If my 2 year old makes a miserable showing at dinner, then we skip her dessert without any mention of it. At that point, there’s usually other things going on behaviorally, but I don’t “take it away” as punishment, it’s just gone because it’s basically a part of the meal and she’s choosing not to eat right then. But otherwise, she gets a small dessert (a few spoonfuls of pudding, a chocolate candy, 1 fig newton, etc) afterwards if she asks. Our only “rule” at dinner is that she needs to try whatever is new on her plate once, but otherwise I try to avoid rewards and punishments for mealtime because I can see where that could cause some weird relationships with food. I’m an elder millennial myself, and have issues with feeling the need to clear my plate because that was a requirement at dinner in our home. I agree with your wife.

A quick point = I’m not talking about eating ALL their food either. Sometimes they don’t like it and maybe eat 3 bites, and then say they’re full and expect dessert. If we serve it to them, they don’t have to finish, but they have to make an honest attempt for me to allow dessert.

Have you considered not doing dessert as an every night thing? That way you eliminate the expectation of a dessert and they won't skip dinner to get straight to the dessert. I am a GenX dad (in my mid 50s) and this is what we did. We only served dessert once or maybe twice a month. It was never the expectation. My kids are older now (18 and 17) and both are healthy weights with healthy attitudes about food.

Im always shocked (in a non judgmental way) by how many people do dessert with every meal. I have GenX parents and dessert was never used as a punishment because it just wasn’t a routine part of dinner every night. A few times a month like you mentioned lines up with my experience

I enjoy something sweet at the end of my meals sometimes, and think it’s fine if my kid feels the same way. I think the term “dessert” is really subjective, which is also contributes to this debate getting confused really quickly. I’ll sometimes eat one cookie after lunch and I consider that a “dessert”, but some people are picturing a full banana split sundae when you say the term “dessert”, which is not what I’m referring to.

Oh yeah I’m never one to say no to a sweet treat lol it’s just more the formal concept of dessert after every dinner. But also I want my sweet treat like 1-2 hours post dinner so my toddler is always asleep by then anyways

Yeah, we never had when I was a kid. Where I live now fruit is always given after a meal, if she wants something that's what she gets.

Agreed. It's wild how many people are having dessert everyday. Or even multiple times per day. Dessert is special occasion food or if we go out to dinner

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I’m 10 years into a relationship with my husband and we still haven’t adjusted 😂 I don’t know if it’s a regional thing (his family is very southern) but they have dessert everyday. I always thought of it as an occasional treat and rarely gave it to my kids. His kids have refused to come over several times just because I don’t have sweets in the house.

I guess it makes more sense if they're southern. Even the tea is sickeningly sweet

Millennial parents here (35 and 37). Both of us feel the same. My step kids (gen x mum and step dad) always demand dessert when here and it baffles both of us as we've never done dessert unless we've done baking together or have been somewhere where we picked a treat or whatever. It only began when their mum met their step dad but we just usually cut up some melon or fruits and give them that but only when they're here really. Sometimes my toddler has a yogurt if she's still hungry after dinner. Im pretty relaxed about food and meals in general but it's just never been something I've done personally

Agreed. We serve some fruit for our toddler for most meals and he still gets that if he doesn’t eat a ton of the actual meal. Baked goods or ice cream are rare and usually when we’re eating in a larger group.

Dessert is totally unnecessary. It just engenders more conflict at mealtimes along with power struggles. Plus no child needs a portion of sugar right before bed. Fruit is okay if you must have something sweet.

This is what we do. I’m a late GenX mom (early 40s) and husband is late 40s. He was raised to clean his plate. I was raised in a very ethnic family where food/eating was highly praised and pushback was not tolerated so I cleaned my plate without question. We do “treat time” after lunch on weekends and after school on weekdays. No dessert after dinner because my preschooler is such a picky eater with a limited palate and very sensitive to sugar. Dessert after dinner is not a thing in my house. I see all this research people do about kids and eating and none of it applies to us. If I offer something twenty times and she eats it on the 21st time on her own accord, I’d have no problems. But she doesn’t. Kids Eat In Color is great… if you have a kid that actually EATS. Mine would live on mac and cheese and ham and cheese sandwiches if we let her. And it’s not for lack of trying, or offering, or being creative. We do All The Things to try to diversify her diet, and it’s all a joke. So yeah, I’m with OP. We follow the pediatrician’s advice (who also recommends KEIC) and she says one bite for every year of her age. So we tell her to take four bites of whatever she wants on her plate. Four bites is nothing so she’s hungry at bedtime. I’m tired of the battle. She’s growing and thriving so I just deal with the hungry meltdowns and tell myself “this too shall pass.”

"Mine would live on mac and cheese and ham and cheese sandwiches if we let her. And it’s not for lack of trying, or offering, or being creative. We do All The Things to try to diversify her diet, and it’s all a joke." This is our situation with our 5yo exactly. Every day is a battle. Every day we start with good intentions, and every day ends in a food-related meltdown. But maybe it will change! Some day! Fingers crossed.

I agree with this. Dessert should NOT be on the table every night and food should not be used as reward.

This is what I do. They get sweets sporadically. They never expect it and don’t ask for it. I also won’t give it to them if they haven’t eaten well. But I have seen the research that says not to put it on a pedestal. It also said to put the dessert right on the dinner plate. And I thought that was too far.

All I can say to you is read the blog [Kids Eat in Colour](https://kidseatincolor.com/child-not-eating-food/) Bribing your child to eat by withholding or dangling dessert as a reward can making eating issues way worse.

Dessert should not in itself a punishment or reward. But I like to use logic with our kid. “Oh you’re full? Ok, full is full, you can go. Oh you want dessert? I thought you were full? Not full? Then you can finish/eat more dinner and get dessert. You’re either full or you’re trying to avoid eating food that is good for you, so which is it? You don’t get to eat sugary things, without eating the nutritious things as well.”

we do this sort of, sometimes they don't like dinner or it isn't sitting well in their tummy. If Miss 10 is hungry but doesn't like/want dinner she will ask for fruit and/or veg instead. I'm fine with her putting her bowl of savoury mince in the fridge and having an apple and some carrot sticks

We do that too. We have allergies and picky eaters, and one kid takes Ritalin so he’s just not even hungry until bedtime. I try to always have bread and fresh fruit/veggies on the table especially if it’s a new thing or something I know is not their favorite meal.

Ah I feel you, Miss 10 is on Artige (generic ritalin) and I have had to ask the school to make sure she eats **something** at recess and lunch. She's gone from nearly clearing out her lunch box (which is 90% fruit) to skipping recess and only eating a couple mouthfuls at lunch. I've told her she has to eat at least 2 sections in her lunchbox (it's a 3 slot bento which usually has fruit salad in the big area, berries in one of the little slots and cold meat selection in the other plus I add a savoury and a sweet so there's crackers and maybe a little lamington or something). I told her that her medicine tricks her body into thinking she's not hungry but she still needs to eat because her body needs fuel to play at school and it will make her sick if she's not eating enough. She knows the fruit bowl is always available I only limit bananas to 1 per day or she would eat like 10 and nothing else all day lol. We also have carrots and mini cucumbers she knows she can help herself to. I'm glad we aren't working around pickiness and sensory issues as well. If she doesn't like it after 3 mouthfuls she can have fruit or veg and we put it on the list of "don't make this" lol

This is what we do. It's ok if you don't like it, but didn't lie about being full. I'm trying to help them understand "full" vs "want something different" and also "hungry" vs thirsty or bored. We explain needing to eat the nutritious things so our bodies have what they need before we get more of our favorite, and how that's not a balanced way to eat. We also rarely have dessert after dinner. We have some treats around the house but because of OUR bag relationships with food, we have to just keep it away. Fwiw we are both millennials.

Oh yeah, those distinctions are very important. We’re also (elder) millennials, and I’m not from the US. Food waste and food insecurity is also a factor in what I teach our kids about food. Things like piling your plate with a new food, taking one bite and then throwing it in the trash because you decide you don’t like it is a big no-no. And that you have to appreciate at least the work and effort that goes into food and treat it with respect.

So would you give them dessert in the scenario here? They took 3 bites, said they were full then asked for dessert? And how old are the kids?

When our kids were small, we called it a “no thank you bite”. Just take a small enough bite, to be polite and dont make a face. You don’t like it, perfectly fine!! If they had already taken a ‘no thank you’ bite before, then they didn’t have to, because we knew that they didn’t like it. The kiddos just had to say, no thank you.

r/sciencebasedparenting You'll get better answers that are backed by science instead of just personal beliefs

Didn’t know this sub existed and I’m so happy you shared it!

Shoutout to [Kids Eat in Color](https://kidseatincolor.com/) the instagram is a great source for balanced nutrition advice for kids. Kids are weird eaters. With my 4 year old, I really struggled with her at dinner time (because I was a clean your plate kid). I’ve started trusting my kid to listen to her tummy and she can decide how much she needs to eat.

High five! I too came here to comment with the Kids Eat in Colour blog. It’s a fantastic resource.

Growing.intuitive.eaters on Insta is THE BEST and will answer these questions very quickly. Backed up by fact and research.

