I don’t do bribery for anything! If they don’t want to eat the same thing everone else is eating or at the same time, then they can just wait until the next meal. If you start this line of thinking/acting when the child is young enough (around 2yrs old) then they quickly catch on.

All bribery does, IMHO, is teach them that if they throw enough of a fit then they will get their way. Kids need to learn that isn’t always the case.

well, as a kid-less person, maybe I shouldn’t say. BUT, I know that i would’ve bribed the screaming baby behind me on the plane last time with ANYTHING!

I think bribery is often misinterpreted. Maybe it depends on the wording. For example, “IF you eat your meal, you can have desert,” may be a bribe but “AFTER you eat your meal, we will have dessert,” is an explanation of a logical series of events. The later would be similar to saying “After you put your coat on, we can go outside.” You can also use natural consequences: “When you don’t eat your meal you can’t have desert”/”When you don’t put your coat on, you can’t go outside”

I think in the end, the wording matters little and just makes parents and child development “experts” feel good. I don’t think bribery itself is harmful. But unrealistic expectations (”Eat every single bite of your [adult sized] meal or you wont get desert”) or threats (”If you don’t eat, I will spank you and send you to your room without desert”) certainly can be.

We don’t have dessert every night, so they have learned not to hold out for that. Then we also have a rule that nobody eats anything that wasn’t put on the table for that meal. And if there is something they really like, let’s say bread, and something they really don’t like, let’s say broccoli, they have to at least take one good bite of everything on their plate before they can have more of the thing they really like. Our kids have learned to eat a lot of things with that last rule.

And last night, they ended up with nothing for dinner because we had baked macaroni and cheese instead of the Kraft box version. I bet they ate a good breakfast this morning.

Bribery (or you can call it “offering rewards”) is a parenting tactic that can work if used sparingly and thoughtfully. I personally don’t use it for eating - if my daughter won’t eat something that’s fine. She won’t starve. She will get hungry and eat the healthy choices that are offered, eventually. But, it can work for other things and sometimes the benefits from gaining your child’s cooperation make it worth using that method.

I;ve never had to bribe my boy to eat…I refuse to, as he will at least gove something new/that he doesn’t like a try, and thats good enough for me. Also, if he doesn’t clear his plate, I’ll ask him to just have one more mouthful after he’s told me he’s had enough, this seems to be working at the moment! However, I’m not above the odd moments where I ‘reward’ good behaviour with a treat, thou its normally something like me and him baking (we never have time for that) or a walk in the woods, the sort of thing thats special to us both anyway, and saved for special times.

I agree with Lynanne. I think that it’s really a matter of wording things correctly.

Nate has had a bad habit of wanting candy/cookies while we are eating dinner. Obviously I don’t allow him to eat candy/cookies during dinner so I have told him that when he eats his dinner THEN he can have the candy. Chances are that he gets full on a GOOD food and then declines or forgets about the candy.

You and I both know a lady who has great difficulty getting her child to eat (Christy) and in cases like that where the child is losing weight I say do what ever you have to do.

I find it disturbing that he relates trying to get a child to eat their dinner first before getting XX or XX to child obesity. I’m more worried about the parents that say OK eat what you want.

I know a lady that does just that too. She will serve her 4 yr old and 8 yr old Oreo Pop-tarts while she is fixing their breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage/bacon, juice, etc. And the sad thing is that the kids will eat the pop-tarts AND still eat a full breakfast. To me that is a child with future problems.

I never make Nate eat everything on his plate however he has to eat some of everything and he doesn’t get candy/dessert until after Mom/Dad are finished with their dinner.

*blush* Sorry it got so long.

Quoting Tonya, “You and I both know a lady who has great difficulty getting her child to eat (Christy) and in cases like that where the child is losing weight I say do what ever you have to do.”

Hers is an extreme case that I can completely understand bribery. There are going to be cases like that but in general most kids don’t need bribing to eat.

I never made my kids eat everything on their plates either. That can lead to obesity, as studies have shown.

Ahh, I agree with a little of what everyone is saying! I only put small portions on the girls’ plate, if they eat that and want more, they get it, if they dont want more, then they’ve already had small portions of everything so we’re good! We definetely do NOT get cookies/candy/etc. during a meal, and not at all unless we eat a decent meal! I think every child has different eating habits, and whatever works for the parents is okay (to a certain extent). Of course I’m not going to say “If you dont eat, you cannot go to the park this later” , I’ll probably instead say “How about you eat as much as you can so you wont get hungry while we’re at the park later” and that usually inspires them because they sure dont want to interupt their playtime to eat!

I never put too much food on my son’s plate - but if he doesn’t eat his veggies and make a good effort on his meal than there is no dessert. That isn’t a bribe it is a natural consequence. If he is too full to eat his food than why would he get sweets? And I am not going to give a child dessert if they haven’t eaten his healthy food.
Now my son is good at eating. When he was younger, if we were having a yummy meal, I would feed him in courses. Veggies and healthy stuff first. Than the stuff he likes more like mac and cheese.

That is what I have done with my son. But with each child one has to evaluate what is best for that situation.

I tried to access Jesse’s blog but I keep getting a “timed out” message. LOL! I’ll try again later since I’m curious to see what was said.

Hmm I’m not at the point yet to even think about bribery with my daughter (she’s only 9mths). We never got bribed as kids though so I had planned on taking my mothers approach: If you don’t eat now, you wait until the next meal. None of us starved, and we all learned very quickly that not eating wasn’t fun. LOL. But only time will tell - she’s not picky at all atm, so depending on how she does as she gets older, I’ll re-evaluate the eating thing then.