What our family therapist suggested about food language

Somebody suggested keeping something easy in the freezer for the evenings I have nothing, and it has saved me perhaps thirty difficult nights.

To the opening post rather than to the thread: Carl, this is my version of it.

I have found that eating something at four in the afternoon means I can sit at the table at six and be present rather than negotiating.

My weekends are the difficult ones because the structure is gone, and I have had to build a very loose one deliberately.

What helped was letting standards drop for a season. Three months of very simple food and nobody suffered and I recovered.

My children have never asked and I have never explained, and if they do ask I have a short answer ready that I have practised.

This is the post I wish had existed when I was looking for it.

I would have written the same thing a year ago, word for word.

My experience is that the logistics settled at about six months and everything since has been ordinary parenting, which is difficult enough on its own.

The lunchbox negotiation and my own appetite were unrelated problems and I kept accidentally treating them as one.

Something I got right was not changing anything about what my children eat. This is mine and it does not need to become theirs.

The thing I would say to a new parent here is that this is genuinely harder with small children and you are not doing it badly.

Well said, and thank you for taking the time over it.

What surprised me was how much my patience improved once the tiredness lifted, and how much of parenting is just having enough patience.