To make DS go to school without any breakfast?

[Rollergirl1]

DS (6) has been very difficult this morning. He didn't want to eat the cereal I put in front of him claiming that he wasn't hungry. In actual fact it was because he wanted to do something else. I repeatedly told him that he wouldn't be getting anything else and if he didn't eat he would be hungry. He kicked up such a fuss and took so long that the cereal is now soggy and inedible. He wants something else. I have said no.

DH just so happens to be here this morning. He says I can't send him to school without any breakfast but I think that if he does than he'll learn not to muck around like this again. I do feel bad but I really don't want to give in.

So AIBU?

There is lots of good advice here and i do appreciate it. It is so tricky as I really don't want a battle but at the same time he has to know that I have expectations and that there are consequences to his actions. It is also hard as I have an older DD (who is a very good girl) that I need to think about too and quite often she doesn't get the attention she needs from me as I am "managing" her little brother.

APlaceintheWInter: It is absolutely that he wanted to carry on with what he was doing (writing a story) rather than eat his breakfast. Anything I presented him with would have been met with the same total disinterest.

I really don't see why it's so difficult tbh.

If he sat and stared at breakfast (fresh breakfast) and refused to eat it then fine, he doesn't want breakfast.

But in this case he wasn't even in the room for most of it. So make sure he IS in the room when you serve his breakfast in future - then he either eats it or not.

So stop him from writing in the mornings.

I just went 'awe' at the thought of him writing a story because I was that child That would have frustrated me too. With DS, we have pretty strict rules about what he can do in the mornings. Anything that might prove too absorbing to drag himself away to eat, is relegated to the car. So if DS wants to design a Christmas card, or play a game, then he can only do it in the car on the way to school or after he's washed, dressed and fed. It's made our morning a bit easier.

I think it's commendable that you would go to such lengths to try and teach him the sort of lessons that you wanted to teach him about his breakfast this morning. An awful lot of parents would take the easy road and get the sorts of things slide in and become a slave to the children at the tea table.

I sympathise with your situation and feeling that you're having to neglect your older child, boys can be quite tricky little things can't they? Very different from girls, I know is a generalisation, but it definitely seems that way - I can't help notice that raising my sons is a whole different ball game to my family/friends daughters. For example, the girls sit happily and coo over their toys at the table and the boys yell and clamber over the toys to do some illegal gymnastics on the table top! Different animals altogether!

My DS was a pickle over breakfast, he seems to get annoyed at everything. He wanted to pour the milk from the 4 pint jug (and would have spilled it on the floor), say rather than effectively telling him to put up and shut up I found a small jug to decant the milk into so he could have the pleasure of pouring it himself!
Likewise, I always offer at least two cereals for him to have some degree of choice over. It's amazing how much compliance you get if they perceive they have a degree of control. I suppose big people are like bit that too, really, come to think of it but it might prevent any further unnecessary battles at breakfast time without anyone losing face or winning.

NoSunday: That is what he did.

He faffed upstairs and when he came downstairs and sat at the kitchen table he wanted to continue writing his story. I took it away and said he could continue after he had eaten and asked what he wanted. He said he didn't want anything as he wasn't hungry. I said he would be hungry if he went to school without eating anything. But he obviously thought that if he didn't eat he could carry on doing what he wanted to do. I said that he couldn't do that either. So eventually I gave him a bowl of cereal (something that he usually eats) and he sat there and stared and it and said that he wasn't hungry. I said that there wouldn't be anything else on offer and removed the cereal. 10 mins later he still wasn't allowed to do what he was doing but now he was hungry and wanted some breakfast.

In that case I would have given something boring like a piece of bread and butter. But not a whole new breakfast. And I would tell him that from now on, he gets our of bed, washed and dressed and breakfasted first. If there's any spare time after that he can write, but not before.

Mine would view a cereal bar as a treat, so wouldn't give one.

Ah when you put it like that, I would have reissued the same type of cereal with a warning that next time he would have to eat it soggy.

boys can be quite tricky little things can't they? Very different from girls, I know is a generalisation, but it definitely seems that way - I can't help notice that raising my sons is a whole different ball game to my family/friends daughters. For example, the girls sit happily and coo over their toys at the table and the boys yell and clamber over the toys to do some illegal gymnastics on the table top! Different animals altogether!

I really don't think we should be encouraging the OP to regard her little boy as "tricky", and to be honest, OP, I'd avoid labelling your daughter as a "good girl". I grew up with that expectation and it isn't fair.

The fact that some posters have boys or girls who appear to fit the stereotype doesn't mean that the stereotype is justified. I have 4 - three boys, one girl - and mine didn't match the rough boy/good girl stereotype. Perhaps that's because I didn't expect them to?

I think it's unwise to send a child to school without breakfast - this will potentially impact on his learning and behaviour. Mine were all keen on writing/drawing/building things in the morning, and it meant we just had to start the day earlier. There was no shouting up the stairs though - I would supervise the younger ones until they were ready to come downstairs and they all helped set the table while I made breakfast. We ate together, and since we were up fairly early, they then had time to play/go to the loo/read before school.

Your little boy sounds lovely. He wasn't causing havoc - he was caught up in writing his story. Let him know he has to sit down to eat, but that his story-writing is important too. I had a dreamy one who got ultra-absorbed in activities and if I'd allowed it, food would have been way down the list of priorities. But I'd tell her "breakfast is out now - come and eat so you can get back to your drawing/writing quickly" and I'd keep talking brightly as we sat at the table - it distracted her and (usually) got her to sit down quite happily.

Maybe tell him this evening that you want all of you to have a nice relaxing start tomorrow, and that you'll expect him at the table when you say - if he is now in the habit of delaying, you may have to bring him down the first day or two, to show him you mean it. In the morning, try to keep calm and cheerful (I know, I know) so he doesn't see it as a battle.

Babyboomer - I was determined never to have such stereotyping notions BEFORE I experienced having boys, when sadly they confirmed with every stereotyping out there and proved me wrong

However they are lovely like I am sure the OP's boys are, and I did suggest that I am sure that not everyone fits the gender stereotyping, there are always exceptions. Perhaps you were one of those lucky few that don't have loud, boisterous, boys to contend with? Of course I am well aware that some boys are quiet and some girls are boisterous, however I don't know a single friend or family with a girl that had be same struggles as people have with their boys. Both have their pros and cons, and I'm hoping my payback will be in the teenage years!

Tortoise - we don't know whether the sex of those children caused the boisterousness, do we? Some of us give our sons subtle signals that their "boisterous" play is normal and acceptable - in boys. I don't mind loud happy play but I also like a peaceful atmosphere indoors - if things got to a certain pitch (too noisy or verging on fighting), on went the coats and out they went to run off some energy - boys and girl alike.

I don't think it's just that I was "one of the lucky few" - think it depends on your social circle to an extent. I know lots of lads the age of my own who weren't "loud and boisterous" and they are all perfectly normal, well socialised adults now. This insistence that boys are different, "tricky", that allowances have to be made for them and that they have different "needs" can lead to all sorts of problems later.

I have four very different children and it's unlikely they all arrived as docile, well-behaved angels. Mine (daughter too) were full of energy but they weren't allowed to express that by yelling/fighting/being over-boisterous indoors. Rules for boys were identical to rules for girls!

Sorry OP - didn't mean to de-rail your thread

I'm really interested in your insistence that people get what they expect. I'm sure to some degree that may be true - aim high and all that - but how do you honestly explain the fact that in a group of various people at various times (so quite a variety, you're getting the picture?!) that to get a boy to sit in a highchair and eat nicely or play with a toy is nigh on impossible without a huge amount of hard work and energy. Time and time again I see women feel like half a parent because they blame it on their parenting skills but from an independent observational point of view anyone can see the parent of the boisterous kid is working three times as hard as the parent of the placid ones, and it just so happens that it seems highly gender-related.

