How Dads React To Raising A Young Junk Food Addict

A kid who bites when she doesn’t get junk food?! Yikes! One of our fellow dads has a problem and he came to the Life of Dad Facebook community for guidance. As usual, you guys didn’t disappoint.

Jonathan Neal: Remove the junk food from your home and it will be the best decision you have ever made for your families health. For the fits, they can never ever get what they want from behaving like that. Instead promote alternate ways of communicating or reward systems like simple chores. This shows hard work pays off.

Tom Whitfield: Tell her she has two choices for dinner: Take it or leave it.

One night going hungry will teach her. You have to stick to your guns, though, and not give in when she cries and screams about being hungry later that evening. Missing one meal won’t kill her.

Scott Johnson: A wise doctor once said “I’ve never heard of a child who died of starvation where good food was available”. Get it out of the house and have variety including fruits and veggies. Stop making it an argument and eat well… if she throws a fit, let her… she’ll get hungry and eat eventually. But stop the conflict.

Jimmy O’Brian: Be the parent. Six is old enough to know better and not in charge, start punishing tantrums and watch it stop.

James Gilbert: Can’t help you with the junk food problem but she’ll stop bitting if you bite her back once should be enough twice if she’s stubborn

Jenna Lafont: [Whatever you do] Please don’t hit your kid over food. That will just create an added problem & more chaos & drama to an already tumultuous moment. You have to react in a calm manner. She’s watching you & learning how to control herself. If she can’t control herself over the treats then you don’t buy them. 6 is old enough to understand reason. But still little in a way that she’s going to be tantrum-y about stuff like this.

Randy Flores: You need “model-such” early age too. I never ate-much veggie/fruits, but upon births of children, as I dine with kids always, I started eating better and our kids have excellent eating habits, including water!! No soft drinks. That a tough one to break wife of….but done! Because initially she had Big Gulp every morning.

Marcus Martinez: We eliminated all junk food and sodas from the house as far as tantrums, we give ours time outs in her room she carries on until she passes out or calms down… mom and dad do not negotiate with terrorists.

Martin Bennett: My daughter is on the Autism Spectrum, and I used a magnet rewards chart to get her to try new (healthy) foods. You can set parameters to suit your child. Mine was a magnet for every new food over a week (calculated at one new food each day). So after she achieved 5 magnets from eating veggies/healthy/new food she would get to choose a Lego mini fig, or could choose from a Rewards Box.

Michael Blankley: Involve her in the meal planning and preparation. My 6 year old sliced her own mushrooms for her homemade pizza last night and sees helping with dinner as a reward for good behaviour. She also gets a say in the weekly meal planning before we go to the store. Every once in a while, she even gets to “veto” a meal during planning.

Isaac Brown: Eric, with my 6 year old son. My wife and I tell him that he has a half-hour to eat dinner. If he finishes in time he can have something else to eat. If he doesn’t, then he can finish it later but that’s what he has to eat.

How do you handle your kid’s junk food intake? Share with us on Facebook!

*Flickr photo by Phil Whitehouse, used under Creative Commons license.