Bed without dinner

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it. You each spoke to her calmly, but issued the ultimatum, “eat now or not at all”? That doesn’t sound like deescalation. Next time, tell her to take the time that she needs to calm down and that there will be a plate waiting for her when she’s ready. Just fix her a plate and stick it in the fridge. You can still go ahead and clean up the kitchen. Kids need food; don’t withhold it as a punishment.

No. She was upset and in her room. We said it’s time for dinner. She said she wasn’t eating. Over the course of 30 minutes, each of us went to her room to talk to her, and said we knew she was upset but this is time for dinner if she wants to eat. She came to the table once and we said the same thing - this is dinner if you want to eat. It wasn’t an ultimatum or a punishment - it was dinner time.

I offered her bread and butter when she finally wanted to eat after last chance and she refused that because she wanted “dinner.”

For some background, she has a very long history of waiting until after last chance to say she wanted to do something. We gave in a lot when she was younger but for the past several years we’ve been very firm about last chance. So there’s definitely a bit of her wanting to do things exactly when she wants to do them. It wasn’t that she calmed down and then wanted to eat - more like she waited out the clock and then wanted to eat.

I’m trying to think through how it would have worked to say “you can eat whenever you’re ready” instead of “you can eat when you’re ready within this time period.” Would you let her eat whenever? Even at bedtime? I feel like our kids would exploit that.

so you cut off eating 20-30 minutes before bedtime. Was your dinner time in the final hour before bedtime? It just seems like you imposed an arbitrary deadline.

We usually have 20-30 minutes between dinner and getting ready for bed. Dinner was a little late tonight.

But also, I’m not sure I understand how the end of dinner time is more arbitrary than 20-30 minutes before bed.

[Anonymous]

She wanted the last word and thought she would get it. Sounds like you won this time. But it’s a small battle and this way you won’t win the war.

If she’s upset and doesn’t come down for dinner, I wouldn’t go upstairs and try and cajole her to come. Make her a plate (with plenty of vegetables!) and put it in the fridge. If she says she’s hungry then she can heat it up herself and sit alone (no tv, no iPad, no phone) and eat. Our bedtime routine was long at that age, but if our kids pulled that then they would just be put to bed, no story or snuggle. A kiss and I love you, then that’s it. Tomorrow when she’s calm you talk about different ways to handle it when she’s upset.

But I wouldn’t withhold meals if I were you. It won’t ever help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She decided she wanted the bread and butter, which she loves, after all so she had that.

She went to bed hungry but happy and talking about having a big breakfast in the morning.

Several of you said we made it about food when it wasn’t. Can you explain what that means?

This is your very young child that you let go to bed hungry. On purpose.
You wanted to force her to stop feeling her feelings and eat. And when she wasn't able to meet that demand, you punished her further.
Terrible parenting.

She's 9, not 3.

I said what I said.

I think you are trolling, but in the event you are for real, 9 is very young in the grand scheme of things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it. You each spoke to her calmly, but issued the ultimatum, “eat now or not at all”? That doesn’t sound like deescalation. Next time, tell her to take the time that she needs to calm down and that there will be a plate waiting for her when she’s ready. Just fix her a plate and stick it in the fridge. You can still go ahead and clean up the kitchen. Kids need food; don’t withhold it as a punishment.

No. She was upset and in her room. We said it’s time for dinner. She said she wasn’t eating. Over the course of 30 minutes, each of us went to her room to talk to her, and said we knew she was upset but this is time for dinner if she wants to eat. She came to the table once and we said the same thing - this is dinner if you want to eat. It wasn’t an ultimatum or a punishment - it was dinner time.

I offered her bread and butter when she finally wanted to eat after last chance and she refused that because she wanted “dinner.”

For some background, she has a very long history of waiting until after last chance to say she wanted to do something. We gave in a lot when she was younger but for the past several years we’ve been very firm about last chance. So there’s definitely a bit of her wanting to do things exactly when she wants to do them. It wasn’t that she calmed down and then wanted to eat - more like she waited out the clock and then wanted to eat.