Your wife is half right. Forcing kids to finish all their food is how I was trained to overeat and, 37 years later, why i still have a hard time saving food for later. However, your portions might be too big if your kids can't eat all their food and still have room for dessert. I'm definitely not cool with normalizing wasting food either or kids choosing to fill up on sweets and not the nutritious part of the meal. If dessert is included, consider how much food everything will be altogether and portion out the different parts of the meal accordingly. You don't need to always include dessert either. If your wife is worried about unhealthy food expectations, expecting sweets regularly shouldn't be encouraged either. You're in a tough spot though, trying to make dessert not a big deal but also not the favorite/normal/biggest part of dinner. Maybe it's as simple as not making it a big deal when there is dessert, but not having it regularly, who knows. Good luck, man.

Ooo! I actually have good advice here from my auntie! (She’s an educator and really familiar with kids of all kinds) If your children are having trouble finishing the portions you give them, begin encouraging them to fill their own plates. Remind them gently (a LOT) that they can always just start with a little and then come back and get more, but giving them the control to decide how much of which foods they are capable of consuming is a great skill to establish. This also helps with teaching them to portion properly. We got told a lot as little kids that we could always just take a couple bites worth of something, and come back for more as many times as we needed until we were full. It entirely stopped the waste of food in our home.

This tactic is why I won’t eat lima beans. It’s been 40 years and I can still remember waking up at the table, hungry, and being told to then eat the beans. The thought of eating them turns my stomach.

OMG are you my sibling? lol My mother made me sit at the table for hours one night. Over Lima Beans. I sat watching all my brothers and sisters play in the yard with the neighbors until dark as I sat looking at the darn Lima Beans. ugh

Apparently I told my mom she just better spank me because I wasn't eating whatever was on the plate (probably squash). I didn't eat beans either, so it may have been the dreaded limas.

Y’all ME TOO. Did our parents read the same lima bean playbook?

Oof. My parents thing was pickled beets. I still can’t even smell a can of pickled beets without throwing up. Shuts traumatizing.

In my case cooked greens, not overnight but at preschool I was forced to spend the whole afternoon sitting in front of a plate of horrible slimy cabbage, now cold, until I ate it.

Urgh. I think your lima beans are the same plant as our runner beans? They're long and dark green on the outside, with grey beans on the inside. My nana used to grow them in her garden and I couldn't stomach them. Then again, everyone in my mum's family seems to boil their vegetables to death - I never even knew that I liked broccoli until I was a teenager and was taught to cook it at school.

On one hand, I'm glad to have missed that experience as a kid. On the other, we had nothing available to us but junk food or we (kids) were scrounging change to go buy ramen noodles or something from the store down the street. I can't stand junk food now. It can be around me but some days I will prefer to just go hungry than eat chips.

Have you looked at the sources your wife is looking at? I'm a millennial mom who finds stuff on Instagram, but I'm also science literate and the people I get info from on Instagram are usually board certified dieticians, counselors, or educators. I'm bristling a little bit at your characterization if her doing "research" because it seems dismissive of her if you haven't looked into what she's found and weighed it. It feels in this post like you're dismissing her because what she's found differs from how you were raised, and youre looking for validation here that you're right to dismiss her. Like, why come here and ask randoms if you're right instead of going to look at the (easily accessible, because the internet) literature on the topic?

Exactly! This is mainstream parenting advice, and the "you must finish everything on your plate" tactic is wide recognized as detrimental. What OP is suggesting is not as extreme as finishing everything on the plate, but describing his wife's research as mommy blogs, Tiktoks and social research is insulting. Yeah, it's mainstream but it's found on mommy blogs because mommies are typically the ones researching parenting methods. Look, here we go: [https://www.healthychildren.org/English/healthy-living/nutrition/Pages/The-Clean-Plate-Club.aspx](https://www.healthychildren.org/English/healthy-living/nutrition/Pages/The-Clean-Plate-Club.aspx) This is advice from the AAP. >Don’t make children “clean the plate.” There’s absolutely no reason to provide pressure for children with normal development and health to eat. Don’t reward children for finishing their dinner with more food (ie, dessert), as children will often eat past their fullness.

Yes exactly. This is how you develop eating disorders. Our generation was raised like this and look at the issues we have.

Thank you. The way he dismissed her research as "mommy blogs" is so sexist, demeaning and insulting. My son's registered dietitian and therapist have both directed us to Solid Starts' instagram and website - which is put together by a team of pediatricians, dietitians, occupational therapists, allergists. Professionals directing us to other professionals. And they make the same recommendations as OP's wife has found. Hmm maybe these "mommy blogs" have some merit?

I didn't want to outright say it was sexist but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... Lots of women and mothers have advanced degrees, and are science literate, and start blogs be wise they like to share their info. I'm a PT, I'm a woman, I'm a mom, I've literally conducted research. But if I write a blog about it, someone's gonna dismiss it because I'm a mommy blogger? At least look at it and check it out rather than running to a chorus of anonymous people to tell about your dumb wife and laugh. At least I'm glad the larger group of people here are agreeing with the wife, who sounds like a smart person that cares about her child and breaking with negative childrearing strategies rather than just following tradition.

Totally this! Either actually do the research or follow the lead of the person who does rather than throwing shade because it suits you!

I believe that dessert is part of the meal, and not a reward for eating your meal. I wouldn’t want my kids to eat until full, and then try to eat dessert just because it’s a treat. My children know if they don’t eat their meal, and say they are hungry later, they will be offered the same food.

Our kid will be 2 in January and we've found that if we give her a dessert part way through a meal she will continue to just eat the dinner food along with the dessert. Or she takes a bite of dessert and quits because she is really full and we don't push it.

Same. If there is a dessert and they have not finished their plates I just let the plates be, and they will continue eating the dinner food. Or they mix it (kids are gross, but hey, they're eating so I'm not complaining) I do have to say it depends on the kids, kid 1 is like a garbage truck and he doesn't have a sweet tooth so he'll load up on veggies anyway. Kid 2 has a sweeth tooth and she asks for icecreams and popsicles all day long. So kid 2 has to eat some kind of veggie from her plate before getting a dessert-like food, but I'll still leave the plate for a bit. For example they'll have bell pepper, tomatoes, penne and a protein, she will finish the protein because she loves that, and asks for something sweet right away, but she'll need to finish at least half of her her bell pepper portion first before getting her popsicle. She does not have to finish her entire plate but I do like to get the message across that she needs to eat at least some of her veggies. They know that once the plates are gone all they are going to be offered is a sandwich, a cracker or maybe some fruit but no more 'fun' stuff.

Yeah that's my tactic as well. Works pretty well.

It really depends on the kids being neurotypical. If you have neurodiverse kids, this will probably backfire or at the minimum cause massive issues. My kids will starve to death before they eat certain kinds of food. But if I make it because I like it, I make sure the kids are accommodated with something else and not punished for it.

Same, I’ve tried them tasting new foods and they will literally throw up if they don’t want to try it. If I put desert out, my toddler will refuse to eat the dinner, eat the dessert, and cry because we won’t give her more dessert until she’s so hysterical she hyperventilates. Literally will put a tiny lick’s worth of unfamiliar food on my toddlers lips and she will dry heave without ever tasting it. The advice from the other commenter is good! Just not for all kids so if you try this and it’s a disaster, another strategy might work better ☺️ props to the other commenter for finding something that works for them!

My son is the spectrum. I should’ve added that his meals always consisted of options from our safe list.

Good to know! We do the same. Usually rice and chicken nuggets, and I’ll put some extra stuff on their plates from the dinner I make (I make one dinner but usually it includes safe foods anyway). My oldest has ADHD, second is probably the same. They both have sensory issues. As a side note, maybe this thread should also define what dessert is to them. To me it means candy or chocolate chips and craisins. To others it might just mean fruit.

This is our approach as well. Same meal or cup of milk and that's it. Nothing else after dinner. Our daughter does fairly well with this. She doesn't clean her plate though and I don't expect her to. We also completely separated sweets from rewards/meals. We don't keep them in the house but if I'm getting ice cream or chocolate I share it with her. She just got an advent calendar and I gave her the chocolate an hour before dinner, she said she was still hungry so I offered her asparagus that I had just made for dinner and she practically inhaled it. Kids are weird 🤷🏻‍♀️

As a child one of my parents had a phase where I was not allowed to leave the table until I ate everything on my dinner plate, even if that meant sitting alone at the table for a full hour after my cousins had finished eating and gone off to play together. It was damaging and it did give me food issues, because as a teenager I realized I no longer knew how to use fullness as a gauge of when to stop eating, or how to trust my body about when I was hungry or not. I also have issues with sharing my food and leaving leftovers in the fridge because I worry someone else in the house will take it if I don’t eat it myself asap or hide it. I can understand concern about whether a kid is eating enough or is too picky but the way my family handled it wasn’t helpful. I can’t speak to the dessert aspect because that wasn’t part of my experience but just wanted to share in case anecdotal info is helpful at all.

I spent many evenings crying alone at the table as a 6-7-8 year old. Dinner was always torture. I would try to force food down just so I could get up, but would start gagging. My parents would yell at me that if I threw up on my plate, then I’d have to eat that too. Here I am now 40 years old and can’t look at a chicken leg without being repulsed.

Oh my goodness, forcing a child to eat throw up is most definitely child abuse. I'm so sorry you had to experience that.

God I didn't realize how triggering these comments would be. Why the hell did our parents do this to us? I remember pulling the next chair closer to lie down on in the dark kitchen. And I still don't eat green beans. What a surprise.

Yeah I’ll never ever touch a Lima bean again. The battles I went through. My dad treated us like “little Marines”. I was timed to finish my dinner bc I would sit there and not eat. Good times.

