Here's the key!

Our culture seems to assume that any choice a child makes will be a "bad" one. When I started to believe, to Trust, that my children WILL make good choices, they STARTED to make good choices.

Talking about different types of foods, modeling healthy eating behaviors, and helping them choose (rather than choosing for them) will enable them to make the right choices for themselves.

This may take time for children who have been previously restricted, whether or not the restrictions were overt or subtle.

[Sandra:]

It's only been a month. It might take more than that for them to get as much candy as they feel they've missed in five or seven years. You scarcified it and made it valuable. Let them gorge. They'll get over it. If you don't let them have it now, they will continue to crave it, sneak it, and pack it in. Make it plentiful, and that will make it less desireable.

[Schuyler:]

Sneaking is horrible. We had a family over to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. One of the first things their daughter ever said to me was that she didn't eat sweets 'cause they were bad for her. I made some noncommital noise. Or maybe repeated what she said or something. Anyhow, when she came to ours I found her in the kitchen on more than one occasion very quietly putting her hand in our very public and full candy bowl. It's right next to the fruit. It's often full of things that I have to throw away because they've melted as neither Simon nor Linnaea want to eat them. We had gum in the bowl. Sugar-free gum because the dentist suggested that Linnaea's weak teeth might do well with frequent gum chewing and that her cavities had little to do with what she ate. This little girl had never had gum before and Linnaea showed her how to chew it, but she kept eating it. Slowly and with careful little bites chewing it and swallowing it. She made sure that her mother and stepfather never saw. Eventually she was found out. The scene was so painful. They leapt on her and screeched about how gum is a petroleum product so she was swallowing a lump of petroleum. David and I intervened a little, but probably not enough. I always feel so awkward in those situations. We tried to make light of the situation and are now weighing whether we want to ever have them over again.

The little girl was completely screwed from the beginning. Because she has limited access to sweets, pretty much completely, it is the holy grail of foods. Whenever she comes over she will gorge because she will never not know scarcity. She will never trust that the sweet flavor will be something that she can experience with any kind of regularity. And her parents can point at that response and use it to justify their reticence to let her have sweets.

[Sandra:]

Please read. . . all of this: http://sandradodd.com/t/economics. It's by Pam Sorooshian, and is "Economics of Restricting TV Watching of Children." It will apply to food too.

[Schuyler:]

Pam's piece on marginal value/utility is such a wonderful must be read article. Take the time. It succinctly puts what I could babble on about and never phrase perfectly in many e-mails.

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We have been "de-fooding" for about 2 months now. It is a success. I no longer require the kids to eat things they don't like. I no longer restrict snacks. I buy healthy and no-so-healthy food. They choose equally for the most part from all the foods.

Our son who normally who turns his nose up at anything new is now trying and liking lots of new foods. Our daughter who used to sneak snacks is now snacking less frequently (and many times on fruits & veggies). Both the kids have dropped some weight and are happier with meal times. If they hate what I cooked they can have something else (something that does not require me to cook a second meal)

There are 2 small restrictions that still remain and the kids are very agreeable to them....

1) they have to ask before they have pop, in case there is not much left (they have many other drink choices as well)
2) if a food item is part of a planned meal (which are posted on the fridge weekly) they should not eat it all and screw up the menu plans.

We currently have Oreos, ice cream, wafer cookies, chocolate covered peanuts, pokemon fruit snacks, etc in the house. These items were bought over 2 weeks ago. Normally they would have been gone in a few days. Dole fruit bowls (mandarin oranges) are like GOLD around here, so is apple juice and bananas. My birthday cake was not completely finished off and had to be thrown out once it got old. (that is a first!)

I am happy to see that this is working out for us. I have always had issues with food. I am very overweight now, always have been. I started my first diet at age 10 at my mother's request. She still asks about my weight every time I see her. I noticed that I used to eat alot of junk food when I was around my parents. Now I try to make healthier choices.

I was happily surprised to find (when I visited my doc last week) that I have lost about 6 pounds in 4 weeks. Slow & steady, without suffering and without effort. So this new way of dealing with food is working for me as well.

Zan

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From the UnschoolingDiscussion list, October 2005:

I have grown up always overweight and continue to struggle with my weight to this day. My mom & dad were normal weight. I'm adopted and happen to know my birth mother. She was overweight all of her life too, as are one of my sisters and two brothers.

