Thursday, February 2, 2012

Eat Your Crusts

I've had enough of piles of crusts not being eaten. On hungry days, SP will eat the middle bread bit out of three sandwiches, which, when cut into little triangles, leaves us with 32 little crust bits! On more than one occasion, those little bits have formed the bulk of my lunch. Not what I call appetising, but I can't bear to throw them all out. 

A couple of weeks ago we started telling SP that when he's 2 1/2 he can eat all his crusts. Note the use of 'can' rather than 'has to.' I'm a big believer in the power of semantics. 

Yesterday he was very happy to have reached the milestone and ate his crusts quite eagerly. To head off any trouble, I gave him his triangles one at a time, but he ate each one completely before asking for the next. 

Today he ate the middle bit then gave me his coy look and said, 'I'm not 2 1/2 yet...' I told him that he was and he ate the crusts quite happily. After a few triangles he was starting to get sick of them and wanted the next triangle before he'd finished it all, but only needed a gentle reminder and didn't get crabby about it.

We'll see how things go from here. I suspect we may have a showdown or two, but we're off to a good start at least. I'll keep giving him one triangle at a time until he's well and truly into the crust-eating habit. 

Is it too much to hope that F will see his example and eat all her crusts from the start?

*Not an original idea. A friend of mine mentioned that her friend's daughter's kindy doesn't give the next sandwich until the first has been totally eaten, and they produce a class of crust eaters. 

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