I’m trying to think through how it would have worked to say “you can eat whenever you’re ready” instead of “you can eat when you’re ready within this time period.” Would you let her eat whenever? Even at bedtime? I feel like our kids would exploit that.

so you cut off eating 20-30 minutes before bedtime. Was your dinner time in the final hour before bedtime? It just seems like you imposed an arbitrary deadline.

We usually have 20-30 minutes between dinner and getting ready for bed. Dinner was a little late tonight.

But also, I’m not sure I understand how the end of dinner time is more arbitrary than 20-30 minutes before bed.

Because there was no scheduling conflict with eating dinner right after everyone else finished, but there is a scheduling conflict with eating when you’re supposed to be in bed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it. You each spoke to her calmly, but issued the ultimatum, “eat now or not at all”? That doesn’t sound like deescalation. Next time, tell her to take the time that she needs to calm down and that there will be a plate waiting for her when she’s ready. Just fix her a plate and stick it in the fridge. You can still go ahead and clean up the kitchen. Kids need food; don’t withhold it as a punishment.

No. She was upset and in her room. We said it’s time for dinner. She said she wasn’t eating. Over the course of 30 minutes, each of us went to her room to talk to her, and said we knew she was upset but this is time for dinner if she wants to eat. She came to the table once and we said the same thing - this is dinner if you want to eat. It wasn’t an ultimatum or a punishment - it was dinner time.

I offered her bread and butter when she finally wanted to eat after last chance and she refused that because she wanted “dinner.”

For some background, she has a very long history of waiting until after last chance to say she wanted to do something. We gave in a lot when she was younger but for the past several years we’ve been very firm about last chance. So there’s definitely a bit of her wanting to do things exactly when she wants to do them. It wasn’t that she calmed down and then wanted to eat - more like she waited out the clock and then wanted to eat.

I’m trying to think through how it would have worked to say “you can eat whenever you’re ready” instead of “you can eat when you’re ready within this time period.” Would you let her eat whenever? Even at bedtime? I feel like our kids would exploit that.

You did nothing wrong, and posters criticizing you for not giving her food when she asked are not understanding the bigger picture here.

Her behavior might be concerning. A friend of mine has a very oppositional child (plus others who are not), and as a tween she was diagnosed with ADHD. She is also suspected to something else, but no one is quite sure what: she can be very rigid and apt to interpret everything as an offense, rewrite history, fight back at every turn, fly into rages and then demand stuff. Her family is exhausted by her demands and tendency to turn the slightest interaction into a fight. At the same time, when in a good mood, she can be very social and absolutely charming. It's hard to live with someone like this.

There really isn't a win-win solution, OP. At best, it's always win-lose, and sometimes, if you don't play your cards perfectly (and you're only human and sometimes make mistakes), it's lose-lose.

You might want to get her a neuropsychological assessment at a psychologist's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She wanted the last word and thought she would get it. Sounds like you won this time. But it’s a small battle and this way you won’t win the war.

If she’s upset and doesn’t come down for dinner, I wouldn’t go upstairs and try and cajole her to come. Make her a plate (with plenty of vegetables!) and put it in the fridge. If she says she’s hungry then she can heat it up herself and sit alone (no tv, no iPad, no phone) and eat. Our bedtime routine was long at that age, but if our kids pulled that then they would just be put to bed, no story or snuggle. A kiss and I love you, then that’s it. Tomorrow when she’s calm you talk about different ways to handle it when she’s upset.

But I wouldn’t withhold meals if I were you. It won’t ever help.

.

This is helpful. It did feel like it turned into a power struggle but only after we’d each tried to cajole her to come down and let her know that food would be available until dinner time was over. So we probably played into that trying to make it better but made it worse.

