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[quote=Anonymous]I haven't read the whole thread, but I'll just describe how I do it with my two typical boys, ages 10 and 13.

I'm a big believer in the work of Ellyn Satter, and what I do kind of follows what she suggests, with some modification.

First of all, while I believe that it's important to balance the kids' diets, I think that balance is important over a week or a month, not within a day.

At the elementary/middle school level, Ellyn Satter teaches that you provide a structure and let your kids make their own snacks within a set of rules. For us, the rules are as follows.

1) Make yourself a snack when school is finished.  When they were in school, they had a snack right after they got home.  Now, we're homeschooling, and usually we're finishing up work at around 3 and they're going outside to play, so there's a natural break.

1a) During a pandemic, when everyone is home, take a moment to ask the adults who are working if they'd like a snack, and bring them what they ask for.

2) Eat sitting down at the table.

3) You need to prepare it on your own, and clean up after yourself.  Scrambled eggs are fine, if you're willing to scramble them and clean the pan before you go play.  The one thing you need permission for is elaborate baking projects.

4) Sometimes there are foods that are off limits, because an adult is planning a specific dish with them.  For example, my kids eat a lot of frozen fruit but yesterday I made a cake that involved frozen raspberries.  When I bought the raspberries I told the kids they couldn't eat those.

5) If something runs out, it's out.  If you want to eat the whole box of granola bars on the first day, you can, but I'm not then going to start buying two boxes.

6) Very occasionally, if there's a special treat that's in limited quantity, then I'm say "There's one for each of you." but that's rare.

7) A good snack usually has more than one food group.

8) Beyond that, they can have whatever in whatever quantity.  If there's ice cream in the house, they can have three bowls.  Now, of course that means that tomorrow there won't be be any more ice cream and they'll need to have another choice.  My kids are learning to pace themselves, and to communicate and negotiate.

9) Once the snack is done and cleaned up, then they don't eat again until dinner.

Ellyn Satter would suggest that once the kids are 13, you transition them to getting their own snacks within the rest of the guidelines, whenever they want, with the expectation that they pace themselves so they're hungry for dinner.  I haven't done that yet, because with my kids, I think having the same expectations as each other makes sense.   So, I'm thinking that maybe we'll make that shift at 11 and 14.  They should be back in school then, and I think that "you can have a snack whenever you want" might be easier to start practicing when they aren't in the same house as the kitchen all day long.  [/quote]

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