By Kristine Saunders Eating often becomes an issue between parents and children at some time. Many times the first eating battles will be fought when a child is still a toddler. Parents are afraid that without some guidelines or restrictions, their child will starve or become malnourished.
False Parents are totally responsible for what and how much a child eats.
It is the parent's job to provide food and the child's job to decide whether to eat and how much to eat. Instead of allowing a child to have some independence when it comes to how much of the provided food to eat, parents tend to impose restrictions. Ellen Satter, who wrote How to Get Your Kid to Eat But Not Too Much , says that it is helpful to divide feeding into two jobs. It is the parent's job to provide appropriate food and the child's job to decide whether to eat and how much to eat. Experience tells us that it is almost impossible to force someone to eat something not wanted.