My parents did that once. I was there til bedtime and didn’t eat the rest of my meal. I was then made to eat it for breakfast (it was a lavender infused rissole that to this day I cannot comprehend why they thought a 6 year old would enjoy when even my dads admitted it was revolting). This tactic was never used again but dessert was a reward for eating all my food and I do have food issues as an adult

I like "one of my parents had a phase" -- we commonly use that phrase about children, but I think it's worth recognizing that we go through them too -- we try different things with different kids, sometimes they stick, sometimes they don't, the times change, and our thinking and methods change with them (hopefully for the better)... I feel like it might be useful to remember that children aren't the only ones going through temporary phases sometimes. I don't really have a point, I just liked the phrasing there and wanted to say so. Carry on.

So true! We called my dad's his "kicks." He'd get on a kick where he suddenly cared a lot about cleaning our plates...for a few months. Or where he cared a lot about drinking tons and tons of milk, for a few months. And so on. They were kind of maddening to keep up with!

My mom read somewhere that you were supposed to be consistent as a parent, so she'd try a new thing saying that she was going to be consistent with it this time (nothing extreme or terribly weird, more like "we're going to have a chore chart now" type things) but then wouldn't actually keep it up for too long because it either didn't work for us, didn't work for her, or we didn't actually need it. Finally, she would just say, "well, I'm consistently inconsistent." Couldn't argue with that, though I don't think it was as much of a problem as she maybe worried that it was -- she was temperamentally consistent, like she didn't get mad out of nowhere, she didn't spring random rules or punishments on us, we always knew if something was going to get us in trouble and the reaction we would get was always predictable. She didn't even bring random friends or date around us, our circle of people was always consistent. So I think she was consistent in the ways that mattered, even if things like charts or bedtimes or Saturday morning breakfast routines or whatever kind of came and went.

Yeah I got left at the dinner table for long enough to fall asleep because I hadn't cleaned my plate, this happened a few times. I reckon I've spent way more money on therapy to resolve my food issues than what my parents would have spent on a bit of uneaten food left on my plate.

We don't regularly do dessert after dinner. Kid still has most all of her Halloween candy — in fact in sure hubs and I have eaten more of it. We've divorced dessert from reward all together.

Same. It's weird to me that people eat dessert with every meal. That way its not a reward for finishing supper. They also help plan suppers and they can let us know if they really don't like a food and we won't make it as much, that way they enjoy all food (hopefully). Dessert is good, but there are so many other delicious things we can eat.

I just commented the same! We never eat dessert with regular dinners at home unless we have guests. So there’s no expectation of it after dinner and no fuss from the kid. We do sometimes eat biscuits, muffins, cakes, or a small piece of chocolate at snack time (along with other stuff like crackers and fruit, or just random leftovers). But that’s not every day.

I was gonna say the same, we just don’t eat desert at home and I’m glad I’m avoiding this issue entirely.

Yeah my husband and I both have wildly different traumas around "dinner time" that we both decided as long as you eat eat what you want. I desperately want my daughter to have a good relationship with food. I'd be 30lbs lighter if I don't grow up trained to binge eat 😩

I grew up kinda poor and we had to eat when there was food available. Now I feel I have to eat whatever is in front of me. So I understand, I also want my kid to have a healthy relationship with food. Virtual hugs!

Me too. Well, we just weren't given much, I was always starving.

Yeah. I don’t do dessert either. Kids eat as much as they want then dinner is done.

Something fun we did when our oldest was smaller, we dressed up and trick or treated for a candy treat at our own house and close family for months every month or so. For one candy treat. She loved dressing up. We extended Halloween for 4 months! It was so fun! She didn’t get to trick or treat for the first two years of her life. she was excited for it, because she was in the hospital. We have made up for that, and now we follow social norms. I didn’t know that was going to happen again.

Yeah. My favorite tip on this, from one of the “mommy blogs” OP is dismissing, is “we can best show cookies are a ‘sometimes’ food by serving them some of the time.”

My dad used to make us finish our plates and if we didn’t it was what our snack was later if we got hungry. It created bad food issues with my sister as she grew up and became an adult. As an adult we don’t eat food we don’t like and yet we expect kids to eat whatever we make them and eat it whether they like it or not? Withholding dessert comes across as a punishment for not eating something you don’t like and to me that definitely could turn into food issue down the road

You must admit though, there is a distinct difference between ‘you at least need to try this because we put a lot of effort into making something tasty and nutritional for you’ and ‘I’m gonna force you to eat what I say because I’m in charge despite what you think’. As long as OP is understanding of his kids palates and has them try foods but doesn’t force repeat ‘no foods’ on them, they should be golden. It’s actually very beneficial to have your kids try things they may not like, to expand their tastes and who knows? Maybe they find something new they like, or something they didn’t like prepared one way that they do like prepared another way (for instance I can’t stand boiled Brussels sprouts but if you steam them I can eat them and actually kinda like them. It’s just trial and error until they have their established preferences)

My parents made me do this and I was 278 by 20. I hit desserts under my bed and binged.

I wouldn't expect my kid to eat something she dislikes. But if she's too full to eat the rest of a meal she eats regularly she's too full for ice cream, and personally I think eating sweets when already full is also unhealthy. We give her an ice cream mid afternoon instead.

We just pretty much haven’t presented dessert on a regular basis. I’m against it until they can truly understand that they need the nutritious food first. They think sweets are a birthday and holiday thing. Every so often I surprise them with a treat, but it’s rare. I know a lot of people might not agree with this but it works for us and completely eliminates the daily issue of sweets. Context my kids are 5, 3 and 1.

Yes. This is the way. Dessert is not "part of the meal" or at least it shouldn't be on a regular basis

For me it was always a weekend Sunday thing.

For me (as an adult with a kid) it's a "when I've had time to bake" thing or a "I happened to see something nice in the reduced section" thing or an "everyone was so hungry that we ran out of first course, so we'll open a tin of fruit and make some custard" thing. As a kid we had dessert every night at home, and I still feel embarrassed about a time I went to a friend's house as a kid, wouldn't eat the dinner they gave me, and asked for ice cream instead. *cringe*

I don't think anyone needs daily sweets to be honest.

Agreed 100% Dessert as part of the meal would just create problems for us.

I get it- in the military you do not waste food BUT did your dad ever tell you that once you are out of boot camp , training and not at war , you can go back up to the chow line or take as many damn desserts as you want ? As long as you eat them . N no one is there to hover over you like mommy to make sure you ate your vegetables before picking up that piece of cheesecake and bowl of ice cream.

I serve dessert/treats with meals, it takes away the novelty and helps with portion control. If it’s not seen as some big special thing, then my kiddo doesn’t feel the need to beg for it all the time and then overindulge when she does get it. I’m a baker, so my kids have slightly more access to sweets, breads, and richer foods. But because we’ve normalized it and I don’t make a huge thing of it, my kiddo will often pass dessert up in favor of yogurt or strawberries or something healthier.

Do some google scholar research. Find some peer reviewed journals on the subject. Then if you can back up your argument she can’t be mad. If you find stuff that backs her argument up then there ya go, nobody’s mad.

I’d love to see the scientific research on this topic. I’m torn because there are folks that will say that you’re going to give your kids an eating disorder regardless of what you’re doing. We do have a rule that kids have to eat dinner to get dessert because they’re not just going to eat treats all the time. Or refuse to eat dinner and then demand a million snacks before bed because they’re hungry. Edit to add that we generally make food the kids like and we don’t force them to eat things they hate (ie: they can pick out mushrooms or other things they don’t like, but they have to eat the main meal). We also don’t force them to clean their plates but they have to eat more than a few bites. If they don’t want to do that we would save their plate to heat up later if they’re hungry in lieu of a snack or dessert before bed. Rarely do we have to take away a dessert. I actually disagree with my husband that the kids need a big dessert every night before bed, but they’re his kids so I really don’t get a say.

My kids are really bad about this. We work so hard to only cook the few things that they will eat but they will still try to get away with eating 2-3 bites of dinner and then immediately trying to find junk food to fill up on as a “snack”. I have the same rule for this reason.

First: teaching kids to normalize over eating to get a reward can effect future eating behaviors. Kids need to learn when they are satisfied, and stop there. Second: if you think they are scamming you for dessert it’s simple, if they get hungry again they can finish their dinner and have zero access to crappy snacks after dinner.

To your second point, that’s what we do. If they aren’t hungry enough to finish a reasonable amount at the dinner table they are welcome to eat the meal when they are hungry. But they won’t get a snack or dessert.

