| chEllyn is the Yoda of Registered Dietician's who specialize in families, children and eating disorders and since that's the niche my bride works in, I've been encouraged to read her work to support meal times at home and to enhance my own business. So far so good. All these kids books (How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and A Child of Mine for example) totally apply to adults and I find it fascinating and I hope you will too.
Ellyn so far as I can tell has built a huge business on the Division of Responsibility. Parents are in charge of feeding and children are in charge of eating. Parents decide the what gets served, when it gets served and where it gets served. Children decide what they'll eat, how much they'll eat and whether they'll eat. That's it!
Division of Responsibility Parents: feed Children: eat
Parent Feeding Responsibilities What gets served When it gets served (meal times) Where it gets served
Children Eating Responsibilities What they eat How much they eat Whether they eat.
This means parents must schedule and stick to consistent meal and snack times, decide what gets eaten and where its going to be eaten. That's it!
Kids decide if they're going to eat what's served, what they're going to eat of what's served if they do and how much of it they're going to eat. That's it!
Don't Cross The Line Parents don't get to tell kids how much to eat (clear your plate, take one more bite, you barely ate anything, if you eat this... and limiting amounts) or restricting foods. There has to be at least one thing served at every meal that everyone at the table likes.
Kids don't get to dictate the menu if they don't like what's served. They don't get to graze or beg between meal times if they didn't eat enough at the last meal. They must sit down and eat, no standing and eating (a'hem parents and adults, this is you too). If they didn't eat enough to fill their belly, then they have to deal with being hungry until the next scheduled meal time. Powerful. You need to tell your kids and/or tell yourself if you choose not to eat enough at this meal to fill yourself, that you'll have to wait until #:## for the next meal to eat again.
Why Meal Planning and Meal Scheduling is so Important? "The Evidence is clear. Distortions in FEEDING create distortions in food intake and growth.
- Trying to get a child to eat more food than he wants can make him too fat.
- Trying to get a child to eat less food than he wants can make him too fat.
- Trying to get a child to eat certain foods or avoid certain others can make him too fat.
- Failing to provide a child with structure and support can make him too fat."
This applies to you and any small people you're responsible for. If you don't have regularly scheduled and consistent meal times and think about in advance (as much as its realistically possible) what you're going to eat and/or serve, then how can you trust yourself to eat only until 80% full or to contentedness and how can little people trust you and their self that another meal is coming so they don't need to over eat unless, you practice consistently eating, scheduling and providing meals at roughly the same times 7 days per week.
Regularly Scheduled Meals = Trust If you're consistent, your body and the body of children will learn to trust you and itself.
If you're inconsistent and wait until you feel hungry, you and little people will overeat and lack trust in self to stop when enough was eaten because they can't guarantee when or if another meal is coming. | 
