Chapter 40 2.How to make children love to eat

There was a very famous advertisement more than ten years ago: "Drinking Wahaha, eating is delicious", selling an oral liquid that is said to stimulate children's appetite.This product made the first pot of gold for a little-known small business, and it was a big pot of gold. The small business quickly became a big business, and eventually the company and its founders became famous all over the world—this proves otherwise A surprising phenomenon: now, there are too many children who don't like to eat. Children don't like to eat has become one of the most troublesome problems for many parents. I have seen many parents who are worried about this. They have really tried their best to feed their children and exhausted various methods.

I remember that when Yuanyuan was one year and eight months old and was hospitalized for pneumonia, there was a three-year-old boy in the same ward who always didn’t eat well. It took more than an hour to eat a small bowl of rice, and almost every mouthful cost a lot. It takes a lot of twists and turns to eat it.His mother, father, and grandma used all their tricks to feed the child every day, coaxing and deceiving him, playing both hard and soft ways, promising to buy him something, praising him for how good he was, and reprimanding him loudly and asking him to open his mouth. It is painful for people to watch.

During this process, the child tried his best to toss others in order to delay the parents' persecution of him.He asked his mother to feed first, and asked his father and grandma to go out and stand outside the door; his mother had just fed two mouthfuls, so he asked his mother to go out, and asked his father to come in and feed him.Just like this, the three adults kept going in and out like a revolving door after a meal.He raises conditions for every meal, and constantly innovates ways to toss people.After tossing my family, I saw other children playing with a certain toy, so I asked to buy that toy for him right away, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to buy it the next day if I didn’t eat.His parents borrowed toys from other children, but they got tired of each toy after a short while and needed to get new ones, so his parents kept borrowing toys from other children.Some children refused to give him toys, so the little boy threatened his parents even more by skipping meals, so his parents had the cheek to do ideological work for other children.And when the little boy got the toy his parents begged for and had to open his mouth to eat, he seemed to have a grudge against the toy in his hand, and he would throw it on the ground when the adults were not careful, so he always disturbed the peace of the ward and provoked other children to eat. The child was crying.After he played with all the toys in our ward, his parents went to the children's ward next door to find toys for him, which made the children in other rooms cry.

I finally couldn't help but tell the child's mother that it's normal for a child to have a bad appetite and not want to eat when he is sick. Isn't it the same for adults?Forcing the child to eat may not be good for him, it is better to let nature take its course.This mother didn't like to hear me say this. She said that her son doesn't eat well at ordinary times. It is precisely because he doesn't eat well that his physical fitness is poor and he often gets sick.Now that I'm sick, I have to eat if I want to recover, or how can I get resistance. Her son did look sallow and emaciated.I thought with great concern that if they kept doing this, the child would not only lose his appetite, but his moral character might also be damaged.

Eating is a human nature, so how could it take so much effort to get a child to open his mouth? Many parents who are worried about their children not eating well don’t think about a very simple question: where did children born in the 1950s and 1960s, including the 1970s, hear that there are children who don’t eat well?At that time, there were many children in the family, which child needed to be chased and fed?As long as there is food, which child is hungry?Since the 1980s, especially after the 1990s, social and economic life has become better and better. Why do children all feel anorexia?

Mr. Benjamin Spark, a famous American pediatrician and psychologist, explained this problem very clearly. He said, "Why are so many children unable to eat? The main reason is that there are many parents who like to force their children to eat"—— This sentence explains things very clearly. The main reason why children don't like to eat is that parents care too much about their children's meals and are too pushy on this issue.The normal appetite of the child is kindly destroyed by the adults who have more material and time at the moment. It's not that the nature of the children born now has changed, it's that the parents have the energy to do things against nature.

Mr. Spark believes that "every child is born with a set of exquisite physiological mechanisms to regulate the amount and type of food to meet the needs of normal growth and development."That is to say, the child knows best what he wants to eat and how much he should eat.If the adults don't care, he can develop his eating function normally; but if the parents often interfere with the child in this regard, things will get worse. "Children have an instinct to push back when they are pushed. If they don't like what they eat, they will hate it next time they see each other...Forcing children to eat is not beneficial, but it will further destroy their appetite and make it impossible to recover for a long time. .”

