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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To send DS to bed without dinner

149 replies

messybessie · 31/07/2011 18:43

I've said it now but feel awful.

Sunday dinner in garden. Grandad and BIL also in attendance. DS is 5. Refused to sit properly, kept shouting and screeching, refused to use knife and fork, breaking up potatoes with his hands.

I took him from table and told him to sit in kitchen until he could behave.

He eventually came back to table but still wouldn't sit properly and finally through potato and fork across table.

Dinner went in bin. He is now sobbing because he'd hungry.

OP posts:

TwinkleTops · 01/08/2011 13:17

Did you put the dinner in the bin or did he put the dinner in the bin?

asecretlemonadedrinker · 01/08/2011 13:18

My 5 year old can be a real terror. THe other night he threw his dinner all around the kitchen (blooming sweetcorn and little bits of fish) - that's rare though. I made him spend nearly an hour clearing it up. First dustpan and brush, and he flicked it around more. He wanted me to give in, but I didn't. THen I let him use the hoover for the hard bits. I talked to him afterwards, and he agreed that it was silly to throw food because the clear up was very boring. I have started to become harder with him (but fair) and he has come on leaps and bounds. You really do soemtimes have to be cruel to be kind. I would never TBH take away dinner and offer nothing else, but if he started to throw it around again I would certainly take it away and let him have fruit/toast before bed. I am really soft though, and DS knows that

pictish · 01/08/2011 13:18

Because she's NOT an adult ffs! Therefore she does what she's TOLD.

Man up Chic.

Nanny0gg · 01/08/2011 13:18

I assume he'd had breakfast and lunch?
Therefore, no dinner, no problem.

chicletteeth · 01/08/2011 13:19

oak I'm not condoning his behaviour. That clearly needs to be addressed. My guess from OP's post is that he must know how to sit (otherwise she woudln't ahve been correcting him) but how does binning his food help this? How does not feeding him help this?

I don't see that it does.

RedHotPokers · 01/08/2011 13:21

I just can't believe this thread is still going with so many nutters perfect parents who think it is witholding food as a punishment to take away the meal from a child who has thrown their food and cutlery across the table.

I think I've met some of you in restaurants before actually. Are you the ones whispering 'come on darling, pleeeeease sit back down' whilst your DC circle the room at full pace, screaming???

chicletteeth · 01/08/2011 13:21

Pictish I don't agree with SD by the way. I found it a very odd thing for a child to say, but in her 6 year old world, that's what she reasoned.

I just think that binning it is aggressive, especially if he saw it.

I wouldn't do it, I'd expect my DS to come back and eat nicely and do as he's told.

manicbmc · 01/08/2011 13:21

He was fed. He decided to play with his food rather than eat in the manner you'd expect a 5 year old to (with a knife and fork) and so it was taken away. It wasn't going to get eaten anyway so the bin is the place for it.

littleducks · 01/08/2011 13:21

I have a 5 yr old, she has just done a yr in reception, she is not a 'baby' by any means. If she behaved like that at school dinners I bet they would take her plate away.

I would give a clear warning or two and if either of my kids were that naughty
afterwards I would send them to bed with no dinner, no qualms.

It is not abuse, I would not tolerate them wasting food like that when there are people starving. Politely leaving stuff on the side of your plate is fine by me but throwing it so that nobody can eat it?

