Reply to Bed without dinner

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "Bed without dinner"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I disagree with most of the other posters.  She very clearly made a conscious decision not to eat.  She’s 9, which is plenty old enough to understand the choice she was making.

It sounds like me that she was upset about her argument with her brother and decided to assert her power.  She had both parents come to her for one on time, trying to convince her to eat. Then like a petulant child who makes a point of telling you they’re not talking to you, she came to the table but refused to eat.  Then when you gave her the option, AGAIN, to eat, she not only refused, but turned her refusal into a drama by brushing her teeth in front of you.  Only after you had stopped offering chances to eat and were moving on with the evening (drama over), did she decide she wanted to eat.  This isn’t really about food.  This is about her manipulating the situation, taking control, and making sure that both parents and presumably the brother had their dinner disrupted, that she was the center of attention, and that you end up feeling guilty, while she ends up getting the punishment lifted, essentially having her cake and eating her dinner, too.

While I wouldn’t make it a habit to send her to bed without supper, one night without dinner isn’t going to harm a 9 year old - you can give her a big breakfast in the morning.  Moreover, it’s not as though you were refusing to feed her as a punishment.  You are simply honoring the choice she made.  If she complains, you can suggest that in the future she considers the consequences of her decisions more carefully.[/quote]
You make it sound like the child is holding a gun to their heads. They could have chosen to not ramp it all up with an hour of fighting, and just calmly told DD that her plate would be in the fridge. Punishment and obsession with depriving kids of any agency doesn’t make for healthy kids and positive relationships. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics