?)

not sure how we got from tantrumming mummy/child to saving the planet though!

Aaaah. On MN anything is possible.

earlyriser - every single person in the developed world consumes more than our fair share, myself no less than most. If everyone on the planet lived like the UK does we would need 3x the resources of the whole planet. More if we all lived like the US.

I am from the third world, by the way, and many people there hate the term 'developing world' - it implies if you just leave it as it is it will get there which is often very far from the truth. Some say perhaps we should call it the 'being kept in abject poverty for the benefit of the rich countries' world, but usually they just settle for the term 'third world'. Sorry if you don't like it.

Is this thread a troll?

If that was the depths of my ds's poor behaviour I would be dead chuffed!

Hi Dittany.

We haven't met, but I have admired you from afar.