I met a fifth-grade boy in an elementary school. His grandmother was a food research expert in a certain agricultural science academy and was very famous in the industry.Later, I chatted with the boy's mother and heard her say that her family cooks eight dishes and one soup every night. The weekly recipes are carefully formulated by the child's grandmother, mainly based on the child's development, and the nanny cooks. The craftsmanship is also good.We can imagine that a child raised under such family conditions should be in good health. But what is strange is that this child is thinner and smaller than his classmates, like a little refugee who lacks food and drink; he also has a weird temperament, a bad temper, and poor academic performance.Her mother was terribly worried when she talked about the baby.

After chatting with her, I learned some details of her family's life, and I felt that "success is Xiao He's failure is Xiao He". They carefully formulate the recipes very scientifically, and take care of their children in every possible way.In addition to having rules on what to eat every day, there are also rules on how much to eat.If the child cannot meet the established standards, the parents will not give up, and must find a way to let the child "complete the task".Their methods would surely have worked if they had been used to produce a machine or grow a corn plant, but it was a pity that they were dealing with a child with an independent mind.

When I tried to persuade this mother not to overly pursue "standardized operations" on the child's meal, and not to force the child at the dinner table, the mother immediately shook her head and said that the child is too good at playing tricks. If you nagged and taught him a lesson, he would just eat it; as a result, he only picked up one vegetable with each chopstick, and chewed one vegetable in his mouth for a long time. After a meal, he actually only ate a small amount.The parent suddenly said angrily: "We don't care about him now." But from what she said next, I understood that the so-called "don't care" is just a different way of managing. Every meal is served with a large bowl for the child. No matter how long he eats, he must finish it——Mom I feel that I have done a good job, and I no longer always have conflicts with my children over eating as before.But what makes her angry is that the child can sometimes eat this bowl of rice until he goes to bed.

