Oh, but it can. I know you know what I'm talking about. The thing is, he usually loves eggs.
A while back I read this and loved it. To let hunger be the natural "leverageable asset" in this scenario, the tool, the lever, it's not my place to force it. Anyhow, we tried that. It doesn't work.
So I showed my husband what I had read and we agreed- new plan.
2 yo says, "No eggs mommy." And I say pleasantly, "Ok, you don't have to," and I return to our breakfast reading.
Then the 2yo says, "I want pancakes!" To which I reply, "Ok! This pancake is yours," and I set his just out of his reach, "and you can have it as soon as you try a bite of eggs."
Of course we know his answer, which I ignore and keep on with the reading.
Now my patience has to kick in. He begins to cry. I ask is he done with breakfast? Yes? Ok. And we clean him up and he goes off to play.
I keep on with my morning and he keeps asking for food with my response being the same each time.
He's playing happily one second and peeking at his food in the kitchen the next. Nope, it hasn't magically disappeared. Sorry, bud. Next, he's on the floor crying, at which point, I treat him like a person in pain and offer a hug instead of the whole, "I told you..." attitude that can come so easy but does absolutely no good. Plus, I read somewhere that the way we speak to our children becomes their inner voice, and that is not what I want mine to hear someday when they're grown and gone.
It's been almost a month now since he made that first step of strengthening his weak will and making the right choice. Meals are not perfect, but there have been so many triumphs over which I get joyful fireworks in my heart while he's just like, "Mmmm... happy stomach."
I tell him I'm proud of him and what hard work it is to make a good choice. Then I stop and remember to be quiet. A few words will do, Mom. I sit there and relax my tense shoulders and smile watching him eat. I marvel and wonder at what kind of man he will become with such a sturdy determination behind that adorable face and dynamite personality.
And then I wonder how I am going to do all this when school starts again.
...should be fun!
Let us consider carefully what feelings we wish to stimulate, and what feelings we wish to repress in our children, and then, having made up our minds, let us say nothing. We all know the shrinking,
as of a sore place, with which children receive some well-meant word from a tactless friend."
-Charlotte Mason 2/200