Honestly both kids are often not interested in dinner at dinner time so it’s not the first or 100th timing saying that’s fine, but if you would like dinner now is the time to eat it. I think the difference was that tonight she tested us about it, and that seemed more interesting to her than coloring or whatever she usually wants to keep doing instead of eat. Maybe if we’d just said what we usually do and not paid her extra attention about it she’d have wandered down on her own.

I obviously don’t feel good about this. I don’t think it was abusive, but it I wouldn’t have posted if I thought this was an A+ parenting night. We both told her we love her very much and we’re sorry it was such a bad night. Like I said she did eventually go to bed happy and we can talk more about it in the morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She decided she wanted the bread and butter, which she loves, after all so she had that.

She went to bed hungry but happy and talking about having a big breakfast in the morning.

Several of you said we made it about food when it wasn’t. Can you explain what that means?

This is your very young child that you let go to bed hungry. On purpose.
You wanted to force her to stop feeling her feelings and eat. And when she wasn't able to meet that demand, you punished her further.
Terrible parenting.

She's 9, not 3.

I said what I said.

I think you are trolling, but in the event you are for real, 9 is very young in the grand scheme of things.

DP. No it’s not. Next time pay more attention to the details, fool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s a pbj then back to your room night. Though sometimes I take her the pbj. She sounds exhausted.

Yup. Same in this house. I wouldn’t say no dinner, but she would be limited to a sandwich she’d have to make and clean up from.

[Anonymous]

I would have set aside food for her to eat when she was ready. It's cruel to let a child go to bed hungry, even if they were behaving poorly earlier in the day.

[Anonymous]

You let you kid go to bed hungry. On purpose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it. You each spoke to her calmly, but issued the ultimatum, “eat now or not at all”? That doesn’t sound like deescalation. Next time, tell her to take the time that she needs to calm down and that there will be a plate waiting for her when she’s ready. Just fix her a plate and stick it in the fridge. You can still go ahead and clean up the kitchen. Kids need food; don’t withhold it as a punishment.

No. She was upset and in her room. We said it’s time for dinner. She said she wasn’t eating. Over the course of 30 minutes, each of us went to her room to talk to her, and said we knew she was upset but this is time for dinner if she wants to eat. She came to the table once and we said the same thing - this is dinner if you want to eat. It wasn’t an ultimatum or a punishment - it was dinner time.

I offered her bread and butter when she finally wanted to eat after last chance and she refused that because she wanted “dinner.”

For some background, she has a very long history of waiting until after last chance to say she wanted to do something. We gave in a lot when she was younger but for the past several years we’ve been very firm about last chance. So there’s definitely a bit of her wanting to do things exactly when she wants to do them. It wasn’t that she calmed down and then wanted to eat - more like she waited out the clock and then wanted to eat.

I’m trying to think through how it would have worked to say “you can eat whenever you’re ready” instead of “you can eat when you’re ready within this time period.” Would you let her eat whenever? Even at bedtime? I feel like our kids would exploit that.

I don't understand what you mean by "exploiting" that? Like they would use dinner as an excuse to stay up late? That's odd. If our children aren't hungry at dinner time, they can eat dinner later. It's fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it. You each spoke to her calmly, but issued the ultimatum, “eat now or not at all”? That doesn’t sound like deescalation. Next time, tell her to take the time that she needs to calm down and that there will be a plate waiting for her when she’s ready. Just fix her a plate and stick it in the fridge. You can still go ahead and clean up the kitchen. Kids need food; don’t withhold it as a punishment.

No. She was upset and in her room. We said it’s time for dinner. She said she wasn’t eating. Over the course of 30 minutes, each of us went to her room to talk to her, and said we knew she was upset but this is time for dinner if she wants to eat. She came to the table once and we said the same thing - this is dinner if you want to eat. It wasn’t an ultimatum or a punishment - it was dinner time.

I offered her bread and butter when she finally wanted to eat after last chance and she refused that because she wanted “dinner.”