I still want to persuade this parent to think for her child and experience the feeling of being forced to eat when she doesn't want to eat. I suggest that she stop fighting the child like that every day and allow the child to eat less.The parent immediately retorted that he is a boy, what should he do if he is not tall, the whole family is worried about this, how can he grow taller without eating more! I can understand her anxiety, and I don't give up trying to let her understand that children's emotions have a lot to do with eating. Only by solving the child's anorexia problem can we solve the eating problem. The root cause of anorexia is that parents are too fussy about their children's eating up. This mother was not interested in what I said, and said in words that I don't understand food nutrition, what nutrients a growing child needs every day, and how much it must be.She thinks her mother-in-law knows better than anyone else in this area, and she doesn't need other people's advice. In front of such parents, I am at my wit's end. One day I observed the boy at school lunch.He only had a small amount of food in his lunch box, and he hardly ate a bite. During the whole lunch time, he just pretended to pull the rice with a spoon a few times, but he didn't put a single bite into his mouth.After the other students finished eating, he dumped all the food into the trash can and walked out of the cafeteria.His class teacher said that this child is like this almost every day, and he never eats school meals.I reported it to his parents before, and the parents asked the teacher to stare at him while eating, and showed their blame to the teacher.The teacher has to take care of the whole class, so how could he watch him eat every day, so now he doesn't tell his parents about it. Looking at the child's thin and small body, the erratic eyes and the hostility shown from time to time, I felt unspeakable regrets in my heart.Parents are full of expectations for their children. They not only hope that he will have good academic performance and that he can go to a famous university in the future;But just for the matter of eating, if it is not done right, it will have a great destructive effect on all aspects.From the matter of eating to guessing the child's parents' actions in other matters, I am afraid it is also rigid and lacks understanding of the child.Alas, if that's the case, many of their hopes will probably be wiped out. Just as I say "don't worry about the children" to those parents who interfere too much on the issue of learning, I will often be disgusted by these parents. It will also be looked down upon by others. "Never mind" is a very difficult thing for many parents to do.The reason is that they don't think their "management" is superfluous, and they don't believe it is called "interference". They firmly believe that it is called care and guidance.Therefore, if someone tells him not to "manage" the child, it is as unacceptable as asking him to give up his responsibilities and rights as a parent. But the fact is, just as the more you "manage" the problem of learning, the worse it is, "there is no invincible parent when fighting fiercely with children on the problem of eating." How to make the child have a normal appetite?This is actually very simple, just four words: let nature take its course. Parents do not force or worry about children's eating, and believe that children know how much they eat.It is normal for a child to have a big appetite and want to eat anything one day, but not want to eat anything on another day.From the very beginning, you just pay attention to the nutritional combination of food, and put the food that should be given to the child on the table, but which kind and how much he eats is just his own business, then the child will not appear anorexia, you here It was simple and successful. If the child has symptoms of anorexia, Mr. Spark has given some good specific guidance in this regard. In summary, his guidance is as follows: First, parents change attitudes.I have a flat attitude on the child's eating problem. I don't praise if I eat too much, and I don't criticize me when I eat too little. I am always peaceful and happy on this issue, so that the child no longer feels pressured by the problem of eating.When the child picks up the rice bowl, he is psychologically relaxed, and it is possible to have a normal appetite. Second, if the child has already exhibited symptoms of anorexia, don't expect him to recover in half a month and twenty days.Parents must be patient. This patience does not come from your temporary calmness of suppressing anxiety, but from your complete calm after correct understanding.A child's recovery takes a long time, months or even years.In this process, if the parents just change from being forced in the open to watching in the dark, and finally can't help nagging their children again after a certain period of time, then all previous efforts will be wasted. Third, don't draw lines between various foods. You can't say that you should eat more of the nutritious ones, and eat less of the unnutritious ones.Whether there is nutrition depends on the parents to adjust when cooking.Take the food on the table to allow children to choose by themselves.Don't use conditions to threaten the food that children don't like. For example, don't say to a child who loves meat but not vegetables, "If you don't eat the vegetables, I won't give you meat."This will only make him hate eating vegetables even more.You might as well turn the words around and say, "You have to eat the meat before I give you vegetables", which may stimulate his interest in vegetables. Fourth, let the children eat by themselves instead of feeding them.Children can eat by themselves from about one and a half years old. Parents should not spend their hard work on feeding their children, but only on cleaning up the "mess" made by their children.Frequent feeding will affect the child's appetite, and affect the development of children's hand skills and physical skills.Some three- and four-year-old children have developed bad habits. If the parents do not feed them, they will not eat, and they will only eat a few mouthfuls.This situation should be changed immediately and tell the children to eat by themselves in the future.If he refuses, just go hungry for a few meals, and he will definitely not be hungry, and his bad problems will be corrected in a few days. Fifth, don't negotiate with your children on the issue of eating.For example, some parents always like to say that if you eat well, I will buy you toys or take you out to play. Such words will have a negative impact on the child’s eating, and teach him to blackmail parents with unreasonable demands. In April 2008, I saw a child-rearing program on a local TV station