When I was little my adopted mom would take me to the doctor and he would put me on a diet.... I was just a kid and I learned at a very young age the something was wrong with me. I ate too much (according to the doctor). That was the beginning of my troubles.

Now at 51 yo I'm beginning to understand my issues with food and my weight. Limiting food is not the answer, because it puts the emphasis on the food and her weight.

With my 11 yo dtr, I'm very careful about not saying anything about her weight or eating. She goes through growth spurts and eats like a horse and then just eats a little until the next cycle of growth.

She is not over weight and does not seem to have any issues with her weight like I did. But, I let her eat what she wants, when she wants and however much she feels she needs.

I have friends who don't let their kids eat candy at home and I have witnessed those same children consuming large amounts of candy and junk when their parents aren't around.

I guess what I'm trying to say is take the issue off of her food, her weight, help her to become a little more active and let her work it our herself. I'm a testament to one who is screwed up because of diets - they don't work.

Kay

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Posted to the big unschooling discussion list Thursday, February 2003, by jnjstau@... (in response to that first quote and related info, which was about TV, but trust me... read it)

...I just can't feel ok about that....it makes me so angry....I am not willing to subject my children...

If you go back through this [topic] and count the number of posts that are about the mom and how SHE feels vs. those about the kids and any problems they appear to be having, it is difficult to believe that the tv issue is about the the kids.

I used to be a tv controller, diet controller, behavior and thought controller (at least I thought I was). I was trained as a child psychologist....my poor kids *sigh*. I no longer go with that philosophy and have witnessed with my own eyes that limiting is the problem, not the solution.

You don't even have to have "smart kids" for them to effectively self- regulate. Gee whiz, our dogs do it. We have two dogs that were raised in a suburban back yard. We now live on several acres, still anytime the gate is left open, those dogs take off and are gone for hours. We have two dogs that were raised on our front porch without any fencing. They never leave our yard. If a dog can figure it out, I think a child has a pretty good shot.

Julie

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This is part of a private exchange with a young mom I've known since she was a teenager. She has three children, and lately wrote in frustration, partly about food-related issues. The boldface is my friend, Hannah.

Unfortunately I feel like I have done a lot of the damage already with the food thing. I mean, [the oldest is] six!

That just means she's old enough to understand that you want her to help you make a change.

Instead of just going from lots of control to "do whatever you want," a really sweet way to do it is quickly but gradually. Quickly in your head, but not all of a sudden in theirs. Just allow yourself to say "okay" or "sure!" anytime it's not really going to be a problem. If something really isn't going to hurt anything (going barefoot, wearing the orange jacket with the pink dress, eating a donut, not coming to dinner because it's the good part of a game/show/movie, staying up later, dancing) you can just say "Okay." And then later instead of "aren't you glad I let you do that? Don't expect it every time," you could say something reinforcing for both of you, like "That really looked like fun," or "It felt better for me to say yes than to say no. I should say 'yes' more," or something conversational but real. The purpose of that is to help ease them from the controlling patterns to a more moment-based and support-based decisionmaking mindset. If they want to do something and you say yes in an unusual way (unusual to them), communication will help. That way they'll know you really meant to say yes, that it wasn't a fluke, or you just being too distracted to notice what they were doing.

I might save this and put it where other moms can find it, because lately there've been a couple of instances of people saying "I used to control this (or that) and now that I don't, and I told them they can do whatever they want to..."

Too big a jump.

If your kids ask for another one (potato, cookie, peanut butter sandwich) I think it's helpful if you just say "Sure!" and make another one, even if you don't think they'll finish it, even if you think they'll be too full or whatever. As long as they're not eating someone else's share (and even so, if the other person agrees), it's not a big deal. If they don't finish, save the leftover for someone else. If they do finish and they're "too full" that's how they'll learn their capacity (which will change anyway as they get older).

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PamTellew posted this list of books:

Here's some "food" for thought:

When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies: Freeing Yourself From Food and Weight Obsession by Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter

Big Fat Lies: The Truth about Your Weight and Health by Glenn A. Gaesser, PhD

Various books by Geneen Roth and it seems there are recordings and such —Sandra

The Obesity Myth: Why America's Obsession with Weight is Hazardous to Your Health by Paul Campos (this is new and I haven't read it but the reviews make it sound well reasoned and interesting)

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More inspiration to stop trying to control others' eating from Joyce Fetteroll here.

More for unschoolers, about food and eating * * * balance * * * parenting ideas * * * unschooling in general