For some background, she has a very long history of waiting until after last chance to say she wanted to do something. We gave in a lot when she was younger but for the past several years we’ve been very firm about last chance. So there’s definitely a bit of her wanting to do things exactly when she wants to do them. It wasn’t that she calmed down and then wanted to eat - more like she waited out the clock and then wanted to eat.

I’m trying to think through how it would have worked to say “you can eat whenever you’re ready” instead of “you can eat when you’re ready within this time period.” Would you let her eat whenever? Even at bedtime? I feel like our kids would exploit that.

I don't understand what you mean by "exploiting" that? Like they would use dinner as an excuse to stay up late? That's odd. If our children aren't hungry at dinner time, they can eat dinner later. It's fine.

Yes, that’s what I mean. They’d say they weren’t hungry at dinner time to keep playing, then at bedtime they’d be hungry because food is more fun than bed.

It’d also incredibly unusual for either of them to not be hungry at dinner time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it. You each spoke to her calmly, but issued the ultimatum, “eat now or not at all”? That doesn’t sound like deescalation. Next time, tell her to take the time that she needs to calm down and that there will be a plate waiting for her when she’s ready. Just fix her a plate and stick it in the fridge. You can still go ahead and clean up the kitchen. Kids need food; don’t withhold it as a punishment.

No. She was upset and in her room. We said it’s time for dinner. She said she wasn’t eating. Over the course of 30 minutes, each of us went to her room to talk to her, and said we knew she was upset but this is time for dinner if she wants to eat. She came to the table once and we said the same thing - this is dinner if you want to eat. It wasn’t an ultimatum or a punishment - it was dinner time.

I offered her bread and butter when she finally wanted to eat after last chance and she refused that because she wanted “dinner.”

For some background, she has a very long history of waiting until after last chance to say she wanted to do something. We gave in a lot when she was younger but for the past several years we’ve been very firm about last chance. So there’s definitely a bit of her wanting to do things exactly when she wants to do them. It wasn’t that she calmed down and then wanted to eat - more like she waited out the clock and then wanted to eat.

I’m trying to think through how it would have worked to say “you can eat whenever you’re ready” instead of “you can eat when you’re ready within this time period.” Would you let her eat whenever? Even at bedtime? I feel like our kids would exploit that.

You did nothing wrong, and posters criticizing you for not giving her food when she asked are not understanding the bigger picture here.

Her behavior might be concerning. A friend of mine has a very oppositional child (plus others who are not), and as a tween she was diagnosed with ADHD. She is also suspected to something else, but no one is quite sure what: she can be very rigid and apt to interpret everything as an offense, rewrite history, fight back at every turn, fly into rages and then demand stuff. Her family is exhausted by her demands and tendency to turn the slightest interaction into a fight. At the same time, when in a good mood, she can be very social and absolutely charming. It's hard to live with someone like this.

There really isn't a win-win solution, OP. At best, it's always win-lose, and sometimes, if you don't play your cards perfectly (and you're only human and sometimes make mistakes), it's lose-lose.

You might want to get her a neuropsychological assessment at a psychologist's.

Thanks for this. Some of it does sound a lot like our daughter. But mostly it’s a helpful reminder that there isn’t always a win win. Just a tough night for everyone.

[Anonymous]

It's not a punishment I would choose, but once you put it out there, I wouldn't back down.

In future, if she refuses to come to the table, tell her she can have cold, unsweetened cereal, a glass of milk, or an apple. Not a full meal and nothing that you know she likes.

[Anonymous]

OP - I understand where you're coming from. My mom always told me to do what I said I would do and my kids would learn that I meant it.

You do have to be careful though because you have to be willing to go through with it.

So I get that.

But I also think you were really grabbing the rope here when dropping it would have been an easier option.

That would look like: "Larla it's dinner time!" and if she doesn't come, she doesn't come. There wasn't any need to try to talk to her for 30 minute to cajole her.

Then you put her plate in the fridge, and if she comes down hungry you say: "Oh I saved you a plate if you're hungry."

You would expend less energy in the below scenario.