Why I stopped fighting the food fight...

*Disclaimer for any who happen upon this post - this is something that we have found to work for our family, not meant to be critical of what works for other families.

You know that fight with your kids.  You have to clean your plate or you don't get any dessert.  I don't care if you don't like it, that's what's for dinner.  Finish all your food before you can go play.  All of these things are said for very valid reasons.  We want our kids to grow up healthy and appreciate what they have.  It was a few years ago when husband and I decided to stop fighting the food fight.  Honestly, it wasn't some stroke of genius at the time, it was exhaustion.  As I mentioned in my previous post, big sister has her own mind.  We were having this fight with her for every meal.  And seriously, we have so many things to battle over that we needed to eliminate this one.  Then we add in little sister.  She is little.  But the girl can eat.  When she was about 1, she would eat 2 of the 3rd food jars at every sitting.  Four or five times a day.  And she drank whole milk like crazy.  She still barely registered on the charts and the doctor asked what I was feeding her, just to make sure I was actually feeding her.  Big brother has an amazing appetite himself.  It's funny, 'cuz he eats like it's his last meal, shoveling it in.  When he gets full, he just stops.  There's no getting him to eat more.  Little brother has his own issues with texture and not liking to have to chew still.  Although he's recently started liking PB&J sandwiches.  Miraculous, my friends.  He still is even smaller than little sister was.  Not unhealthy, but I've been encouraged to get him to eat as much as possible.  Which I was already doing.  So I have these kids that have had issues with texture, and since I wanted them to just eat anything as long as they just ATE, we let them choose what they wanted a lot.  We finally wondered to ourselves why it was such a big deal to have them clean their plates.  Just 'cuz that's what our parents did?  Not that it's wrong, but why?  I know I serve myself too much sometimes, it's possible that I do the same for my kids, too.  I wondered what would happen if I let them learn to acknowledge when they're actually full.  There are also foods that I just can't eat.  I would rather go hungry, because gagging certain things down is just not an option for me.  I'm sure that's true for my kids.  Now this isn't to say that they don't have to eat what I make.  They are required to take a bite for every year old they are before they can declare they don't like something.  Usually after that many bites, they decide they like it.  Little sister absolutely can't stand clam chowder.  She'd rather eat dirt.  So when I make that, she gets to have cereal.  Big sister hates spaghetti.  So she gets cereal on those nights.  They have to finish most of what's on their plates.  When they say they're done and there's still food left, we implement the bite-for-every-year-old-they-are bit.  Once they do that, they can clear their dishes and they still get dessert later.  I really thought that trying this would result in me being a short order cook, or my kids having lots of cereal.  The opposite is true, however.  They seem to recognize that they have some control, and are willing to try things a few times.  Probably because they know I will be okay with it if they really don't like it.  I also don't regulate the goodies.  We've taught them moderation, and they like healthy food anyway.  They frequently pass up the dingdongs and candy for apples and pears.  Big brother LOVES wheat bread and eats a plain slice for a snack often.  They do like the sugary stuff, but not all the time.  They love trick-or-treating, but they don't even eat half of what they get.  After a couple days, when they'd all eaten their favorites, we put all their candy in a big bowl for everyone to just pick and choose what they wanted.  If someone had tried that when I was a kid, I would have thrown a FIT!  Not these kiddos, they don't keep track of which bag belongs to which kid in the first place.  I especially love not fighting this fight at family dinners.  We were having meltdowns from our kiddos at Sunday dinners with my family, which resulted in Husband and I not getting to eat and our kids throwing fits.  Again, with big sister, we were choosing our battles, so we eliminated our biggest one.  They actually started eating more when we stopped being so concerned with how much they ate.  We'd sometimes have to give them a sandwich when we came home, particularly on nights when they didn't like what we had for dinner.  But that's not really a big deal.  Better than the fight, we decided.  It really did cut down on a lot of the contention in our home and our kids have learned to stop when they're full.  Since there is an obesity epidemic in this country, we figure it can't hurt for them to learn early to stop eating when their body says they're full, not just when the plate is clean.  And that, dear reader, is why I stopped fighting the food fight.  I realize this wouldn't work for everyone, but I'm happy we discovered that it worked for us!