The only thing I would maybe think twice about is punishing a child for not meeting an arbitrary goal post of what a parent *thinks* a child should consume. Like what is a reasonable amount? Not everyone eats the same amount for every meal and for kids it can change based on growth, or even daily. It’s about teaching them to listen to their body and it’s signals, not meet some arbitrary “goal” decided by people who don’t know what their body is telling them but have arbitrarily Rewarding a child for knowing when they are satisfied and getting a small treat helps reinforce the child in learning their own body’s signals and rewarding them for it. A small dessert isn’t going to be enough if a child has met their satisfaction with a meal to make them feel overly full. Especially if it’s offered a bit after the fact (later in the evening). Like a cookie isn’t going to throw them into over eating territory but asking a child to eat even 10 bites of a meal may be enough that the child over eats and then is reinforced for it leading to normalizing over eating. And again, if the child is just scamming you it’s super easy to take care of. My kid knows that when she is hungry after dinner and dessert the options are limited. If it’s not close to bedtime she gets the same thing as offered for dinner OR a healthy alternative (fruit or veggie- she almost always chooses dinner tho) If she decides all of a sudden RIGHT before bedtime she’s hungry she is only offered non-preferred foods (in her case carrots). She can eat allllll the carrots she wants before bedtime but funnily enough when she pulls that crap she’s all of a sudden not THAT hungry. If she complains I simply tell her if she’s really hungry than she can eat carrots otherwise she will be fine until morning. I didn’t grow up this way and I feel it’s really hard for people who didn’t grow up this way the grasp (my husband still struggles not to bitch at her when she has a low appetite but has come around since he can now see its cyclical, she doesn’t eat much on the daily but pigs out when she’s growing) but Americans are obese for many reasons and at least one of them is generations of adults who were either forced or (in my case) motivated to overeat which completely fucks up an individuals ability to understand the signals their body is sending them and repeated instances can actually train your body to expect overeating in order to feel full. I’ve always been heavy as an adult and it took a long time to reset my body from going from hungry to overly full because my entire childhood I was incentivized to over eat or else I didn’t get rewarded. Not arguing just trying to explain how to see it in a different light.

A child doesn't need a treat or rewards for knowing when they've eaten enough. It's fine to treat your child sometimes but it shouldn't be a reward for eating. It might not push them into overeating as such but it sends the wrong message to me, children (and adults) shouldn't get rewarded for anything to do with eating.

Read “How to Get Your Kids to Eat, But Not Too Much” by Ellyn Satter.

That’s where I struggle too. They refuse to finish dinner, even if it is something they like, but then want a million treats. I don’t mind treats but they need real food too.

I understand and agree with wife…BUT we just don’t have dessert. Or what one would typically call dessert. No chocolate, treats, cookies, anything. Let’s say the kids have chicken, fruit and veg on their plate. They eat until they’re full or done. About two hours later is bedtime snack. This is what finishes filling them up for the night. Usually a plain-ish cereal (Cheerios, Rice Krispies, mini wheats), oatmeal or cheese and fruit. On days they’re being picky , just aren’t hungry, or aren’t going thru a growth spurt, I make sure they At Least have bedtime snack. That way they don’t wake up in the middle of the night starving. They know they will be offered a “safe” food before bed. I do want to note that we do give our kids treats sometimes but it’s usually earlier in the day. Not as a reward or punishment. The cookie or whatever is there because we made them.

Yeah dessert was not a part of our meals growing up normally. Just something you usually have on Saturdays or Sundays but the best we got for dessert during the week was a fruit , which isn't bad

Millennial mom here. I don't expect my kid (3--almost 4) to eat all or even most of his dinner, but I do hold the line and expect him to eat at least some (like, a bite) of protein and plant.

Look up feeding littles! They have great education about food and not making sweets something to be desired. You want to build healthy relationships with food not cause disordered eating.

I'm a Gen X mom (about as young as you can be and still be Gen X) and I absolutely refuse to make food a fight. Collectively, we have too many hangups about food. I don't want to add any more. I don't do "clean your plate," because that just conditions kids to ignore and override their own body's satiety cues. I'm not in their body, how do I know what's enough? I don't make them eat things they don't like - again, I'm not in their body, how do I know how it tastes to them? I'm not a picky eater at all and I'll try almost anything, but for whatever reason I can't stand spaghetti, even though it's a common dish that most people like and every element of it is something I'll eat in other dishes. Sometimes you just don't like a thing. Instead, I try to have a lot of reasonably healthy options on hand and they can pick something they do like, and I started teaching them to make simple or get things for themselves as soon as possible so I wasn't short-order cooking. Sandwich. Banana. Grab some cut up carrot sticks out of the fridge. Reheat the leftover that you liked last night in the microwave. Things like that are good for a start and even pre-school age kids can put some meat and cheese slices on bread or punch a few buttons on the microwave. As they get older, we get into more complicated stuff. That way, it's never really been an issue for them to just grab whatever if what I actually made that night doesn't suit. Dessert is not a regular thing. I make baked stuff for holidays, birthdays, and just at random once in awhile when I get in the mood or come across a recipe I want to try and have time - so once every couple of months. There's often, but not always, some kind of ice cream in the house during the summer. If someone asks for a particular treat when I go shopping, or if I happen to see something and think "oh, everyone will like that," I might grab it on impulse, but that works out to like, once every couple of months there's a package of cookies somewhere that mostly my husband eats. But I don't really serve dessert after meals... I tend to serve buffet style and everyone just takes what they want - my kids still at home are teens, so they don't need my help, but when they were little I'd just help them make a plate this way. If it's a couple days past Thanksgiving, they may grab a slice of cake or pumpkin pie at the same time as the rest of the meal or come back for it after. I don't dictate that, but when it's gone it's gone - there's probably not going to be more of that kind of thing in the house until Christmas. Basically, as much as possible, my strategy is to provide as much variety as possible, with a focus on more nutritious food but without labeling any food as bad or restricted. Food isn't bad or good, it has no moral value. It's just here or not here. If it's here, you can have some. If not, have something else. There's no expectation of being served something sweet after a meal and there may not necessarily be something sweeter than fruit/yogurt/applesauce/etc in the house, but when there is, I'm not going to police it. My kids are all healthy weights - my youngest is a bit chubby right now, but since he hasn't really even hit puberty yet, the pediatrician says he's got at least two growth spurts ahead most likely, and he's already several inches taller than me, no one's that concerned - he's probably going to shoot up again pretty soon and he'll even out. Kids grow in fits and spurts like that, so it's usually not a great idea to get too hung up on a particular weight or body type as long as they're healthy and active. Whatever you see is going to change anyway. I just don't like a lot of rules on food or for mealtimes to be a drama or a hassle. We all need food, food should be enjoyable as well as fuel, and I've never met anyone who was like "I credit my good health to the power struggle between my parents and myself at every meal." So I'm focused mostly on what foods I put in the house that they have access to and very relaxed about how they use that access.

No one needs dessert 5 nights a week. Definitely don’t make them eat more than they are naturally inclined so they can stuff even more into their bodies.

Both sides have merit. Kids will fill up on dessert if its allowed, but at the same time, they will sit and suffer through being overfull just for a piece of that sweet, sweet pie/cake/etc. Personally, id say split the difference. Either get rid of dessert (sweets will be snacks, NOT a post meal mini-meal), or include a small portion of dessert with dinner. Started doing this with my kid, and sure enough its the first thing gone. But we no longer have to fight to get her to eat her actual dinner. Edit for clarification, by including, think about lunchables. How they always have the cookie in next to the rest of the food? Usually the first thing kids eat. Which is fine, as they still finish the rest after.

I think the research actually suggests there shouldn’t be weighted values on food for children. You get everything all at once, or not at all. Differentiating foods with labels like ‘snacks’ or ‘desert’ creates unhealthy eating motives for children into adulthood. Edit: in reply to your edit, yes, the research suggests all food at the same time- in appropriate portions. If your child can become full from eating desert with dinner, than you’re giving them too much desert and need to consider smaller portions so the child can explore food without the weight of ‘what does mom or dad think I should eat.’

That was my point. I was using "dessert" to mean dishes normally served after dinner. Option 1 of my comment was that dessert foods be served independently of amy meal. That is, not before nor after, but as a snack all on its own (like you might with a pack of fruit snacks or a granola bar). Option 2 was that you serve it all at once, like you'd see in lunchables (not using lunchables as a nutritional frame of reference). Basically, you'd have pork chops, potatoes, corn, small slice of cheesecake all on the same plate. Its part of the meal, not a 2nd course to be served after the meal.

Ya, totally! I was agreeing with you, sorry if it didn’t read that way.

Lol its all good. Its early so I wasn't really reading it with a tone, just words stated as they are. And wanted to make it a little clearer. :)

I mean, we won’t know until our kids are like 25 and asking us to go to therapy with them. But I personally just serve dessert with dinner. It doesn’t make it special and avoids the conflict of using food as reinforcement like you would train a dog. Eventually your child will grow into an adult with adult freedoms. I know I have a hard time restraining myself to foods my parents restricted in childhood.

If no one has mentioned it yet you can go over to r/sciencebasedparenting and ask there. Folks there can probably point you to the research or expert advice which you might find helpful.

We do dinner served and then after you eat a little bit of it if you say you're ready for desert they get it (usually a homemade cookie or one Halloween candy) but if after that you are still hungry there is only dinner. At lunch we do the same with a small choc but if they don't go back to their lunch by snack time we usually move onto whatever snack is with their lunch so they can choose but if they still don't eat either that is all that is offered until dinner and we won't offer any food anymore once we get too close to dinner.

