i guess going to the nudie bar is on the list.

i thought it would when they know what is good for them, how much is good or bad for them, and making rational decisions on what to eat.

we all know what works best in our homes, thats good too

in our home, parents have the responsibilities and therefore make the decisions,,,,its a treat to choose your meal otherwise you eat what is served (which happily was often times extremely good home cooking)

No need to worry, I'm not upset. I just don't feel like defending my views on the subject...

When a child is exposed to only healthy fresh and invting foods...they will naturally select healthy foods for themselves...

I have asked my kids from when they were tiny what they would like to eat for dinner...and then they help prepare it.

Removing a child's choices of food, by being the 'controller'...does not educate them in how to make healthy choices.

How would a child eat only pizza if they had never had it?
A huge and obvious thing is the children are exposed to so much processed food...they choose that.

Take it out of the equation..(not expose a child to fastfood) and it becomes unappetising when it is there...

thats a good idea too, as I said each child is different

we were permitted treats and we still learned to like healthy food too

I dont think the pizza is a bad thing unless one has it TOO much without a balance of other things

we were taught about BALANCE, so the first time we tasted sweets and treats someplace else,, we didnt go crazy over them.

my stepfather was denied treats, does he have taste for healthy foods , heck yeah

but when he got to college and tasted sweets did that make him automatically turned off? heck no,,,he just wondered why he hadnt had more of it and to this day he sneaks treats every chance he gets,,,lol

Maybe I was a very lucky child BUT if my Mom cooked something I didn't like, she would always fix me something else. Am I that way with my boys? I sure am!! Not all people like that same kinds of foods.
I have never made my sons eat anything they didn't like and I DO buy all the food! It is my duty to feed my child!! I love my boys and I would never be cruel and tell them they had to eat something just because thats what I fixed!! If you don't like something you don't eat it...its that simple!!!

I spent my life when the kids were growing up learning and perfecting thier faves. I always had a rule...you dont have to eat what you dont like. However, you must try everything. It was amazing how many times my kids would discover that they liked things...I think because it was introduced with no pressure.

lol, I don't think anyone mentioned that kids can't drink alcohol.

its not cruelty to set rules, or to refuse to do twice the work in order to please a child,, my job as parent is to supply NEEDS not WANTS(thats something thats an extra and that children should appreciate not EXPECT), which is food, shelter, clothes, and love,,, but that doesnt mean it has to be the type of food, shelther, or clothes that the children dictate they 'want'....they have to learn the world doesnt revolve around what they want and, depending on age, it takes a while for them to develop stringent tastes in food anyhow. Its what I feed them as an adult which will allow them to develop a taste for a balance of foods in the future. Can they say they dont want it? sure

but that is where the choice stops in our home, you can decide you dont like it (but there is no dessert if you dont try it), but the meals arent going to be planned around what the children dictate,,,

we all eat ONE MEAL together,,,and the person with the responsibility to buy and prepare the meal gets the privilege of deciding what those meals are...

I agree with that, but I dont consider giving chldren the choice not to eat what they dont like is the same as giving them the choice of what to eat. As I posted before, in our home its the adults who have the responsibility for the purchase and preparation and clean up of the meals, so its the adults PRIVILEGE to determine what will be served. Since we are a family, we eat together and noone is gonna do twice the food or buy twice the grocery so the children have to eat the food and the meal prepared for the family each night or not eat that night.

Are we gonna FORCE FEED the children,,,no, they are free to decide not to eat what we have fixed. They just arent free to plan or decide what we will purchase or fix.

