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[quote=Anonymous][quote=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. [/quote].

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.

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