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a bowl of cheerios

so, i love my son. i really do, but lately his constant complaining about EVERYTHING has gotten on my nerves. one of the biggest battles of late is food - all things food. from how he asks to his ungrateful heart to his incessant complaining. he does have some sensory issues that revolve around food and since i gag on even the sight of bananas i can appreciate those issues. BUT there is no acceptance for constant complainig.
this morning, by 9 am i had heard him complain about what his father fixed for supper last night, that i needed to go to the store because i had nothing to eat (i had just shopped!), and that he was NOT going to eat the lunch i would probably fix of peanut butter and jelly! after fixing cinnamon rolls for breakfast he threw away the outside of the roll and then asked for something else! umm..no, i don' t think so bud!
i head to the shower completely frustrated. i think best in the shower and while in there i decided that maybe he should have cheerios for a while. plain old cheerios. no milk, no flavor, just plain little o's of fortified cereal!
so lunch time approached. he was jumping up and down demanding food. ugh....i calmly handed him a bowl of cheerios. he looked at it and asked what that was. umm.. cheerios. why he asks...well darling son, frankly, "your attitude has been horrible. i am done wasting my time, money, and food on someone that throws it away or throws a fit over it. you may eat cheerios today. if you don't want them we will try again at dinner." we had a bit of a stare down. okay, so he was crying and yelling, but he had the nerve to tell me he had not been warned about this. really??? the past several weeks of talking about having a grateful heart and all those opportunities to show that? i didn't back down. he eventually ate the entire bowl.
guess who's hungry again? guess what he is having a bowl of? i'm not sure how long he's going to be eating cheerios....

Comments

Daisy Path said…
well, cheerios are CHEAP! it'll keep his cholesterol down too. ;) sorry you're having a frustrating time, but this was a great idea! don't you love it when you have those a-ha moments in parenting. i don't love that we have to have them over discipline issues, but they are certainly helpful. you are a great mom! (you could always just go hide in princess' nook in her room. :)
March 25, 2010 at 3:33 PM
Natalie said…
Good for you. We did something similar with Kaylene last summer. And, I just heard of another family at school who has 4 boys...the dad was fed up with all their complaining about food one night and declared that for the next 30 days they would eat nothing but rice and beans. Well, they ate nothing but rice and beans for 30 days and there has never, ever been another complaint about food in their house. And that was several years ago.

Keep up the good fight!
March 25, 2010 at 8:36 PM
shannon fay said…
Timothy once went three weeks without eating anything but creamy peanut butter. We offered him everything we ate, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and when he refused it...he waited until we were done eating, and then ate peanut butter by himself. =(

He was so relieved when the end of dinner arrived and I gave him his little bowl of PB. He even passed up kid foods like mac and cheese and pizza!

Anyway...stick to it. You're not alone!
April 3, 2010 at 6:54 PM
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