We worry that our kids aren’t eating enough or getting enough of the right foods to provide the best nutrients for their growing bodies and minds. So, what do we do? We start trying to force them to eat certain foods, making promises, exacting promises, threatening to take away this or that. Or if they aren’t hungry when we offer them their dinner, we make them another meal at 8 pm because they are now, inevitably, “starving”. Or we start making individually designed meals for each child.
I’ve created little monsters of meal planning. I have two boys and as to be expected, they do not like the same foods. One child wants to eat the same meal every day for two weeks and then he no longer likes that particular dish and I’m trying to discover the next dish he is willing to eat that has some degree of nutritional value. My other son is more adventurous but often is diametrically opposed to eating the same foods as his older brother. So what do I do? I make two separate meals to accommodate the unique tastes of each child. Why do I do it? Anxiety. I worry that they won’t get enough nutrients from their meals. I worry that too much of their diet will be laden with processed fast foods and sugar.
We worry that our kids will catch cold because they aren’t wearing a jacket on a cold October day. So, what do we do? We get into an argument with them in the morning before school. We demand that they wear a jacket and disregard their ensuing tantrum as we drag them into the car. The morning is full of drama and fighting and the child leaves for school sulking and furious with us. (He then inevitably takes his jacket off as soon as you are out of sight and forgets his jacket on the playground.)
We worry that our child is going to be a poor student and won’t get a good education if he doesn’t do his homework every night. So what do we do? We fight with them after school and after dinner to “finish their homework”. We stand over them at the dining room table and lecture them about the importance of school and learning. They do everything possible to get out of doing their homework including dropping their pencil repeatedly in order to get up from the table to get on their hands and knees “trying” to locate the pencil, becoming engaged in a romping and wrestling session with the dog and getting their hair inexplicable tangled in the chair’s leg. The entire evening is spent battling each other in conflict and resulting in tears only lucky if all the homework got done and eventually giving up on the ideal of having the homework done with care and quality.
And we think, well, this is what it requires to be a good parent, right? Or is it? Is all this conflict and worry necessary and is it truly in the “best interest” of our child.
Probably not.
Don’t get caught in the power struggle
As Dr. Ginott wrote in his classic parenting guide, Between Parent and Child, “Parents who are in the midst of a declared or undeclared war with their children over chores and responsibilities should recognize the fact that this war cannot be won. Children have more time and energy to resist us than we have to coerce them” (Ginott, 2004). Our anxiety and worry that they will become malnourished, ill or delinquent from their resistance to vegetables, jackets and homework is causing us to become embroiled in conflict and a war that we cannot win. And our anxiety is, honestly, often unfounded and irrational to boot!
A physician will likely tell you that, if your child refuses to eat dinner or their broccoli, they will not starve or become malnourished. It is more likely that they will be more hungry to eat the following meal and potentially with less complaint. Your doctor will also likely tell you that a child that gets cold on the playground is not likely to get the flu as a result. It is much more likely that they will seek warmth and look for their jacket on the blacktop. And the child who resists doing his homework is not inevitably going to need to repeat the second grade and become a high school dropout.
Help your child become their own authority
Our anxiety (and I speak for myself included) has the potential impact of impeding our most desired goal of teaching them “how to be” in the world, how to be responsible, caring and healthy. This is our ultimate desire yet we disregard their input when it comes to feeling cold or hungry and insist that they should listen to us about whether they are cold or hungry. We teach them that their experience with their internal signals of hunger and temperature should not be considered and should be guided by an “authority” outside of themselves (Faber, 2017). This is how we were raised (hence why we do it) and may be the reason we do not often “trust ourselves”, our intuition, and prefer to listen to what our parents tell us, or our peers. It may be largely responsible for why we, as adults, eat when we are not necessarily hungry (or don’t stop eating when we are satiated).
And what about my “anxiety driven” response to my children’s eating habits? I’ve gotten myself stuck in a pattern of cooking a meal for each child based on their unique tastes and let’s be clear; I am not successful. Half the time there is still complaints and refusals to eat this or that. I am slowing “giving up” on providing them any other vegetable besides broccoli and sometimes they won’t even eat that. If my son won’t eat at the time that I serve dinner, he will then want something else at a later time- possibly a whole other dish that I end up cooking. And I’m not cooking this “second” late night dinner with any joy- trust me. I’m resentful and irritable and I will complain and lecture. Yet, I still make the third meal because my discomfort and anxiety about the child’s statements of “starving” is greater than my ability to say no.
So what am I gaining from this “rat race” of catering and cajoling lecturing and complaining? I’m role modeling poor boundaries and a disregard for my own sanity. I’m teaching them that they don’t have to be responsible for their own nutritional well-being. I’m not upholding and standing by my own values of healthy eating and I’m not encouraging openness to trying new tastes.
What about homework and the daily battle to fight their creative avoidance and engage in the battle of wills? Finland far exceeds the United States in math, reading and science proficiency and one of the reasons experts believe contributes to their success is less homework and a much greater emphasis on play.
“Finns place a lot of value on free time and play. By law, teachers must give students a 15-minute break for every 45 minutes of instruction. It’s a different story in the US where kids typically get less than half an hour of recess every day. This ‘deficit of play’ for US students may lead to additional anxiety.
“The results speak for themselves: Study after study has found that students given at least one daily recess for 15 minutes or more behave better in school and do better on assignments” (Shepherd, 2010).
“Finnish students spend 2.8 hours a week on homework. This contrasts noticeably from the 6.1 hours American students spend per week” (Weller, 2017).
So, why are we destroying our evenings and our relationships with our children to battle over homework?
I’m not suggesting that everyone start boycotting homework. We don’t live in Finland (perhaps unfortunately) and we, understandably, want our kids to be successful in our education system. However, perhaps we can relax our anxiety a few degrees and value our relationships and listening to our children with greater comfort in knowing their future success in the world is not depending on tonight’s homework battle.
Anxiety is inevitable to every parent striving to be the best parent they can be, but it might be wise for us all to reconsider some of the roots of our anxiety and question its authority on what is best for our children. I believe that greater joy can be had in listening, playing and loving our children and less stress can be endured by “letting go” of some of the wars we engage in to gain compliance from our children.
As Dr. Ginott has written, “we help most by not helping” (Ginott, 2014). Children learn responsibility and self-regulation best by having opportunities to make decisions, make mistakes and be valued for their thoughts, feelings and desire for autonomy.
Works Cited
Faber, Adele Mazlish Elaine. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk. Piccadilly Press LTD, 2017.
Ginott, Haim G., et al. Between Parent and Child. Random House, 2004.
Shepherd, Jessica. “World Education Rankings: Which Country Does Best at Reading, Maths and Science?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 7 Dec. 2010, www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading
Weller, Chris. “8 Reasons Finland’s Education System Puts the US Model to Shame.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 6 Dec. 2017, www.businessinsider.com/finland-education-beats-us-2017-5.