If you find yourself exhausted at every mealtime after battles with your toddler or picky child, it may be time for a new approach. Learn how I, and many other nutrition professionals, drastically reduce stress around the dinner table and improve children's eating habits with a model called the Division of Responsibility.
I'm sure we all had grand visions of what family mealtimes would be like before we had kids. Peacefully chatting about our days and enjoying a homemade, balanced dinner that the kids not only eat, but thank us for making. Then toddlerhood happens and reality looks a lot... different. The picky eating, mealtime drama, and stress of it all ruins the joy and best intentions we have laid and makes dinner time a chore.
If this resonates with you, I'm going to share one change you can make that will dramatically change your family's mealtime - restoring peace, and making the dinner table a place of joy, family bonding, and nourishment once again! I'm not exaggerating when I say this one shift may be life changing for you - not only in helping you end mealtime drama, but also in helping your child become a healthy, competent eater for life.
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Help! Mealtime Is Always a Battle With My Picky Child!
Most parents with a young child have been there... tired from a long day, frenzied from getting a nutritious dinner on the table, wishing the family could just once enjoy a peaceful meal together... but instead you find yourself:
- arguing and negotiating with your child about how much and what he has to eat
- begging or pleading with your child to take just one bite
- bribing him with dessert or threatening him with an early bedtime
- making a separate meal just so that your child will eat something
It does NOT have to be this way! All it takes is a change in your approach as a parent to end mealtime battles. I'm going to share with you the approach that many nutritionists and happy parents, including myself, use every day to reduce stress and restore peace at the dinner table. When implemented, this one shift can end almost ALL eating issues that aren't linked to a medical problem - it's called the Division of Responsibility.
What Is The Division of Responsibility?
The Division of Responsibility (or DoR for short), is an approach to feeding your child introduced by Ellyn Satter, a dietitian and family therapist who researched and developed the 'gold standard' models of competent, healthy family eating. The Division of Responsibility does just what it says - it divides mealtime 'jobs' between parent and child, taking much of the pressure off of both you as the parent and the child.
The Goal of DoR
Before we get into the What and How of the Division of Responsibility, we need to understand the Why. The main goal of the DoR is simple - raising a child who eats 'normally'. What that means is a child who is a competent eater. Yes, a healthy eater is what we're aiming for, too, but the bigger picture is competency, or your child's lifelong relationship with food and the ability to trust his body, recognize his innate hunger and fullness cues, and respond appropriately. According to Satter in her book Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family, we're aiming for children who "have positive attitudes about food, can learn to like new foods available to them, and intuitively eat the amount of food they actually need for growth.”
In other words, the goal is long term, not short term. We are not trying to get our toddlers to eat all of their broccoli right now. We are trying to give our child the tools to eat a variety of foods in the proper amounts, for life.
In order to do this, we have to both take the lead and give up some control in the proper areas by dividing the responsibilities of eating (hence the name) between parent and child. Let's take a look at the jobs of the parent and the child in the DoR.
The Parent's Role In Feeding
The parent's job is to feed. (You'll see below, the child's job is to eat.) As parents, it is our job to provide nutritious meals and snacks at predictable times. The parent's job boils down to deciding:
- What is served
- When the child or family will eat (for both meals AND snacks)
- Where the child or family will eat
Beyond the What, When and Where, the parent is also responsible for modeling how to eat and behave properly at mealtimes, making meals pleasant, trusting the child's body to grow properly, and probably the most difficult if you haven't practiced DoR yet - enforcing these boundaries. The rest is up to the child.
The Child's Role In Eating
Where the parent's role is to feed as we saw above, the child's role is then to eat. And that doesn't mean he must clean his plate at every eating occasion. That means the child gets to decide based on his innate hunger cues:
- How much to eat
- Whether or not to eat what is offered
This is probably where some of you may go, "Wait, what? Whether or not?" Yes. I know it may be difficult to wrap your head around this one if you are a 'clean your plate' kind of household or grew up in one. But your child has the right to decide if and how much he needs to eat at each occasion based on his body's needs, just like adults do. Furthermore, when you take the stress of making sure your child eats the food presented off of your own shoulders, things are suddenly much easier and family meals more enjoyable. It is simply not your job.
That does not mean if your child refuses what is offered, you provide something else. The parent is in charge of What, remember? You trust that if your child is choosing not to eat, that his body doesn't need it right now and he will eat at the next meal or snack that you provide.
A Note About Babies and the DoR
The roles outlined in the DoR apply to children ages roughly 12 months and up. While a baby is still nursing or bottle feeding, he should be in charge of when, along with how much and whether or not to eat. This is also called on-demand feeding, or responsive feeding, and parents should respect and respond appropriately to baby's hunger during this rapid period of growth.