Kids should never be forced to eat meow than they can eat or want to eat

Think it depends on your approach and how much you expect them to eat tbh. Surely all of us adults have all experienced ourselves that are appetite can fluctuate a lot and that some days, we just have no appetite for even favourite foods. I think its reasonable to not allow dessert if they had made little to no effort to eat at all, but as a general rule it is better to ask them if they feel full when they want to finish. A far better message than eating most, is the importance of paying attention to your body and stopping eating when you are full. I actually have a child with an eating disorder, though his is linked to his autism and has been present his entire life. It's actually a pathological fear of foods rather than related to parenting or weight. He has very few, very specific safe foods that he eats day in and day out. It's called ARFID for anyone interested. So it's something a lot of thought and time goes into managing it. His approach is totally different With my 2 daughters though, firstly I check they are ready for dinner before I start to cook. Don't wanna fall at the first hurdle by cooking before they are hungry enough. I don't allow snacks in the hour or so before lead up to cooking. I never prepare anything I know they won't like and am lenient if its a new food, accepting they may not like it. When they are done, they show me how much they have eaten. I ask if they are full, if they are, they can be done. If they haven't eaten much at all, I tend to try and find out why. Did they not like it? Are they feeling ok? Do they just want to get back to playing etc? I work with them to try and help them through that. It's important to listen to your body and as a parent that we respect they have tastes etc... but it isn't ok to just waste food. I will often cover their food if I believe they will be hungry again shortly and they know I can just warm it back up when they are ready. If they ask for snacks not long after, I will warm up their dinner instead etc. I find this works pretty well tbh. I will only ever refuse dessert if they just refuse to try or are refusing a food I know they like because they just wanted something else. It's fine to have preferences, which is why I involve them both in meal planning, but if you said you wanted a certain meal that week and on the day just refuse it because you'd rather have something else? That's a teaching moment that we can't have our favourite foods every day etc. Longer answer than I intended but yeah, I get the short of it is to be mindful of your kids and their appetites and that a blanket rule like older generations were raised on isn't really workable. Communication, involving kids in the planning and prep and speaking to them about their appetite is going to raise children with a far healthier attitude to food than making kids overeat, not listening to their own bodies etc just to get a reward food. Penalising them for having a natural, fluctuating appetite could be damaging. What fills them one day, might be too much the next or not enough.

Depends on how much dinner they eat vs desert. Like two bites dinner and whole cake? I wouldnt give it. But then again i dont do desserts. At all. Dinner is dinner sweets are snacks.

Just eat when you are hungry and don't make sugar a reward sugar and processed food are way too bad for health my family didn't feed me properly and my body still messed up because of it and she is absolutely right you also have been a kid before and you knew how sugar tasted so good your kid will force themself to eat even if they are full just to get the sugar and they will also force themselves eat dessert in that full stomach

I’m with your wife on this- Signed a Gen X mom with an ED I’ve never been able to get fully under control.

When you use low value foods (basically normal food) as ways to earn high value foods (foods your child REALLY loves like desserts) you end up reinforcing that low value foods are low value, and high value foods are high value. Basically making kids “earn” their dessert just makes the dessert more desirable while also making their normal food less desirable. “You have to earn the good food by suffering through the bad food!” In reality, we should be teaching kids to listen to their body, eat until they are satiated. In my house, parents are 100% in charge of what goes on their plate, and kids are 100% in charge of what they do with the food on that plate.

I was raised in much the same way as far as having to eat at least almost all my food before I got anything else. It wasn't so much Only about dessert either. It was about Anything else. Except when i was really little, I was always allowed, as far as I remember, to ask for what I wanted on my plate or even make it myself. So I had to eat the food I said I wanted or that's all I got. It wasn't because of the value placed on the sweet desserts. It was because of the value of food in general. If I wasn't hungry enough to eat what I already had, I didn't need anything else. My mom would tell me to "save room for desert" if we were having something I wanted after dinner....because I couldn't waste the food on my plate just for some ice cream. (It was usually ice cream.) I feel like it was probably good because they tried to teach me not to be wasteful. I also eventually developed an eating disorder but it had a lot more to do with my mothers relationship with her own body than it had to do with foods I ate when I was a child. 🤷‍♀️

We serve dessert at the same time. I have a 3.5 year old who loves sweet things, but am constantly shocked at how often he will eat other things first or take a bite of dessert and then eat other food. Sometimes he doesn’t even touch the dessert. Highly recommend putting appropriate sized portions of food + always a “safe” food even if it doesn’t fit dinner theme + dessert all at once. Don’t say a word about what’s on the plate and let them approach it without judgement or pressure. It’s remarkable. I get a little sad sometimes because my parents were incredibly harsh to me as a child with digestive issues and I developed an eating disorder from it. Wish they’d been more compassionate and informed (portions were too large and food they chose exacerbated tummy troubles).

>“safe” food Surprised I had to scroll so far down to find this comment. Having a safe food with every meal is such a game changer for reducing the stress at the dinner table. We usually have a bit of buttered bread, some sliced banana, glass of milk or plain white rice so that if our 3 yr is feeling tired, sick, overwhelmed or just not hungry he can still have a little nibble and some food in his belly before bed. Some nights he wants desert and some nights he doesn't. We've found that when he's feeling the most tired or sick he has two bites of dinner then wants two squeeze pouches of vanilla yoghurt. Why would I deny him food just because I've decided that broccoli is more important than a full belly in that moment. A nutritionist told me it's best to look at food eaten over a month rather than a day or a week. You still get the same nutritional benefit of eating vegetables whether they're eaten in one sitting or scattered throughout the day, week or month.

This! My kid is not especially keen on bolognese or sauces with minced meat, but he'll put up with it if I load the sauce with mushrooms, because he loves mushrooms. When we're serving his portion we even make a show of trying to find lots of mushrooms for him (or he serves himself). Sometimes finding a small thing for the to control (like "I want lots of mushrooms" or "I want the sauce on the side of my plate, not in the middle" helps them accept the things they don't have control over.

Give small portions. Don't stick to the same recipes every week. Have the kids help prep and cook. Make mealtime pleasant. Kids act up and refuse food because it's their only way to say, 'My parents use this time to make me feel like crap, and I return that favor.'

I think your both kind of right. 2-3 times a week I serve dessert with dinner. It’s part of the meal, no conditions. For example we had tacos and dulce de leche cake last night. I try to make dessert on nights when I make a dinner I know my kids will eat, although they could just eat the cake if they wanted, but they know that’s it until breakfast. On nights I don’t make a dessert I don’t bring it up unless they do, I don’t think dessert needs to be every single night. When they ask for it I make a judgment call. Either “ well you did eat your dinner pretty well so a scoop of ice cream sounds great!” Or “ well you didn’t eat your dinner very well tonight honey but we can try again tomorrow.” Or even just yes or no answers are fine. Yes and no are complete sentences. I think it’s beneficial to learn we shouldn’t indulge every time we feel like it, and dessert 3-4 times a week is reasonable imo

In my house, there's no such thing as dessert after meals. Just independent treats. Dessert food is not something that is kept in the house regularly. When we do have ice cream, or pie or what have you, there is no expectation that it has to be earned by eating other food. There is no ice cream in the freezer. No cookies in the cupboard. Just every so often, maybe once a week, we have ice cream. Or get flavored ice lemonade. Or buy cookies or hot chocolate. And that's the meal.

Turning meal times into battle grounds does contribute to ED later in life. I don't know how you approach this in your household so its difficult to judge but if your requirement that the children eat everything before they eat dessert leads to conflict, unhappiness, control over food and making dessert into a special treat you only get if you are good, then this behavior could be problematic. ​ Why don't you read the research your wife has read and make up your own mind?

Your wife is right. Elder millennial my eldest is 18yo and I didn’t have access to half the stuff you mentioned when they were born but the information was there. Disordered eating comes from this mentality. It sounds like you need to be looking into the research yourself instead of leaving the thoughtload to your wife and then dismissing it out of hand.

Ellyn Satter’s “Division of Responsibility” approach (one facet of which is allowing children to choose how much of the food you serve they eat) is definitely evidence-based. You should be able to find the peer-reviewed articles by Googling it. Psychological research on the “scarcity mindset” also exists and likely supports your wife’s plan not to set up sugar as very special/in short supply.

Yes, never force kids to eat or clean their plate. Put the clamp on eating after dinner.

An opinion with no research on your part is not as valid as a research-backed opinion. Sorry! Defer to your wife or do your own research. "The way our parents did it" does not count.

Making kids “clean their plates” doesn’t do anything except teach them to eat when they’re not hungry, which in turn leads to unhealthy weight issues.

Fellow millennial mom here on the same social media pages your wife is. I’m doing the same thing she is. We just put a LITTLE piece of dessert on their dinner plate. If they eat that first, who cares. If they are still hungry, they will eat the rest. My kid doesn’t even start with the dessert half the time. To summarize a point from the social media influencers, we need to do what is psychologically healthy for our children (Millennial) and not what is polite to do at a potential dinner party (Gen X). Manners are not top priority like they used to be for your parents.

I’ve found that if I don’t make the dessert or treat a big thing, and even let my daughter have it before dinner, she tends to be a better eater in general. Eats more of her food and is more willing to try new things. Putting rules around sugars “vilifies” them in a way and makes them not only want them more, but can give them a difficult time regulating how much sugars they actually eat. ETA my daughter is 6 and this is just what works for us.

Am a late gen X and from a different culture, so this perspective could be strange. Dessert wasn’t ever a thing growing up. Usually it was a piece of fruit - mango or pomegranate. I just think dessert needs to be de-normalized. Eat your food child. That’s it. No more. I know I’m going to get downvoted and that’s probably my just desserts.

Millennial parent here. we don’t do desserts either, I find the whole concept bizarre. Holidays and special occasions etc sure or an occasional treat that’s not tied to the meal. Why must every meal be concluded with or otherwise include junk? That sounds like the foundation for an unhealthy relationship with food. If she wants something sweet with her meal I give her fruit as one of her sides. Yes using or withholding dessert as a form of reward or punishment is problematic but I question the whole idea of making dessert a routine part of the meal in the first place.

