How would you deal with this?
One of the kids I do daycare for is 4 (will be 5 in october). She's in preschool 2 days/week, so she comes a little bit later in the day on those days.
But we have lunch at the same time (or near) every day. This girl has a problem of not eating. She will eat 2 teeny mouse-size bites and say she's done. Ok, fine, then I tell her no snack or even milk or juice later because she needed to eat more food, not fill up on liquids.
She has now gotten to the point where she sneaks into the kitchen and dumps the food in the garbage and claims she's done. I have caught her both in the act and when I open the garbage I see that she did it. She has done this several times with various food items. I have told her mom of one instance, but she does it more often than I have told her mom.
She also is lying to me more and more about a lot of things, mostly stupid stuff, but it is all stuff that she knows she's not allowed to do. Like she went into my boys' bedroom that is off limits to the other kids, and grabbed his bubbleblower gun (again, she knows this is not a toy she is to play with and she's not allowed in his room), and started playing with it, and ended up breaking something on it. I didn't immediately see it, but I glimpsed her shoving it under the changing table as I walked by the toy room and knew that her actions were suspicious. So I pulled out the bubble gun, questioned her, knowing full well what happened anyway, yet she chose to lie to me until I told her that I knew the truth and if she was willing to tell me, her discipline won't be as bad. So she told me what I already knew. She got a time-out and no books at nap/quiet time.
I also don't want her mom to think I am being petty or I am picking on her kid, but something has to be done. Her behavior has gotten worse and worse. As far as the picky eating thing, her mom knows about that, because she has told me she's fought Grace (her name) all her life to actually eat something other than snacks and liquids.
My problem with this whole wasting food thing is that I am on a food reimbursement program, and while I get reimbursed for meals served, I can't re-serve the food if she eats off it at all, for sanitary reasons. So there goes another helping that one of the other kids could have had.
I know she's hungry at lunch because she bugs me constantly to know when it is time to eat. Then she eats a few mouse bites and says she's done. I almost want to not give her any at all because of what she did the previous day, but then if my food program supervisor stops by, by my voluntarily not giving her something to eat at lunch, I could get in trouble. I don't want to starve her, but she is almost starving herself by her eating habits.
Sometimes she will eat all her lunch plus more if we have mac & cheese, pizza, ravioli, or spaghetti. She loves pasta, but we can't have that every day.
I have even threatened to have her tell her mom what she did, and she kinda gets upset, but she almost sounds like she doesn't really care too much. She got upset on other things she did that I made her tell her mom. I have even told her I would be fine if she didn't eat until later, ya know, if she isn't hungry right away. I know my own 3yo isn't always hungry right after preschool, so I don't pressure him to eat. He usually will eat 'lunch' at about 4pm, even though he gets home around 12:30. They have a snack just before dismissal, so that usually holds him over for a while. But she's the one bugging me about when lunch was done.
Sigh... any ideas on how to get her to stop wasting food? I don't care so much that she eats at all, but that when she does want something, she eats every thing she takes.
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Originally Posted by Mr. P
Literally...they dont get out of that chair until the meal is eaten. It will sink in. 