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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No, you don't withhold food. You don’t take away whatever the normal dinner is and replace it with cereal or a sandwich as punishment. That’s unhealthy on so many levels.

You also spent an hour arguing. That’s wild. Why would you do that? The things you said were not de-escalating, they were provocative and all but guaranteed to make her dig her heels in. You should have said ok and left a plate for her.

You also seem to be setting up failure with dinner right before bedtime. Can you adjust that? You’re creating very unhealthy dynamics generally, as well as specifically about food. Have you considered some parent coaching?

You seem to be aiming for external motivation, fear based compliance, rather than internal motivation. Natural consequences and avoidance of power struggles help children develop internal compasses and a healthy desire to make good choices. External motivation means that kids will do what they can get away with. You have to remember that you’re raising adults.

So what is a natural consequence of not coming to dinner? What if you aren’t hungry? Can you come to dinner and not eat? It’s not clear what the behavior issue was beyond not wanting dinner. [/quote]

I agree with this, power struggles with tired/upset kids rarely work out.  I think they need to adjust their parenting infrastructure and outlooks to avoid this.  As you pointed out spending a large portion of the hour trying to get her to come to dinner set the child up to be defiant.  Just let her cool off entirely, the cajoling and ultimatums just made it worse. [/quote]

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