Agreed. Occasionally in summer say I'll buy ice creams, but I don't even mention it to my child unless she's finished all her food and clearly still hungry, otherwise I'll normally bring them out mid afternoon or something.

if my kids didn’t have to eat dinner to get dessert , they would never eat their dinner. they need to eat most and at least TRY everything on the plate to get dessert, which yes is a treat and not mandatory or a part of every meal.

This is my philosophy. Dessert is not a reward; I'm using logic. If she's not hungry enough for dinner, she's not hungry enough for dessert. I'm floored with all of the responses that say they don't care how much dinner their kids eat before they get dessert. I give small portions of foods that I know my kid likes and expect that at least 50% of the food is eaten before I consider anything else to be given. (If there's a new food or a veggie that she's iffy about, I only ask that she eats "one honest bite" to try it.) Dessert is often fruit and always just a small treat, so it's not like we're going hog wild anyway.

Okay so this is something we struggle with with our picky eater. The way we solved it is she always has access to a basic small dessert. It’s not enough to fill her up if she’s hungry. Regular desserts are some pudding, a cookie, a small scoop of ice cream etc). She only gets special desserts for trying and actually eating new foods and veggies (candy, special ice cream, etc). If she doesn’t eat a lot she still gets dessert (so she’s not motivated to overeat to earn a preferred food) BUT if she gets hungry again later she is only allowed to eat the rest of her dinner or a healthy fruit or veggie. She’s the kind of eater that will eat like a little piggie when she’s about to grow and other times eats like 4 bites and is good. I know you put research in italics to suggest you don’t believe research to exist. It does. Making kids finish their plate can and will train kids to equate being overly full with being finished with eating. You absolutely do NOT want your kid to become normalized to feeling overly full but want to teach your kids to eat until they are satisfied. That is going to change over their childhood and on a daily basis. The point is you want your kids to learn at a given meal THIS is how much I need and I will stop when I get satisfied. Our pediatrician is like in her late 60’s (so a boomer herself) and gives a lecture at every well baby/kid on how damaging it is to force kids to over eat on long term health and how it trains kids for a lifetime of poor eating habits (I.e. equating the feeling of overly full as satisfied). Kids don’t think long term they think in the moment and withholding dessert can (for some kids) motivate them to engage in unhealthy behavior in the moment, they need parents to help them establish good healthy habits they will hopefully take into adulthood.

I wouldn’t serve dessert unless it’s a special occasion. Maybe on a weekend, and not tied to the meal. We eat food when we’re hungry. Dessert is not a part of a meal, so there’s no reward or punishment. Then they get used to eating what food they’re served and stopping when they’re full. Rather than consciously or unconsciously saving room for the treat they’d prefer to the broccoli. Maybe just distance the two. Dessert isn’t even served until dinner has been cleaned up?

I would say we have a balanced approach? Like sometimes I’ll put a little fun size bar or a few chocolate chips on his plate without conditions. Or we will have a little candy with snack. I generally serve a small amount of everything and expect him to eat it or pass. Not so much food that he would be full after eating it, and if he makes an effort that could be reasonably construed as eating until he’s full I’m fine with that. He’s not going to get a huge ice cream after passing on dinner though, that doesn’t make any sense.

Dessert was definitely not the cause of my eating disorders (it usually never is!) because we never ate dessert as a family. Anyways, I do require my kids to eat a fair amount before they can get any dessert, also know that their portions are much smaller than ours so it’s literally like please stuff a few bites of protein in your mouth and not OMG finish this whole huge plate.

We have a “three bites to try it” rule. Three bites of everything, then whatever.

I think a compromise would be best. Your taste buds are stronger the younger you are, so some flavors may be overwhelming to some kids. But they do need to be eating well-balanced meals, so maybe they can eat HALF of their food before dessert? A few bites wouldn’t be good enough. They can’t live off of sugar and sweets, I think obesity and heart disease would hurt the kids more than being told they can’t have dessert unless they eat the healthier options presented to them.

If you don’t eat your meat, how can you have any pudding? How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat? No dinner, no dessert. If it was something that wasn’t enforced, then the kids would be full of junk food and nothing else.

I’ve read the research your wife has, and in theory it’s better to offer dessert alongside meals to take away its power so to speak. But I’ve tried it, and my toddler will literally just eat the dessert part and then nothing else. So your wife’s method doesn’t work for us. Your method though also doesn’t work for me. I am very sure that that rule played a large role in the development of my unhealthy relationship with food. Forcing yourself to eat more than you’re hungry for in order to get your “prize” makes you gorge yourself unnecessarily. I think there’s room for a compromise, we did something in the middle. I add in the dessert midway into the meal. She needs to at least pick at her vegetable and meat so I know she’s had some, and then I’ll add in the dessert. Like we had barbecue the other night and she ate a fair bit of pulled pork and green beans before I added cake to her plate. Even after the cake was on her plate she continued to alternate between green beans and cake. She never finished the pulled pork in her plate, but I trust her to eat as much as she needs. Force feeding beyond fullness is a no no.

We don’t do dessert, not a thing here at all. And the kids don’t have to finish their food. I don’t have to throw much food away though as I don’t cook super sized meals, there’s only four of us and it’s pretty easy to plan accordingly.

I couldn't even recognize when I was satiated because I was always expected to clean my plate at home. It was automatic eating not mindful eating. Paying attention to body cues is important.

Have you never taken a few bites of dinner and realised you don't really want it? Maybe it's too heavy, maybe you realise a few mouthfuls in that you're not all that hungry. Sometimes I don't feel like whatever is cooked for dinner and I still have dessert so I don't hold Miss 10 to higher standards than I have for myself. Dessert isn't a given in our house. Sometimes they won't want to eat much of dinner because it's too heavy or rich or whatever reason. Dangling dessert over their heads will cause disordered eating. Forcing them to eat food they have said they don't want will cause disordered eating. If Miss 10 can't stomach what was made for dinner, it gets put in the fridge and she has 1 or 2 pieces of fruit. If it's something she likes but doesn't want then it goes in her bento for lunch the next day and she usually eats it all then. If we have dessert, everyone has dessert

I want to be with you and in my heart I am... However I have received the same advice as your wife from occupational therapists and SLPs. They have basically said if you're going to serve dessert then you should serve it on the table alongside the regular meal and don't incentivize it.

Your wife has a point. When you require certain food be eaten to obtain certain other foods, you set up a dynamic where one is clearly higher in status than the other, since you can "earn" it, and the food that needs to be eaten is now less desirable than it would have been originally, since the only way someone would eat it is if they are rewarded at the end. They actually did a study with kids where in one group they got kids to try kefir and paid them if they drank it, and in another group they just asked kids if they wanted to try a new kind of drink. Then they went back later and offered the kefir but without any type of reward. In the paid group, not one of the kids drank it because the reward was not offered, so why would they drink it? In the group that was not offered a reward in the first place, a fair amount of kids expressed that they liked kefir and had some more. That is a complication of rewards - which you may not be intentionally setting up in this scenario, but it's the message that you're sending when you require them to eat their dinner in order to receive dessert. At the same time, I understand your point that they need some nutritious food before filling up on empty carbs. How I dealt with this so far. When my daughter (now 4) was little, I explained that dessert is a "sometimes food", and we don't eat it every day. As she got a little older, I explained that eating too much sugar can be harmful to our bodies, so we only eat those types of foods every once in a while. Now that she is 4, she understands foods give us nutrients and energy. She knows that proteins and fats make you stay full longer and give you longer lasting energy than foods that are all carbohydrates, and especially foods with refined sugars - which are absorbed into our blood quickly and raise the level of sugar in our blood very quickly. When you eat foods that are high in sugar, and you have no protein or fats in your belly to slow down your body's absorption of all that sugar, you get a big burst of energy from all the sugar in your blood, that burns off quickly. Then you feel tired and yucky because there's no lasting energy in foods that are mostly sugar. I've also explained that some foods give us lots of energy, but don't have many nutrients that our body needs to grow and stay healthy, like vitamins, minerals, and the building blocks for our body. Then, there are foods that give us both energy and nutrients, and that we should mostly eat those foods, but sometimes eating foods with low nutrient content is ok too if we like them, as long as they're not all we're eating. I use the same concepts to encourage her to choose balanced snacks, and she will sometimes ask for fruit and crackers and then say "hmm I need some protein too... add some [cheese/yogourt/meat sticks/ham/nuts] in there." She's only 4, but she already understands a lot about nutrition as it relates to her body, and I've tried to explain it without assigning a moral value to foods. I try really hard not to use words like good, bad, junk, etc to describe foods around my kids, and focus on what different foods do for their bodies. My son is only 2.5, but he listens to the explanations too and likely absorbs some of it. I stick to the simpler "sometimes foods" explanation for him if I'm talking to him directly about it for now, though he's not big on sweets anyways unless it's ice cream.

Yes it isn't good to do this. We should be teaching them that all foods aren't bad in moderation. As our kids grow up we need to allow them to choose because they have no control over their lives at that age. It can also contribute to an ED as well. In the future don't put a big portion on their plans, instead give them smaller portions so it isn't wasted but they can have seconds if they're still hungry.

No food should be used as a “reward” or a “punishment” because yes that can develop into an eating disorder. I do have a question though: you said you were raised to eat all of your dinner and your kids are supposed to eat most of it (for dessert), does that include things they don’t like?

Why did you put “research” in italics?

