Dinner Dinner What's For Dinner says Dozy?

Dinner time in my house can sometimes turn into a complete chaotic crying mess. My son is a tank and an eating machine but for some reason dinner time can sometimes be his most difficult time of the day. He is a very opinionated little boy for almost 3 and has no problem expressing his opinion when it comes to what we are having for dinner. One day he likes pasta salad the next it’s being called yucky, disgusting, or that tastes nasty. This kind of behavior has been going on for some time and once my husband and I really started to notice this was becoming a regular occurrence we began involving both of our children in the discussion of lunch and dinner.

Now this was working and when my son felt the need to express his ever changing opinions of dinner we could fire right back at him son this is what you picked, this was your choice. Well that worked for about a minute because my son soon realized he could all together refuse to eat. We have gone through plenty of nights having my son throw his plate off of the table or drop it altogether onto the floor. This too will only get him so far, it's called a trip down the hall to his bedroom for the time being. Now my son would not starve by any means if he were to miss a meal but this isn't how my house works.

Nate is a very smart little boy and he definitely knows how to work both mom and dad. If he cries, screams and kicks his door hard enough and long enough someone will let him out. Once everyone has calmed down my son is allowed to come back to the table to finish, and from here out he will eat anything you put in front of him. That nasty pasta salad has just become his favorite, and the chicken he threw onto the floor is now delicious. I don't know why but I see that on some nights he has to have complete control of how his dinner time is conducted.

Our dinners are not perfect and most of the time are carried out while my daughter is squawking like a bird, my son is crying saying he doesn't want to eat and my husband and I are trying to eat as fast as we can before someone has to be feed or marched off to their room. We sit down as a family and try and eat as a family but some nights it just doesn't work. So we chock this up to better luck next time and give the orders “I want jammies, pull-ups, and teeth brushed. It’s time for bed!"