Perfect Mom News Flash

Ok, all of you out there who think I’m the perfect mom, I’ve got a news flash for you….  Grace said I really don’t care about her!

Grace has a problem with eating meals. She will eat as little as possible, shoving it all over her plate and calling it clean.  After depositing mouth-full’s into her napkin she will spit out anything left in her mouth once she leaves the table (and I mean spit it out and leave it on the floor, book case, or where ever she is standing).

As soon as she can after eating Grace begins to ask for any available sweets, treats, junk food, etc. If she doesn’t get the sweet treat she wants she will get up after we have gone to bed and she sneaks it and takes it to her room. 

I am so tired of cleaning up crumbs, pieces of hard meat, vegetables, and other partially chewed  food.  And then when I go into her room I find torn packages of food under blankets and in drawers.

So yesterday after finding a semi-large piece of chicken tucked behind some books I decided I’ve finally had enough.  I told Grace that if she wasn’t going to eat her dinner (and I made sure to tell her how tired I was of finding old pieces of food laying around where ever she decided to hide it) that she could just have cookies for dinner.

Hua?  Cookies?  At first she had this look like, “Wow, that’s cool!”  But in a few seconds she realized she wasn’t going to get any real dinner.  Then the crying and begging began. 

Can you believe it?  I had a child crying and begging NOT to eat cookies for dinner!  And I followed through with the threat.  When dinner was ready I called Grace to the table and told her that her Cookies were ready.  I gave her the bag of cookies and told her to eat till she got full. 

Oh boy, the tears flowed.  We sat down with our “real” dinner and she had to eat cookies.  “Please Mom! Please let me have dinner!”  I told her she was having dinner.  Since that seemed to be all that she really cared about, the sweets, then I wouldn’t have to pick up any more yukky old food from her little hiding places in the house because she likes cookies, and I just KNEW she wouldn’t spit those out.

Well, she reluctantly ate the cookies, and then she again cried and cried because she didn’t get a “real” dinner.  I was stoic.

I wonder how she will act today.  Will it be my worst nightmare because she had cookies for dinner? (remember she also has severe ADHD)

So, am I a bad mom, or will this reverse psychology work? 

Thanks for listening ~