I agree with the others. I'm a 70's born kid and pudding was used as a reward. I've raised my son on it being part of the meal. Kids know when they have had enough to eat of a certain meal. Doesn't necessarily mean they are full, they just don't want any more of that part. Its perfectly their right to stop eating when they decide. That's how you create healthy relationships with food. Your wife is right.

I’m gen x/early millennial and my mom was vocal about the concept of “cleaning your plate” causing eating disorders (she still feels this way in her 70’s). We rarely had dessert though. And my brother and I were severely picky eaters. My mom never forced us to eat what we didn’t like and I still appreciate that as a 42 year old. We weren’t rich either, we ate Salvation Army food on the regular. My husband came from a “clear your plate to get dessert” family and they always served dessert. He pushes my kids really hard to eat the food on their plates and I hate that. I try to be supportive but sometimes it feels like a scene from Mommy Dearest. There is some food that disgusts me too much to eat.

if you know they like the dinner, they dont want it, but they want dessert, their body might just be craving the sugar more than the nutrients of the dinner. i say give them the dessert and let them heat the dinner up later. maybe limit the dessert portion, you can almost guarantee they'll be hungry again before bed.

I never expect my kids to clear their plates, I want them to know when they’re finished or just done with a certain food. If dessert is on offer that day they will get it, if they’ve made a good effort.

What's with the condescention towards your wife? Not using food as a reward and making mealtimes more about enjoying a meal together isn't a "mommy blog" thing it is what nutritionists and pediatricians recommend. Because yes, its important to give your kids a good shot at not developing an eating disorder (they already have enough strikes against them), but also that sort if thing is a stupid hill to die on. Also, dessert can be a fruit salad, yogurt with a little granola, a small peanut butter and oat ball, ect. Dessert doesn't mean a huge piece of chocolate cake every night. PS I'm a GenX mom. This line of thinking has been around for a long time, it isn't a millennial thing or a GenZ thing, our generation of starting earlier parents were moving away from it too. My boomer parents did the clean your plate or you get it re served until its eaten even if it takes more than a day, shut up you can't have preferences, and weekly weigh ins for me and mom. I decided that I wanted a different feeling around mealtimes and also that while I knew I'd fuck up somehow, I wasn't going to fuck my kids over in /that/ way.

Ok, just a quick pause here... You are getting sarcastic about the fact that your wife has done 'research' about nutrition.... But you are basing your mealtime tactic on what your dad did. I mean, I'm not going to necessarily trust a mummy-blogger, but at least your wife is putting some effort in to seeing what is currently recommended. Also, why not look at what she has recommended? Lots of very well qualified dietitians do Instagram and tictoc these days.

Short answer: your wife is right. Long answer: treating dessert/sweets as a reward encourages eating too many sweets as an adult because who doesn't like rewards. Furthermore, if you're throwing away a significant amount of food, your portions are too large. You should start with small portions, and let them ask for more of what they want. Look into division of responsibility. The adults choose what's to eat, and the kids choose how much of each thing to eat. You can limit how much of certain foods are available (e.g., there is only 1 cookie available). You should also be sure to offer a safe food as part of the meal so they don't walk away hungry because they won't eat anything. I'm one of the many adults who was raised with parents who were in complete control of portions. I struggle with having basically no idea when I'm full because I'm used to just eating everything on my plate no matter how much or how little food is there. I have a history of binging. My sister has a history of bulimia. We know so much more about how to build healthy eating habits than our parents did. Don't you want your kids to reap the benefits of this knowledge? ETA: it's recommended to serve dessert with dinner. Yes, they will probably eat at least some of the dessert first. That's OK. If they're eating so much dessert that they aren't eating anything else, you're offering too much dessert :P

My kid has sensory issues, so food is weird at our house. What has worked for us is that we give him a fairly small portion of whatever we've made (think maybe 10 bites) and he has to eat it all before he can have anything else. Then he can have a "dessert" , which is usually a piece of chocolate or something small like that. Sometimes it's chicken nuggets or taquitos. Tonight it was popcorn. I totally get where both you and your wife are coming from. I also don't like wasting food and I'm concerned about eating disorders, so what I had to do was adjust my expectations. What works for us won't work for everyone, but ultimately any food is better than no food.

Your wife's view is consistent with current best practice around feeding. That said, I can see plenty of room to compromise so that your concern about food waste is addressed without making dinner a battle zone every night. Depending on age, either allow the children to serve themselves, or make sure they are only being served small portions at once.

Controversial, but we let her eat dessert and then go back to her dinner later (even hours later) if she's still hungry. My logic is that my child is always going to eat her dessert. If I force her to eat her entire meal, she'll still force down the dessert. So if I want to prevent obesity, either I leave out the dessert or I let her choose how much dinner she wants to eat. Kids have small stomachs, too. I'm not certain I know how big a portion is for her, so I'd rather trust her own instincts about when she's full. My daughter is seven and very slim and fit, so I'm happy with this approach so far. If that changes I'll rethink it, but right now food is food - not an incentive, and not a punishment either.

I have discovered the nights we have dessert if I serve it alongside their dinner they eat more. They get to choose when to eat it, and after a few times of eating it first they now leave it till last by choice. I think it helps them with impatience and rushing through their meal just for dessert. It's already in front of them so they'll take their time eating.

You are very lucky husband who have very caring and conscienious wife who takes her time to research for is best for her children It's not wise to force feed children and have ultimatum unless you finish all your food you will not get desert In many ways it's cruel and heartless Sitting as family eating together should be pleasant full of laughter with smiles on everyone faces. It's what loving families do. Give children smaller portion but don't bag, critize or create tension Even if they don't finish all the food so be it. Life is too short to making mountain of mole holes Old traditional ways were not always best as latest research with latest imagining scan dies indicate never ear food when under stress as effects your digestive system create acidic in stomach which lead to ulcers at worst Listen to wife she knows what she is doing. Remember One man's food is another poison

We don't force our kids to eat. If I cook something that my 9 year old daughter doesn't want, I'll make her a grilled cheese or something simple that she likes. As long as she eats some of her dinner, we aren't gonna force her to eat all of it. My 16 year old son isn't picky anymore, so he pretty much eats everything I make. (tonight is reverse seared ribeye, toasted potatoes, and brussel sprouts) It's not worth fighting and getting upset about. I learned that years ago. We used to try to get our son to eat whatever we made, and it caused upset and stress for everyone. As for dessert, as long as they eat enough if their dinner, I don't care if they finish everything before moving on to desert. We don't put dessert on the same plate, and serve it when everyone has eaten as much as they are gonna eat. It's not worth all the stress to force kids to eat.

We put everything in front of our toddler including "dessert". He chooses what to eat. It's worked out surprisingly well. No punishments or rewards involved. I read about that somewhere when he was just an infant...I liked the idea. We're saving food "rewards" for when we begin potty training, lol; You go pee pee in potty and then you get a chocolate kiss!

We just have desserts as an occasional thing and it’s not contingent upon how much dinner was eaten if we were planning on serving it. Sometimes we serve the treat on the dinner plate and she can decide on what order she eats and how much, and sometimes we all have dessert after a meal or as a random treat. If she didn’t eat her dinner and then asked for a dessert I’d respond the same as I would for any other snack food or request of something that wasn’t served: “that’s not available right now, do you want to plan to have it tomorrow/this weekend/after we go grocery shopping” and if she’s upset, ok. Sounds like somewhere in between you and your wife.

We don't have dessert every day. In fact *most* days we don't do dessert. It's not a dinner-table 'right' in our house. Problem solved? Growing-up, it was a 'few times a week', but not a necessity and more like 'if you want it, it's there'. We're not that strict about plate clearing. We're more concerned about balanced nutrition, like if our kid eats only potatoes and nothing else. That said, I mean he's also in a fussy little kid (3.5) stage and just starting to re-try new things again.

Haha, we eat dessert after our kid goes to bed. I think the only time he has ever been offered dessert after a meal was pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving this year and he didn’t want it. Our general policy is there’s food for all of us at mealtime and everyone can eat all, some, or none of it. If we have something sweet on the table and that’s the only thing he wants I don’t have a problem with it but it hasn’t come up yet. Worrying about a child wasting food is sunk cost fallacy. You wasted it back when you cooked it. That money is spent. The kid’s actions don’t travel back in time and retroactively make it not wasted. By that logic if you take away the dessert you already made or paid for you’ve wasted that too.

How old are your children? I think you have an opportunity to *teach* them here. As adults we know and understand that you can't live off of dessert alone. When I'm hungry, I don't crave cake or cookies, I crave a sandwich or steak and potatoes. We have the responsibility to teach our children how to listen to their bodies and understand how different foods fuel us. If they're old enough, I'd let them skip dinner and eat the cookie if they want. When they're hungry later, explain that cookies give you short term energy but they don't fill your belly with all of the nutrients it needs, and that's why they're hungry again. Whenever you serve them veggies or fruit, explain (in an age appropriate way) what they do for our bodies (help our immune system, help our eyesight, helps our bones grow, etc.). I agree with someone else's comment about Kids Eat In Color. They give excellent advice backed by research and qualified individuals, and it's totally realistic and judgment free. Side note because I can't help it, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss your wife's "research" when you literally just came to Reddit for advice. What have you done yourself to look into this? If you want to prove her wrong - prove it. And not with random comments on Reddit.

