No Tantrum Dinners

I don't ever want to give the impression that life around here is peaches all the time. I'm pretty sure that that is not the impression I give because I do plenty of whining.

A problem we've been having for the last few months has involved eating. For some reason our kid became quite picky. Plus, every night when Eric would get home Ike would only want to play. He had no interest in sitting down to eat dinner. It was tempting to just let him play while we had a nice dinner. Sometimes Eric would let Ike sit on his lap just to keep the peace while we ate. But I wasn't a fan of either of these options. I wanted to have a normal dinner every day, and I wanted to teach our toddler to sit at the table and eat his food with the family.

We were having tantrums (and by "we" obivously I mean "Ike") pretty much every single night. The kid just did not want to sit in his own chair. If we did get him to sit in his chair he would throw his cup and his food. I felt like we just needed to power through these tantrums. Eventually he'd get over it, right? Only, no, he wasn't getting over it. If anything, it was becoming a part of the nightly ritual.

Finally, I found something that works. At first I was a little embarrassed, but I'm not anymore. We use bribery. Initially that bribery was in the form of dessert, but then we learned how much this kid likes to make and eat popcorn. Now, if he resists going to the table we say, "Do you want some popcorn?" Of course, he always says "Yeah!" Then we tell him that first he has to sit in his chair. We continue to offer popcorn throughout the dinner, always reminding him that first he has to eat his food. It works. No more tantrums. A toddler who eats good quantities of real food and is again trying things that before he wouldn't touch.

It might be considered bribery by some. I don't care. It works.