How To Implement the Division of Responsibility
Now that you've learned the basics and roles of both parent and child in the Division of Responsibility, it's time to put it into practice...which is the hard part, especially if you haven't been practicing it before. Here are some steps for implementing the DoR in your own home successfully to achieve mealtime peace.
Structure
Begin by establishing an age appropriate schedule for meals and snacks. (This is the When in your role as a parent.) Structure is important in all areas for young children, but it is especially important in a feeding routine in order for the child to stop asking for snacks all day long. It doesn't have to be strictly by the clock, but there should be a predictable rhythm so that your child knows when he will be eating next. After you've set your structure, stick to it. If your child asks for a snack outside of the schedule, the answer is 'no.'
No Pressure
At mealtimes, serve the food you have chosen, then resist the urge to apply any pressure at all. No nagging, no ordering a certain number of bites, no bribing with dessert. This one can be really tough, but after you have provided the meal, your job is done. It is now your child's job to eat (or not)! Think of the food as being on their 'side' of the table now, not yours. It will take practice to give up some of this control, but it is important for your child to experience a pressure-free environment to explore new foods and to practice listening to his own hunger and fullness cues. In fact, research has shown that the less pressure children experience, the more they will eat!
You may be worried your child will eat nothing (and they might) if you don't tell them to eat. You can help by practicing your job in deciding what to serve. You can be mindful of your child's preferences and ensure there is at least one familiar food on the table that your child likes, especially at dinner time when children tend to be tired and less hungry. That doesn't mean you have to cater to your child's wishes and change what the family eats, but do be considerate of your child's comfort level with certain foods and eating abilities.
Trust and Control
Following the DoR requires you as a parent to both take responsibility AND give up control. One or both may be hard for you personally. But they are both necessary in order for it to work. When you take up proper responsibility for planning and providing predictable, nourishing, pleasant meals AND give some control over to your child, you are establishing trust. You must trust that your child will eat the appropriate amount from the food provided based on what his body needs, and that his body will do what it is supposed to do to grow properly. You are also teaching him to listen and trust his body's own cues while learning to eat the foods that the family eats.
Your child is also trusting that you will provide regular meals and snacks on a predictable schedule in a confident manner. When he can trust the routine, he doesn't have to ask for snacks all the time, and he is free to explore new foods at the set eating times without pressure, in a positive environment.
Enforcement
Establishing safe, predictable boundaries around feeding is important for your child's trust and security. So once you have set them, stick to them! It may take a few weeks before it becomes routine, especially for older children. But once your child clearly knows the boundaries, he has no need to act out and test the limits. He is free to explore new foods, learn how to behave at the table, and participate in a pleasant family meal time without fear of not having enough to eat or negative pressure. This also means that you have to stick to the boundaries set for yourself of not pressuring your child to eat.
If you ever find that mealtime battles are starting creep up, take a look back at these areas outlined above and determine if you are truly following the DoR. You may find yourself slipping in practicing the proper roles and need to make some adjustments. Often you'll find that if you just get back to this approach, the mealtime drama will disappear!
FAQ
I know it sounds like one of those ideas that is good in theory but doesn't actually work, but it does! I've done it with my own family, as have countless other families. If you are sticking to your proper roles as a parent and allowing your child to stick to his, the method works. Give it a try for a few weeks and see how it goes!
Do keep in mind that your child must be old enough that he is no longer nursing or bottle feeding, and that you must address and physical or medical issues related to problematic eating before it can work.
Maybe. But rest assured that your child will not starve. You can plan on offering a bigger meal at breakfast the next day since they might be more hungry. Especially with older children who can grasp the concept a little better, once you stick to the routine and don't give in a couple of times, they will start to realize they'd better eat at dinner if they are hungry. (Also make sure there is at least one thing the child likes at dinner!)
If you are really worried, you can work a bedtime snack into the predictable schedule, especially if you are just implementing the DoR. Make sure it is a boring snack (that is also nourishing) to meet nutritional needs without incentivizing your child to hold out on dinner so he can eat the snack later.
Yes. Even if you have not practiced the DoR before, it is never too late! If your child is a little older, you can tell him that you're trying something new. Then implement a schedule and stick to it! AND apply no pressure at the set eating times. It can be more difficult to break bad habits (on both the parent and child end), but it will work with practice. The goal is to help your child get back to recognizing those natural hunger and fullness cues while also helping him learn to accept new foods - also known as becoming a competent eater!
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