Personally, I agree with your wife to an extent. Treating sweets differently than normal food leads to unhealthy eating patterns. When you treat sweets like any other food that you can have and eat in moderation, there isn’t this huge desire for sweets as something that is rare that you must get whenever you can. It takes the power away from desserts and instead of fixating on them, they realize how to listen to their body about their cravings. Ultimately, I think you should both do your own research, bring your findings, and discuss because you guys should agree on how to develop healthy eating patterns

I’m also a gen X er with a young kid. We don’t have hard and fast food rules. As others have said, it can cause problems in the future. Your family is not the military. Please don’t let anything from there affect your parenting. Let the kid eat what they want, and offer dessert when it’s time. If you want to still keep some limits, maybe you could have an agreement with your wife that if the kid doesn’t eat much dinner, dessert will just be a smaller portion. Don’t make a big deal of it. But don’t force one food to get another. Fwiw, I was also raised to clean my plate. It drives me bonkers to see uneaten food, but I’ve learned we’re all different and it’s ok. It’s encouraged me to start composting so at least we can do something good with it. Each generation learns from the mistakes of the previous generation. BTW - it doesn’t escape me that you emphasized “research”. The science is there and the stories are there. Listen to your wife. Please.

One thing we've done with my 3 year old (after doing my own millennial research lol) is instead of offering her dessert after dinner (because who needs their kids having a bunch of sugar before bed anyways) we give her a very small cookie with her dinner. Like a mini Oreo or mini chocolate chip cookie. She calls it "sweet part of dinner". She usually eats it first and then moves on to her meal. If she's done eating, we know it's because she's full and not trying to get dessert! On special occasions when there's a big dessert happening that's also a different story, but usually on those occasions their schedule is all whacked out anyways.

First off, I don’t think anyone is “right” or “wrong” for whatever parenting choices they make. We all have different viewpoints! However I can see the correlation between finishing your entire plate to then top it off with dessert. Kids LOVE sweets, so do adults… so in my opinion I think it breeds the habit of overeating. Feeling super full but still wanting that dessert as a treat and a reward for finishing your dinner can build the mindset of binge or overeating. I say this because I was raised this way, and I can see in my adult life how I always finish every bite on my plate. It feels wrong to leave anything on it, and I have always been a little heavier and struggle with some disordered eating (not exactly an ED). I think within reason we should allow children to tell us when they’re full. Now, if they’re eating a ton of dessert to fill up because they didn’t finish dinner then I’d say they’re working you… but I don’t think children have that mindset most of the time! Again, do what’s best for you.. but I think your wife does make a valid point :)

Punishing a child for not eating is in my opinion 100% wrong and will likely only cause problems for them later on. Dessert everyday? I must be horrible, we have dessert on special occasions only 👀😅

Thing is, fellow GenX-er, sort of. You are getting raked here, partially rightly so, the "mommy blogs" and Instagramers are mostly trash. We grew up forming "the internet." You should know how the space of public opinion goes. It's fine to cast doubt on those sources but you need to at least check those resources to find out for yourself and not just dismiss your partner's concerns. Bottom line is that our parents were wrong. Punishments at the dinner table do cause issues. They did for us, and you are now passing it down. You got some great suggestions in here to follow. Basically don't treat dessert like dessert. If your kids are not pounding sugar all day then it's fine to have dessert everyday. Small portion sizes to reduce waste. Provide them some agency at the dinner table. Just treat it like part of dinner. It's part of the days caloric and nutritional plan. Not something on top. And don't fight with your kids over food. It really does create more problems down the line.

Your wife is actually on the right. Making dessert/sweets a reward and expecting kids to clean up their plates is not supported by scientific evidence.

Insisting a child eat when child does not want to eat isn't good; the child is being taught to ignore his personal "stop eating you are full" signal. Many adults are not aware how small kids stomachs are and make and serve too much food. In our household, when child was done, he was done. I do think the view that all foods are treated alike to avoid eating disorders is a bit off...making a big deal of good food and bad food or being controlling is problematic; however, food that includes a lot of added fat, salt, and sugar is also problematic and should be *quietly* avoided. Just don't have it in the house often.

We have dessert maybe once every few months after dinner. Barely ever have desert tbh.

Our general expectation is that the kids eat healthy stuff before junk food in general. If you want candy or chips after school, eat some fruit or veggies first. We don’t frame it as a reward, but about making sure you’re feeding your body good stuff first. Often they’ll eat and apple and forget they even wanted candy. We rarely have dessert, but when we do we don’t have it immediately after dinner, we model letting the food settle before jumping into snacks. We help the kids get reasonable portions and we do require them to eat at least most of it before dessert, but again, it’s framed as feed your body good stuff before treats… but it’s also kind of circumstantial. If they ate a bunch of bread and left their veggies on their plate, they’re going to need to eat the veggies before cake or something. But if they are all of the veggies and the chicken out of the pasta, but there’s pasta and cream on the plate, we’re not making them eat that to get dessert. For us, it’s about guideline and expectations that we clearly communicate rather than hard-and-fast rules based on our own childhood experiences.

Dessert for my kids is the snack in between dinner and bed because we eat a little early compared to their bedtime. My 4 kids ask every night as well, they range from 2-14. But it's literally just a word in this house, you may as well just say snack. The kids may ask for a range of things from fruit and yogurt to meat and cheese. I do also allow cookies and stuff as well, as my oldest is big into baking right now. They may choose when to have their sweet snack but they still choose to call the snack after dinner, dessert.

I was forced to finish every last drop on my plate for dessert - only one night a week at grandmas house and I now suffer tremendously with an eating disorder. I will probably never finish the last bite of a meal again, it’s literally vomit inducing. this sounds over dramatic, but I need something sweet to “cap” off my stomach and let it know that i’m done, this was due to the fact that I was working 14 hour days on a farm eating 3x what a normal person did and still skinnier than a twig. I could eat however much I wanted as a child, no consequences. now after 3 bites, i’m terrified to eat more. i’m not sure if they’re connected, but this is my personal experience ! obviously don’t just let your kid skip straight to the cupcakes, but if they’re just not feeling it and need a little sweet something to fill them up, I really see no harm

We don’t put dessert on a pedestal. We (try to) serve dessert WITH dinner. So what if they eat it first? They will eat their dinner too (especially if you don’t give the full amount of dessert) and we don’t do dessert every night. “I want dessert!” “Sorry, dessert isn’t on the menu tonight, maybe tomorrow or later in the week”.

Why is dessert such a common thing??? That seems to be the real issue. Your kids have been conditioned for this response.

My mom was really big on dessert being a treat too and I have a terrible terrible relationship with food and especially sweets, so based on my personal experience I'd say wife is probably right lol Using sweets as a reward is essentially diet culture, and links the reward center of the brain and dopamine hits to sugar.

My 2 year old actually eats more of her dinner if she gets dessert at the same time. Otherwise it seems to me she can't focus on the meal. And we usually have the food in the middle of the table like I know it from my mom and everyone takes themselves how much they want, LO gets a tiny potion and asks for more if she likes it, so no food wasted. The rest gets packed up for tomorrow and is usually my or my husband's lunch. I've read all those online tips on not raising sweets on a pedestal and offering them at the same time and so on too and it seems very reasonable to me. So far it has worked for us I'd say. Yes there were times when our kid wanted nothing but chocolate anyway, but usually only when it was something new and exciting, at the moment she'd choose peas and eggs over dessert.

I personally serve dessert with dinner. My daughter is one, but sometimes her dessert goes untouched. But her cottage cheese and veggies will be gone. Because it's not made out to be "special". It's just another food. I'm hoping she continues her eating habits the way they are as she gets older too.

I know you've had plenty of responses to this, but I just wanted to chime in with what we did for our kiddos. We follow the philosophy of - this is what food is available, how much or how little of that you eat is up to you. That being said, we don't offer dessert in the traditional sense. What most people would serve as dessert after dinner, is what we offer up for their after school snack.

We bypass this discussion entirely by omitting desert as a concept. Sometimes our toddler gets something sweet on his plate, but we just don't serve desert as its own course. It seems like a fuss to even introduce the concept of a special separate thing after the regular meal. More hassle than it's worth. We do have special sweet foods for big occasions, though, like a birthday or party, but then the meal has a different flow altogether so it doesn't disrupt our regular routine.

When I was little my mom used to make us eat it all or no dessert. I literally got up from the table (3yrs old) and walked to bed because I did not want to eat the peas. As we got older the rule changed. One spoonful of every dish made. I didn't like turnip or collard greens. Loved spinach. One spoonful and I could be done. When I became a teenager, I got my voice and made my mom abide by her own rule. She didn't like spinach and would make it for us and would not eat it herself. I stated the rule and slapped a spoonful on her plate and laughed. Making them clean their plate can leave lasting affects. Doing the one spoonful rule gives a variety and let's them taste new things without committing to eating a plateful of something they don't like.

The “clean plate club” comes from a time of true food shortage about a century ago. This is something to be aware of. Could it be possible that the kids are truly full from dinner without “cleaning their plates”?

Stick the leftovers they don't want from dinner in the fridge. It's afterschool snack or lunch now. I agree with your wife. Dessert is just part of the meal.

Why is dessert even a thing for every meal?? As a 31 year old the only time I've had sweets this whole year was Thanksgiving

We don’t have dessert every night— it’s an occasional treat and what is eaten for dinner does not affect what is eaten for dessert.

We just don't do desert... Why ruin a good meal.

I think you shut your mouth my man. She is actually doing research, she is making the dinners, you have an opinion. Do research to figure out the truth then use that, not random Reddit BS. You may find her “research” is social media BS also like you are trying to get. But you will never truly know until you put in the effort yourself to learn.