When you've told your child they can have something.....

[Earlybird]

Need some perspective please.

Today I told dd she could have a sweet after supper if she ate well. She ate reasonably well, but her behaviour at the table was dreadful - lots of obvious open mouth lip smacking (we're working on chewing with mouth closed atm), defiant/disrespectful comments, major bad attitude, etc. I gave her the sweet because our deal was "if she ate well", but felt a mug rewarding her when her general behaviour was clearly "unasseptable" (in the words of supernanny). However, our deal was "if she ate well" and not contingent upon behaviour.

I think I mishandled it, but would love to hear what others would have done.

Hmmm, difficult one from a child's perspective.

To me, eating well means finishing food and behaving well, but if that wasn't explained you could have had some major temper tantruming if you hadn't given her a sweet.

You have to explain exactly what you mean and explain clearly the consequences - as supernanny et al would say.

Think you did absolutely the fair and right thing. Next time, you'll make a different deal.

I would take "eat well" as being an all round thing - eating what is in front of them and eating it in a sensible and appropriate manner.

Earlybird, you did exactly the right thing; it was obviously implicit in your deal that she had to eat food, not behave in a certain way.

It will just serve to remind you as toots said to make a different deal next time, that's all (deal A but with addendum, sub-section 1; asseptable behaviour as pertaining to rewards received)

OK - thanks for feedback. I guess I wasn't completely off base with how I handled it. But, I wonder if/when reasonable behaviour from her can be expected, rather than something that has to be spelled out. Or am I expecting too much?

In my mind, a deal is a deal but I wasn't happy about living up to my end because it felt as if her naughty behaviour could justifiably have become the overiding factor.

how old?

5.7