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

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]

Pp you responded to.  [b]The child was the one who kept ramping it up[/b].  She had plenty of agency, which she made of point of utilizing.  They presented the child with a chance to eat dinner and she refused.  Then each parent, individually offered her the chance to eat dinner, and she refused both times.  Then she came to the table and refused dinner again.  Then they offered, again, to feed her and she brushed her teeth to express how definite she was in her refusal.  If anything undermined her agency, it was trying to convince her to change her mind after she’d so clearly expressed her wishes, time and again.

Yes, they COULD have told they were putting the plate in the fridge.  But what happens if she decides she wants it at bedtime (which I think is what happened), or at 2 in the morning?  What happens if she decides she only wants chocolate ice cream for dinner?  What happens if she decides at 2am that she only wants chocolate ice cream for dinner, and you need to go buy her some because there’s none in the house?  At what point is it okay for a parent to set limits on a child’s options without it being considered depriving them of any agency?[/quote]

Holy heck - she's *9*.  You're blaming this on the kid?  PP you sound like you have your own issues.  This isn't some slippery slope where the next thing the parents are doing is only buying chocolate cake for their kid to eat at midnight.  She was upset.  She needed time to calm down.  Food could be left in the fridge for when she calmed down.  Except the parents escalated at every point (eat now, or else).  If the parents had said, come out when you're ready, and you can feed yourself - she likely would have.  Don't make this harder than it needs to be.

Also, the OP needs to address the dynamic between their kids - OP mentioned an argument that BOTH kids were involved in, but the sanctions  seemed to be only addressed to one kid because that kid didn't respond in a way the parents liked.  Is this a recurring issue?     [/quote]

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