how to stop DD1's unpleasant personal habits

[rhetorician]

she will be 4 in January and seems mostly on track development wise, and nursery haven't raised any concerns beyond her shyness, which is resolving. But she has appalling table manners (e.g. mostly won't use cutlery, smushes food, etc) despite 2.5 years of being told, encouraged, told off etc etc. We sit down at the table as a family three times a day, so she sees good table manners being modelled all the time. If she starts to play with her food, we remove it. She is fulsomely praised for eating nicely and well.

She also spits when she is upset or annoyed about something. This drives me demented and no matter how often I tell her off, put her on naughty step etc etc, she still does it. Nose-picking the same.

I know that it's all attention seeking, but I don't feel I can just let it go without comment - she just will not learn that if she does it, there will be a consequence. Or cannot learn.

Ideas? Tips? I feel like I am pointlessly nagging her all the time.

I'd remove her from the table when she misbehaves and tell her she can come back when she eats properly.

When she eats properly at the table I would just say "thanks for eating nicely at the table" or something like that. I wouldn't go over the top with praise. I don't over praise my children for something I know they can do but choose not to for attention.

The spitting is awful and I would send her straight to her room. That's when I would use my firm voice and the consequence would be immediate.

Don't negotiate over things that are wrong (like the spitting) and reduce all the attention she is getting from eating well or not well.

She is only little at the moment so she may still need help cutting up her food so be reasonable with what she can do.

she does get sent straight to her room for spitting. Firm voice is used!

I try not to give too much attention to food - she is always told that she doesn't have to finish her food, but that she isn't to play/mess with it, and that she gets nothing else if she doesn't eat it.

Hmm I have this with my 4 year old. Wriggles, sings, bangs, makes towers with his good. I'm constantly saying " eat your food nicely" I get bored with saying it
Found reward charts helped.. Completely ignoring him when he was silly but really praised his younger brother for eating well ( he's 20 months!!!)
He still does it sometimes.... Argh. Spitting I would just keep doing what you are doing and don't give up good luck

thanks Wrenner; part of the problem is that she really isn't interested in food in general - she eats enough to get by, but nothing more. I might try a reward chart. The spitting thing is often when she is excited, or cross - and she knows it drives me insane. So a calm firm return to room every time might work, rather than me losing the rag...

Re the spitting, I would take her to a very boring location (utility room if you have one) not her room (too much fun to be had) and put her there firmly, the first time tell her she stays there until you say so, after that, don't say a word, walk away, don't even look bothered - that's the key.

Food - I would take it away, nothing else until the next meal. She knows better, she's just choosing to be a little madam. She really wont starve.

Nose picking - they all do it. I'd take her to wash her hands every single time - make it a good, long, boring thing to have to do. No emotion, just very calm and matter of fact.

Have lots of to look forward to at the end of the day and try to remember she wont always be 4!

Ps what I sometimes do is let mine snack too much then they aren't interested in their main meals

wish I had a utility room! the hand washing is a great idea - thanks for that! I really want to get to the point where I don't dread taking her out if there is going to be food involved. We have visitors at the moment, and she didn't eat much, started messing, so I took the plate away and told her that if she was finished she could get down and play until the adults had finished eating. She chose to stay. I'll keep on with it...

Shame about the utility room - it's great to put them out of sight You need another boring space though, bottom of the stairs, dining room chair - whatever, just the most boring space you can think of!

If it's that bad I'd actually set up a few situations where you can say 'Oh we can't come, DD wont eat nicely, I'm sorry' then give her a few opportunities to 'prove' herself.

Did you give her the food back when she stayed? If you didn't - well done! If you did, don't next time. She knows what she's doing is wrong, don't make the mistake of keeping telling her. It wears you down and it's not necessary.

no, she didn't get the food back, because she had actually finished. She often doesn't eat much which i have no problem with; she is a healthy weight. Have had and has just arrived. It is all attention seeking behaviour and she needs to learn aka I need to teach her that there are better ways to attract attention to yourself!

You aren't going to teach her about dancing on tables are you

ooh, that's a good idea!! this all makes her sound awful - she's actually lovely, a good, kind, thoughtful little girl, but she does struggle a bit with making connections with people - desperate to, but still doesn't really know how.