Children's Eating: Whose Responsibility Is It?

This morning two Facebook posts on children’s eating caught my attention. These bring to mind the question of responsibility. Who is responsible for deciding when a child is hungry enough to eat? Who is responsible for what that child eats when she is hungry?

The answer to the first question is clear: only the child can tell when he’s hungry. We parents might like kids to be hungry on our schedule and we might want them to eat when the family sits down at the table but we can’t legislate hunger.

So for very small people, just learning to eat solid foods, we pretty much have to respect the child who says “no thanks” by turning away and clamping his lips shut. Wheedling, cajoling, and insisting are counter-productive, since they distort what eating is all about: hunger. For older children, creating a routine around three meals each day and maybe two or three snacks makes sense and ensures that the kid who is not hungry at one feeding doesn’t have to wait too long for the next. The child is encouraged to rate his own hunger levels and take responsibility for eating at a meal or waiting for the next. The parents’ responsibility is to set food before the child at reasonable intervals. The child’s responsibility is to decide to eat or not.

The question of what to eat starts with the parents but should as quickly as possible be transferred to the child. Certainly, at mealtimes children should eat what the family eats and the family should eat what children might enjoy. But snack time is a different matter. As we all know from our own eating patterns (especially now, before Halloween), what is in the house gets eaten (you haven’t bought a bag of miniature candy bars yet, have you?). So whoever shops for groceries has responsibility to buy only the stuff kids should eat. Believe me, it’s much easier to commiserate (“Oh, that would be nice! Too bad we don’t have any of that!”) than to refuse (“No. No cookies! No Fritos! No!”).

But as soon as you can (age three is not too young), get kids involved in making their own snack choices. One clever mother of two posted on the fridge (and as a picture on Facebook) a little magnetic board with a list of the acceptable choices for afternoon snacks. Only healthy choices are offered but the kids are free to pick whatever they like. In fact, they can pick one of each if they’re that hungry. Each selection is marked by putting a magnet in the corresponding box so kids (and Mom) can keep track of what’s been eaten. Doing this puts the responsibility for food choices – and for dealing with hunger – right where it should be: with the kids. Mom’s responsibility for keeping a supply of acceptable snacks gets her children in the habit of choosing what’s healthful.

What strategies have you used to help kids take responsibility for their own eating? How has that worked for you?

Photo credit: Ren Caldwell