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Trust your child to do her jobs
The division of responsibility works
I fought about vegetables with my preschooler
Our four-year-old, Kevin, ate very few foods and he especially didn’t eat vegetables! So we tried to get him to eat vegetables and not so many carbohydrates and to eat more if we thought he hadn’t eaten enough and to stop eating when we thought he was eating too much. Every meal was such a hassle that we were about to give up on meals! But since we started going by division of responsibility in feeding we have stress-free meals—and snacks, of course. Kevin is so much happier, and so are we.
Grady grew slowly
Grady had always been long and lean, but at his three-year-old checkup his weight had dropped below his usual third percentile and my pediatrician recommended appetite-stimulating medication. That didn’t sound right to me. I asked him to give me 3 months and a referral to a dietitian. She helped me realize I had been putting pressure on Grady to eat and generally not making eating enjoyable for him, and recommended I read Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family. What a relief to realize I only had to be responsible for providing healthy, balanced meals and snacks, and then I let Grady be responsible for eating. Grady gained weight, I shed my stress over food, and now we all eat better.
I had to let Henry get hungry
I thought I was following the division of responsibility in feeding, but between meals I let my two-year-old, Henry, eat whenever he wanted to. The food was healthy—I hauled little bags of crackers and juice boxes along so he could eat whenever he felt a hunger pang. Then I learned about the sit-down snack! Henry was no longer a baby who had to be fed on demand. He could last 2 or 3 hours before he had to eat again. At first, he put up a fuss when I stopped giving him food handouts, but before long he got used to having his snacks at certain times. Getting a little hungry before meals makes him eat better. And I no longer have cracker crumbs and juice smears all over the house and car!
My son has autism
My seven-year-old son, Gabe, was diagnosed with high-functioning autism when he was three. He has always been a super-cautious eater, first with breastfeeding, then semi-solid foods, and now table food. We are told that he has Sensory Processing Disorder, meaning that he is really sensitive to tastes and textures, and we were told, “stop coddling him and make him eat.” I am not proud of all our begging, pleading, pressuring, forcing, cajoling, and rewarding! But Ellyn Satter reassured me that we could follow the division of responsibility, even with Gabe. So we did. I always put something on the table he usually ate—applesauce, bread and butter—something that went along with the meal and didn’t involve making him his own meal. At first he had tantrums when we wouldn’t make what he wanted, but compared with before, this was easy! Gabe is still a “picky” eater, but he does his part to make mealtime pleasant by settling happily for what I put on the table, even if he isn’t enthusiastic about it.
Structure is essential
Your child will eat and grow well if you maintain structure. To provide structure for your child, you have to provide structure for yourself. Have a schedule for sit-down meals and sit-down snacks. Stick to it.
Structure supports both you and your child
Structure lets both you and your child know you will be fed. Structure helps you each to eat what and how much your body needs. Don’t wait until hunger drives you to figure out what to eat. You will grab for the first food at hand, and whether you know it or not, you will scare yourself into overeating—and you will scare your child, as well.
Meals do not have to be a chore or a bore
Be considerate without catering