in Hunan, which talked about what to do if the children did not eat. The little boy on TV is about five or six years old. Parents especially hope that the child will grow tall, but the child just doesn't eat well. Grandparents, parents, and mothers are very worried about this. The TV station asked a professor from a certain university for help, and the professor gave a "glass ball therapy".That is to prepare a jar and twenty glass balls, first put ten glass balls in the jar, add one to the child when he eats well, and subtract one when the child eats well.At that time, the child was eager to buy an "Ultraman" CD, but he had to save 20 in the bottle before he could buy it. The TV station presents this as a good method to the audience—but this is a typical “bad idea” and a deformed temptation—it makes children regard eating as a utilitarian behavior, and teaches children to use it to bargain with their parents.The program did not explain the effect after the operation, but I can conclude that it only has a short-term "effect" at most, that is, it will continue until "Ultraman" is bought home.Next, parents can of course make use of their children's new needs and ask their children to eat.But the child does not have that much perseverance, he will not persist, and he will soon get tired of playing this kind of "game" with his parents. Not only will this method not fundamentally change the child's anorexia problem, but it will make the child hate eating even more in the frustration that it is always difficult to save enough glass balls in the future. Some parents do not force their children, but often have bad language hints, which can also lead to anorexia or partial eclipse in children. A friend of mine, when her child was very young, always complained to others in front of the child with an anxious face that the child did not eat well.I reminded her many times not to say that, and even if she wanted to say it, she had to hide it behind her back and don't let the child hear it.But she has never cared, or formed a habit, always unconsciously nagging the child in front of the child that he doesn't like to eat.Her child is now in his teens and has always had a bad appetite. I also heard from another friend that her son liked to eat mutton when he was a child, but her husband did not like to eat mutton.Later, I cooked mutton at home twice. When the child was about to eat it, his father accidentally reminded him, "It's mutton." The implication was "Are you sure you can eat it?" Feeling the repulsion of my father, I felt that the tone of my father was saying "that food is very unpalatable", and I will never eat a bite of mutton again. So when a child shows that he doesn't like to eat or doesn't like to eat something, you must not tell it, let alone teach him about it, and don't rush to find a substitute.Just pretend not to know, bring him what to eat; even find an opportunity to deliberately use words to imply that he likes to eat it very much.For example, in front of a child who doesn’t like milk, tell others that my son loves to eat everything, is not picky, and can drink a large glass of milk in one go. When Yuanyuan was about five or six years old, I took her back to her grandma's house. Under the influence of my eldest brother's child, her sister Doudou, she also stopped eating mutton.After returning to my home, I made mutton and she refused to eat it.I didn't care about her, didn't say anything, pretended not to pay attention to this problem, and continued to make mutton without caring.I made mutton dumplings twice, and she always asked what kind of meat it was before eating. I told her mutton, and she stopped eating.I got her something else to eat without saying anything. I knew she loved noodles with bolognese, so I made bolognese with mutton next.I have never used mutton in meat sauce noodles before. Yuanyuan didn't ask me what kind of meat this time, and it tasted very delicious.After I finished eating, I pretended to tell my husband that there is no pork in the house today, so I will use mutton to make meat sauce, which is really delicious.Yuanyuan may be a little reluctant to hear me say this, but the rice has already entered her stomach, so she has no choice but to accept it. I also bought semi-finished kebabs, and when I got home, I baked them in the microwave until the house was full of fragrance.Her father said that to eat such delicious meat skewers, you have to drink wine; I also said that I haven't eaten meat skewers for a long time, it's so delicious.Yuanyuan couldn't stand the temptation, and finally picked up the meat skewers and started eating. Finally, parents should be reminded to keep children eating snacks as little as possible.Children have small appetites, so they are often full after eating some snacks, and they naturally lose their appetite when they are at the dinner table. Whether the family atmosphere is relaxed or not, and whether the parental relationship is harmonious also affect the child's appetite.In addition, children who are jealous of their siblings or other children around them, feel unfairly treated, or are affected by other negative emotions will also have symptoms of anorexia.Parents should pay more attention to these aspects. A friend called and said that her kindergarten child didn't like to eat. She called her mother-in-law in the country to complain, and the mother-in-law said nonchalantly, "Just starve him for two days."This sentence made the daughter-in-law very upset, saying how could a grandma say such a thing.I laughed and said that if you ask me for advice, I will say the same thing: If you don’t believe me, starve him for two days and try it! Of course, it is not necessary to starve the child for two days, but the free and easy concept conveyed in this sentence is indeed a magic weapon, which can make the child "eating is delicious", and the effect will definitely exceed that of oral liquid.The mother-in-law in the country must have realized this trick with her own rich experience. ●The main reason why children don't like to eat is that parents are too concerned about their children's food, and they are too demanding on this issue.The normal appetite of the child is kindly destroyed by the adults who have more material and time at the moment.Parents are not undefeated when fighting fiercely with their children on the issue of eating. ●How to make the child have a normal appetite?This is actually very simple, just four words: let nature take its course.When a child shows that he doesn't like to eat or doesn't like to eat something, you must not tell it, let alone teach him about it, and don't rush to find a substitute.Just pretend not to know, bring him what to eat; even find an opportunity to deliberately use words to imply that he likes to eat it very much.