My daughter started prep this year and it's been a fun but hectic time in our household. Tantrums, hitting, etc was common the first few weeks and i modified bedtime now to around 6.30pm. Things have improved for sure, but i'm also having trouble getting her to eat anything at her lunch. They have big lunch at 10.45am and have 20 mins to eat. At kindy she was the slowest eater. I've tried putting a lot in there, putting just a little, giving choices or little choice. And the days when she eats the least we are getting the worst behaviour. I give her heaps and heaps of love, cuddles and positive reinforcement and have managed a level of patience and understanding far greater than I thought I was capable. I want to get past this, and I want her to be eating more so we're not experiencing food-related problems. I just don't know what to do anymore. It's exhausting and she's starting to make comments like 'you don't like me, nobody likes me' or 'you don't love me' etc now as well simply when we try to have a discussion with her, and especially if we ask her to take some time out to think about her behaviour. Any thoughts on how we can help her through all of this and help her to eat? THANKS.
Prep child behaviour and not eating lunch
Wednesday, 12 March 2014 - 23:03
Prep child behaviour and not eating lunch
Posted in:
Food, Health & Wellbeing, Behaviour, Kids
2 Replies
I think most prep kids go through that, especially in first term. Both of my kids barely ate to start with in Prep because they were too excited to be around their friends and wanted to just go and play. If they ate, they picked at something and ran off. It did improve as the year went on. :)
My daughter has almost entirely stopped eating during the day since starting prep... Nothing I can do in terms of lunch box contents makes any difference... And the other mums say their kids are not eating much either. I think it's just too exciting still and I'm guessing it will just take time... I'm just hoping my little one doesn't get too skinny as she's already very small. I try and push a decent breakfast and give her a snack (from her lunchbox) in the car and as soon as we get home... Or we go out for a snack in a cafe after school... It's hard but I think stressing over it makes it worse... Oh and her behaviour is crappy often too... She's so tired from all the stimulation and wants to connect with but poor behaviour unfortunately seems her chosen way too often at the moment! It's such a huge time of change I think the only answer is to survive until it improves!