Throwing food

[ShannonandDel]

What do you guys do when your child is throwing their food? This is a new thing for us. She throws everything, then yells for us to pick it up. I usually get her to help me pick it up, but I am beginning to wonder if that is part of the game. Any one else having a problem with this?

[vbsmith]

That's when I say, "You must be done."  And I take her out of her chair and mealtime is over.  I really think it's a game in Vivian's case.  Shayne use to raise his voice to her, but I don't see the need in that.  I refuse to live in a family of yellers! 

[moogie]

When Charlie starts playing games we just say well you must be done and dinner is over.  If she acts hungry later then we give her another chance but if she plays again then its over again.  no raised voices just calmly remove the food.  it has been working and Charlie really seems to get it.

[kokonutmama]

I used to hold kody by the ankles so he could pick it up himself.  lol, in writing that looks like child abuse, but he really liked it and eventually he thought it was so much fun he'd drop food on purpose, then look like "hey, where's my ride?"  I always said, "uh-oh, there's food on the floor!" so now when he sees food on the floor he says "uh-oh."  well, he says "uh-oh" for a lot of different things.  somehow he grew out of expecting an upside down ride every time.  I think he might have just sensed my exhasperation with the whole game.

[jnezmama02]

We do what Megs & Vera do.

Here's what I've learned after having 2 kids:

1. If you give kids smaller amounts of food on their plate at a time, they're likely to eat more total and throw/drop less on purpose. Of course, this requires you to stay at the table w/ them (rather than do dishes, like I sometimes do) and to have a plate of food for them away from their reach that you can grab more food off of it (but so they won't dump it). A good example is french fries...I'll give her 2 french fries (cut into half each..so 4 pieces) at a time. When she's eaten all of those, I'll give her more of the same until she says she's done or starts throwing food.

2. Once a kid has dropped food/cup 2 times (clearly on purpose), we remove the food/cup b/c it's an indication that they no longer want it and are done. Leaving the extra food/plate in front of them is an invitation for them to play with it.

3. It's unfair to expect a small child like our Dec 04 babies to stay at a table for longer than it takes them to eat. We get Emily out of her chair when she says she's done or when she has thrown food, even if we aren't done eating. She usually climbs onto one of our laps or plays with a toy nearby. At restaurants, we remove food from her reach and give her a toy or crayons to play with instead. If she's really acting up, one of us takes her out, while the other stays with Jessie until she's done, gathers stuff up, and pays.

Hope this helps....

[mum2maddox]

maddox does this as an idication like most of you ahve said- that he is finished eating...

i have learnt my lesson and give him food in bits also... rather thn a full plate as he wont eat it all... he eats much more from our plate than he will from his own also.


its a never ending cycle of finding a medium that work s haha... we are getting there though.

when he throws things around the house also we have started asking him to pick it up... he gets the idea and usually does it when he asked now. if his bottle is on its side for instance and dripping we say please stand your bottle up maddox and generally after he points at it a lot (we laugh as its like "this bottle here... you want me to pick this bottle up") he stands it back up .