to boast about this

[leelo]

my ds age 3.5 refused to eat his dinner and threw a huge strop in front of all my close family. i didn't give in and after much ado he gave in and ate his dinner. it took ages and my lovely family sat watching it all. i did it i made him eat his dinner.

i won!!!!!

usually this ends differently. naughty step gets well used. i can't spend time enjoying my dinner and my dd(7) gets less of my time as on will you behave mode. aah, so this is what it feels like to be in control. i don't like this height can someone fetch a ladder?

Well done.
DS has been a bit of a pest at tea time this week - refusing to eat and paddying (he said "mummy cutty the dinosause" I cut one dinosaur and he threw Major paddy saying "no no no mummy!")
Today I just ignored the behaviour, and after a brief strop at the cutted up dino he gave in and ate! yay for annie!

Stick to your guns now hun!

(Dinosaur was a "treat" tea - Jamie Oliver can rest easy - it is not a daily occurance, it was a "lazy mummy feels like poop and DD has been good at school kind of a day")

thank u. it was worse as i had my mum and aunties all watching me. and nothing is worse for a strop than extra attention from other adults. but if he's good and eats his food we play whatever he likes if he doesn't eat his food then i resort to being boring.

YABU. Read Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn before being so delighted.

YABU, parenting's not a battle.

It's a war.

Well done OP

It's not easy when you have an audience but that's one thing we forget sometimes to teach our kids...and that's 'I don't care who's looking on, the rules remain the same'.

It does help if you have a supportive family though who have the good grace not to get involved.

sc2987 - from his own website: "Alfie Kohn begins instead by asking "What do kids need - and how can we meet those needs?"

My son needed to have some food in him before bed or he would not sleep. He ate and is now sleeping. I fail to see what I did wrong.
Please enlighten us about how we achieve this if traditional ways don't work as he claims.
My parents loved me, I know that, I am not harmed by how they gave praise and disciplined bad behaviour, so fail to see his point of view.

sc2987

shut your piehole.

Your mother and aunties were watching but not muscling you out of the way? God, you're lucky. MIL and SIL would have had me airlifted out of the situation if it would only give them a chance to show them how brilliant they are.

Well done. There is of course a time for doing things the Alfie Kohn way. And there's also a time for telling childcare experts and interfering in-laws to STFU and leave you to get on with your job.

Excellent op! You've done well

Oh forgot hold on tight

sc2987
Two words....Boll ox

Well done OP, and also well done to the onlookers who let you get on with being the parent.

thank u all. today was a good day too. played outside, had cousins over to play and ate dinner without comment as we made it a picnic outside.

thank u noqontrol for the ladder.

Well done!

Nice one leelo but a word of caution.

They suck you in, those sneaky little buggers! They wait until you think you have it cracked and you relax a little bit then WHAM! they hit you with something else :o

Sorry, but I thought you had better know in advance, forwarned is forearmed after all. There is a reason that is so free flowing around MNers of a certain age, we have discovered it is the only thing that gets us through :o