Rewards, Punishments, and Food

by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., author of Feeding: The Brazelton Way

Don't use either rewards or punishments to handle a child's challenging eating behavior. Also don't use food as rewards or punishments for any other disciplinary issue. When food is used in this way, it can lose its meaning as an element of survival and a source of pleasure, and meals can lose their meaning as a time for positive interactions. Serious eating problems can be the sad result. For example, when a parent says, "No dessert if you misbehave," a child who feels she needs to punish herself for some deep-seated reason may see self-starvation as a way to do this. (Or else it may just make dessert all the more alluring.) When a parent says "you can have an extra helping if you're really good," a child who is hungry for more love or approval may turn to overeating to find it.

Your role is to decide on what and how much food to offer a child. You can set up a pleasant atmosphere at meal times. But you can't force food into a child's mouth, and you can't make her swallow it. Inevitably, it will be up to the child to decide what, when, and how much she will eat. If you try bribes or punishments to force a child to eat, you'll fail.

Even if a child has learned to enjoy her meals and her feedings with you in the first year, she is still likely to become defiant and start testing in the second year. But you can get through it if you're ready for it, and can plan to enjoy it with her. Your sense of humor will be your best defense.

Let her test you. It's fairly simple to be sure she receives her nutritional requirements throughout the second and third years. Meals should be times for warmth and sfun—not ordeals.

Desserts

Should desserts be saved for rewarding a child who has eaten well, and withheld from one who has not? No. Dessert is a conclusion, a way to end a meal—not a reward. Making dessert a reward makes it more desirable than the other food a child must learn to eat! Offer the whole family the same kind of dessert, so that it does not become a reward or a punishment.

Some candy-like, processed food desserts are overpoweringly enticing. They, along with the TV commercials that make them even more irresistible, can push children over the edge—into relentless, demanding tantrums. If desserts become a focus of struggles, they should be traded for more nutritious ones—fruits, yogurt, ice cream (low-fat if weight is an issue), and the like. But don't present healthier food choices as a punishment! If heavy, sugary, fatty desserts like sundaes, rich cake and cookies, and puddings are never introduced or are reserved for special occasions (such as birthday parties), you'll spare yourself and your child a lot of anguish. She may make you feel as if you've deprived her terribly. Don't worry. You haven't, and she'll get over it.

Excerpted from:

Excerpted from Feeding: The Brazelton Way © 2004 by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua D. Sparrow, M.D. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Perseus.

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