Ten things adults shouldn't do that God can:

1. Worship another God before Him. (Marcello Mastroanni, Brigitte Bardot, and Branjelina are just four examples.)
2. Disobey His parents. (Omnipotent or not, still He can't obey His parents, 'coz He don't got none.)
3. Kill. (He is the only one who truly can give and take away life.)
4. Lie. I.e. bear false witness. (Debated issue, some thinkers now think that God is a liar.) (In a hunting accident homicide case the effing bear would not talk in court. Despite an injuction.)
5. Abuse, torture and eventually torture-kill His only begotten child.
6. Create the world ex nihil and create from silicon dust some highly multiplicative little monsters that take over the world and ruin it for everybody.
7. Establish religions.
8. Live forever.
9. Be a know-it-all, do whatever He wants, and sit anywhere He wants.
10. Be everywhere, see for miles and miles where they are not, stop time, talk to each other from one end of the world to the other, steal fire, fly to the Sun on wings, make a woman so beautiful in a stone statue that it would break the heart of men and God unless she came alive in the flesh, bounce sub-atomic parts against each other at stupendously high speeds, progress technologically, explain the world without the need for the inclusion of a God in the big picture, and be mean and jealous.

nice take on the original, God is the ORIGNAL father,,,with responsibilities and privileges we wouldnt want and cant fathom

MsHarmony, I think you are absolutely right with this list. It is a practical philosophy, and practical thinking is what underlines all theoretical systems in the branch of philosophy called ethics.

There may be some exceptions, such as force-feeding your children with caviar and whipped cream, or with baked mud or camel droppings, if they were the only things you could afford, given a case.

But the usefulness of the list can be evaluated by juxtaposing every point in it with its opposite, and then seeing that the opposite will not produce anything better (like wearing make-up) than the status quo, but the opposite will be dsisastrous or can highly likely be disastrous to the children and others (like letting them drive.) Each of the points in the list produces as much good or more good than its opposite, and each of the points in the list produces less or potentially less harm than its opposite. So I accept your list, and morally support its diffusion.

So I think the list is solid, though not inclusive.

The ONLY part is that may have brought the wrath of the readership on it is the nature of categoricallness about it. It sounds like the ten commandments; no ifs buts and ends; this is the way, the only way, and there are no other ways about it.


I'm talking about the serving up of the list. I am stricktly talking about the way it's presented. It is served as a set of absolutes. I even agree with that, but people don't like to be force-fed with good-practice-turned-ethical-dogma, any more than children like being force-fed with boiled liver and steamed califlower, although it's good for the children and good for the adults (the moral lesson via its practicality imbedded in it.)

I am saying this as an outsider, I don't side with you, I don't side with those who challenge you, but I admit still that the list is a good practical list, and those who challenge you via criticism have good points too, like how old are the children we talk about here, and fine-tuning your list.

I am only saying this as an observation that may be use- and helpful to you. Church and religions like dogma. They have a reputation in the community as dogmatic, unforgiving and strict. Whether that's true or not. So when someone approaches the community with messages in the same STYLE (and it's style and ONLY style I am throwing light on in this post) that people generally associate with dogma: mindless dogma, sometimes hated dogma, sometimes hateful dogma, and sometimes illogical dogma, then the STYLE will carry an emotional load that gets people's back up, to be motivated to speak out against the messenger or against the messenger's message.

That's all.

My previous post, with God and stuff, was irrelevent to this thread, I left it for my own amusement, nobody should pay heed to it, but still I won't apologize for it.

of course, there are few things in life that are absolute and everything is contingent upon individual circumstances and situations

i appreciate your response, I suppose I didnt consider that anyone would take the list as any more than MY opinion, based on my life, my circumstances, and my situation

I am a firm believer that whatever works(individually) to help children grow into healthy, happy, helpful, productive, adults is to be applauded,,,parenting isnt easy

Agreed. Fully.

Ha ha so funny.

i'm very much the same with mine...

my kids actually pretty much set the meal-plans. they tell me what they want to prepare on their nights, and i buy the ingredients and work them through the recipes. i give them computer-time to research meals they'd like to try, and since i'm purchasing the stuff...i get the healthy stuff.

it's a family affair.

when i was a kid, if i didn't like what was served, i didn't eat. i've never been hungry in my life and could easily go days without food...so if it isn't to my palette, i'm not eating it.

we also plan out all major purchases together. we have family discussions and vote. *shrugs* every dynamic is different...

sounds as if you have a great arrangement that is working in your home,,,,