I would have a chat at bedtime, let them apologise and give them a glass of milk, perhaps a banana if I thought they were genuinely hungry, but I dont think a hungry child would throw food about.............at least not one who realised the consequences and had been taught the value of it

chicletteeth · 01/08/2011 13:22

I'd also make him clean up the mess.
There is no point binning it if you're going to give in and give food later either.

pictish · 01/08/2011 13:23

Yes well 6 year old resoning over such matters is bollocks - doesn't matter.
You say - they do.

asecretlemonadedrinker · 01/08/2011 13:24

food as a weapon = "if you are not good today, you will not have dinner"

I often ask myself why I would never have done the same at DSs age (throw dinner around), and I know why. My mum would have taken it away. If he/she has had little all day, then certainly offer something else later on (nothing special, porridge would be my top choice (filling/not crap)!) but I have realised now (5 years on!) you have to a) stick to your guns, otherwise it's pointless. Don't say you will have nothing else all evening, if that is not the case. b) give warnings and c) if you let them get away with 'low level crimes' , it does escalate. I am having some real problems with DS (5) because I was too soft. Now when DS2 (2) asks for more than one story, instead of reading the 20 odd I would have to read to appease DS1, I say in advance "one story" and stick to that. A few nights on, he won'y even ask for more.

pictish · 01/08/2011 13:31

Btw - I sent my eldest to bed without dinner for naughty behaviour at the dinner table twice when he was that age - never had to do it again, the threat was enough because HE KNEW I MEANT WHAT I SAID.I did not have a discussion with him about his behaviour, I did not attempt to reason with him. I said STOP IT, OR YOU WILL GO HUNGRY and stuck to it.

Call SS!!!

chicletteeth · 01/08/2011 13:32

It can matter, because it doesn't give you the desired effect all the time does it?

pictish · 01/08/2011 13:33

The desired effect is that I say what goes, and my kids do as they're told.

spiderpig8 · 01/08/2011 13:34

I don't know why people think if you have made a mistake with a punishment you still have to obsessively stick to it.Bonkers! What's wrong with admitting when you've made a mistake and if you've made a mistake you are allowed to change it.
OP YABU .This isn't Victorian England you can't send a child to bed hungry.

pictish · 01/08/2011 13:36

What mistake was made here?

MorelliOrRanger · 01/08/2011 13:38

I agree with Oakmaiden as well. I get frustrated when my DD won't eat properly. I'm under the impression that if she's messing about with her cutlery and food then she obviously doesn't want it.

She's never thrown food though and if she did it would definately be time for her to leave the table.

Parenting is difficult, but in your position he would get toast and that's it but he can't go to bed hungry (think how early he'll wake up for breakfast).

purely sefish emoticon

chicletteeth · 01/08/2011 13:42

My kids do as they're told too pictish but I'm don't have to be quite as didactic as you (so I am speculating from the tone of your posts) to achieve this.

manicbmc · 01/08/2011 13:46

Wait til you have a wilful one. Some kids are generally quite amenable and don't require much discipline.

HowlingBitch · 01/08/2011 13:47

Arghhh!

Neglect, Abuse?! Some of you need to take a long hard look at yourselves.

Neglect is a child who is not given the option of food. This boys mother cooked him a good meal which he chose not to eat but throw it around as well as his cutlery. A child at 5 yo needs to learn consequences for bad behavior and in this case it was

"Fine, Do not eat your lovely meal now but do not expect me to make you another one whenever you feel like it young man"

It's hardly abuse or mean and It will not cause an eating disorder. What it will do is at best, Teach him respect and responsibility for his own actions. At worst, he will have 2 helpings of breakfast in the morning.

Seriously?

chicletteeth · 01/08/2011 13:48

I have three. My middle one is very wilful and he's very, very hard work but I've found the bullying "just do as I say", is very short-lived with regards to geting him to behave how I want him to compared with a gentler, more reasoned approach which works far, far better.

pictish · 01/08/2011 13:51

The only mistake that was made here, was that the OP caved in and gave him another plate of food after his disrespectful, bad mannered behaviour, thus undoing all the good work she put in, and making him assume that bad behaviour at the table will be pandered to with a cute little dish of dinner when he CAN be bothered to eat it.

simpson · 01/08/2011 13:56

Cannot believe this thread is still going on

DD also went to bed last night with no tea/dinner and has suffered no ill effects this morning, neither did she wake up any earlier

but hopefully she will think about behaving like she did yesterday eve

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