A Moment of Bad Parenting Weakness
Posted on : 09-08-2010 | By : Amber | In : Parenting & Marriage, The Whole Shebang
Tags: boys, Manners
1
You know that age old rule: “Don’t laugh when your child does something wrong no matter how terribly cute or funny it is”?
I broke that rule today.
Shoot, I took a sledgehammer and smashed it all to smithereens when I turned to hubs saying “Watch him! Do it again for Daddy!”
A teensy moment of bad parenting.. I’m not perfect.
My son may have thrown all table manners to the wind when he took off the top piece of bread to his sandwich, held the other half in his hands and then dove in face first, nom-nom-nommed on the deli turkey, swallowed satisfactorily and then pretended to burp sheepishly… but:
- He was eating his meat (which is what I told him to do, and what he didn’t want to do.)
- He was doing it joyfully and agreeably.
- He was awfully darn cute.
- And it was the last thing I was expecting, the playfulness catching me off guard under normally frustrating circumstances until I giggled like a little girl.
I guess sometimes you just gotta laugh!
Hubs just stood there and shook his head at me. “You’re probably going to regret that later.” Yeah. I might. Remind me of that tomorrow.
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Hi Amber, I had to respond on this one!
Our daughter (2 and a half) has some pretty unique issues with eating. Long story short: she ended up in the hospital for 2 weeks just after she turned 1, going through all sorts of tests. She came out being diagnosed as allergic to dairy and eggs and had an NG tube for 3 months. The doctor let us take it out for a month to see how she’d do, but she lost weight and so we had to have surgery for a semi-permanent G tube. She, to this day, doesn’t eat nearly as much as she needs to and we’ve been struggling hard to teach her that eating is a pleasant experience after it had produced a lot of pain in her.
Anyway, if you’re interested in our story you can go here (http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/laylaegan) but all that to say that we have been encouraged to let her play with her food. Eventually it ends up in her mouth, and when she starts to taste something good, often she’ll keep eating, even if it seemed like she had absolutely no interest in it before.
So, it’s very possible that your “lapse” could potentially be a good thing! I know every child is different, but don’t feel bad, having him play with his food sometimes might make him a better eater.
Although I must confess that last night we had to remind her it was time to eat after she wouldn’t stop playing with angel hair pasta for a while.
Ryan from Alpha Omega Publications