I think 6 is a bit young to go to school hungry, but I do see your point. I would just offer him a fresh bowl of non soggy cereal, if he won't eat that then not much you can do

But Tortoise, not all parents experience that. That's all I'm saying. I don't know whether there's evidence to back up either your feeling or mine but as it stands, both of us are reporting our impressions, not stating facts. You could tell me how many women you know who share your opinion and I could tell you how many share mine, but in the end, that's statistically meaningless. (I probably know more parents than you, because I'm ancient, but that also means little. Maybe the people I know have all been "the lucky few" - it's quite possible.)

All I know is that in a world where women still don't have the opportunities that men do, and frequently feel less confident, less assertive, more worried about their appearance than men, and where men often seem childish and irresponsible, I'd be doing my damnedest as a parent to ensure that my children aren't pigeon-holed.

It's a clichéd example, but you still hear that automatic reaction to new babies "oh, she's so pretty!" or "oh, he's a lively one!" which means that almost from the start, we're labelling babies by sex. I think we need to fight against that.

I'm certainly not "insisting that people get what they expect" - I had a few surprises along the way, as well as some very humbling reminders that we're all fallible!

I am totally with you on the pigeon-hole avoidance when it comes down to keeping the girls down and allowing the boys to get away with everything. I married a man who thinks woman's work isn't his responsibility because that's what his parents taught him; and I am determined to teach my sons a different way. I've started with strict habits with dirty clothes straight in linen basket and setting the table etc. my eldest is only 4.5 bless him! I can't bear the idea that he would expect it to be woman's work though. It kind of links to what the OP on this thread was attempting to do today: and that is start as you mean to go on, even though it's often a harder road initially.

OP

For what it's worth, both my kids have on occasion gone to school / nursery with no breakfast, or gone to bed with no supper. If they don't want it, they don't have to eat it.

They do have to sit nicely at the table, be polite about the food, ask permission to get down and clear their places. But I don't want to force them or bribe them to eat.

Doesn't seem to do them any harm - just hungrier for the next meal.

I have a girl and 2 boys - DD and DS2 are very alike indeed, DC1 fits the "typical boy" stereotypes except that he is by far the most sensitive "overthinker" and the most emotional. .. Who is "trickier" varies on who is going through what phase - I'd have picked each of the 3 for that crown on different days. Any one of them can be angelic and civilised alone ... I would say the 2 boys together are vastly the rowdiest combination, but then they are the younger 2...

In terms of "trickiness" with food surely the statistics would point to this being an issue for girls more often - eating disorders afflict more females, though males are not immune. ..

The worst of my children to get out at 6 was a DD, I would think she was basically dressed for her to then take 20 minutes putting socks on. 20 minutes! (At 16 she has been known to go from bed, via shower to out in 20 minutes though).

In my household we have been known to have 1 child just not moving, and another having panic attacks because they cannot be late.

I do think the only times of day when routine is essential are the first hour of the morning and bedtime hour... hate routine in principle but our house works almost on autopilot between 6 am and 7 am, and I can't imagine a NT 6 year old (or 5 or 4 year old) not being able to get dressed in 5-6 minutes... even my 3 year old (will be 4 in April) can, and he's the laziest and latest to have mastered (bothered about) self care related independence skills. You have to keep the momentum though, there is no stopping or veering off course til every morning task is completed - and no expectations of doing so Mon - Fri.

Gender has never been relevant to ability to get ready in the morning, though my DD often doesn't want breakfast (like her dad, who can't stomach food til he's been up several hours) while the boys eat large quantities at breakfast but less than DD at the other meals, especially in the evening.

I never make DD eat breakfast, but do insist she drinks, and all the kids take a sandwich and fruit for break at 9.30am - which could quite easily be breakfast time for many people at the weekend, so is an entirely reasonable time to eat first food, if that's what her body is telling her to do.

Big fuss about nothing as long as eniugh good food is freely available to the child and time to eat it.

What was it he didn't want to stop doing?

She's already answered that Enjor ... threads become utterly pointless at the point people start posting without bothering to read. He was writing a story - lovely and worth while in itself but not the time for it, shouldn't be something anyone sits down to do during the getting up and ready part of the morning.