# Beating a stuffed animal to encourage little kids to eat **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 27, 2021, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623 "2021-01-27T17:52:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/41 "2021-01-28T10:33:23Z")
I suppose, but there are degrees of ‘horrible’ (both from the POV of the child and from some sort of objective stance) ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/42 "2021-01-28T10:42:16Z")
As an adult whose childhood was a LONG time ago, and who’s never had kids, I find the thought of beating a stuffed animal as incentive to a kid HORRIFYING. I adored my stuffed animals and would have been totally traumatized by that, and I also would have feared my parents forever. I don’t find it funny at all. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/43 "2021-01-28T12:15:30Z")
I don’t think it’s just selfish fear. Empathy in kids is weird, but they do have enough to not want to be responsible for someone else’s pain, and to be horrified at the thought of it. This is setting them up for terrible co-dependent relationships. Years ago, there was some talk in parenting circles about putting a favorite stuffed animal in “time out” as a way to motivate kids who didn’t seem to mind when they, themselves, were put in time out. Even that horrified me. This is sickening. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/44 "2021-01-28T13:31:12Z")
My wife and I are both stress bakers–it’s a great way to calm down and relax–and my 12yo daughter has become one too. At this point her cake decorating skills have far surpassed my own. So there may be the occasional sweet in our house. That said, my general rule for after-dinner desserts is that it’s hunger-based: if you’ve eaten a full meal, and you’re still hungry, that’s when treats are available. If you didn’t eat a full meal, and you’re still hungry, it’s a good thing we haven’t scraped your plate yet! My kids aren’t the most adventurous, but they’re steadily progressing. Both kids have discovered a sudden love for sushi this year, and one of them is even learning to like pakoras. Bit by bit by bit… I haven’t watched the video. It sounds fucking awful. ---
**Author:** ![tricoteuse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tricoteuse/32/4334_2.png) [@tricoteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tricoteuse)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/45 "2021-01-28T14:04:47Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Isn’t that the message every time a parent exercises power and punishes a child for non-compliance with household rules? For God’s sake, there’s a difference between giving your kid an age-appropriate punishment for misbehavior, and beating the shit out of a favorite toy because the kid won’t eat cauliflower. My ex husband and his brothers were punished severely if they didn’t eat every bite of food on their plates, and their mother was a godawful cook. The result was they looked for every excuse to be out of the house at mealtimes and spent any pocket money they had on junk food and fast food. All of them are overweight and super picky eaters and once they left home never had much use for their parents either. Our own kids went through picky phases but we figured out how to work around it without beating any stuffed animals to death. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/46 "2021-01-28T14:33:48Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Years ago, there was some talk in parenting circles about putting a favorite stuffed animal in “time out” as a way to motivate kids who didn’t seem to mind when they, themselves, were put in time out. Even that horrified me. This is sickening. So is the parent finding and targeting the kid’s favorite toy in this situation, or is it the toy that the kid is playing with right then? I ask because it seems in no way inappropriate to put a toy a kid is throwing at someone in a brief timeout so you can give the kid time to calm down, even if the “issue” is that the kid is getting a little too excited. That said, if a parent has gotten to the point where they’re actively seeking out and threatening a kid’s stuffed animal, yeah, it’s kinda like holding it hostage. My husband used to do that when my son was small. It didn’t work at all and after the first couple of times (and several fairly large arguments between the two of us), he stopped. It’s a harder - and less immediate - road to talk to a kid about their behavior instead of getting super punitive (especially at such a young age), but I’d agree it’s worthwhile. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/47 "2021-01-28T14:45:28Z")
The stories I read were about going and getting their lovey and saying “since you are bad, BooBear has to go into Timeout. See how sad BooBear is?”. I found that horrifying. ---
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/48 "2021-01-28T14:54:11Z")
I guess I ate just enough, although I was typically the 2nd or 3rd shortest kid in my classrooms. Given that both of my parents are tall, I think I might have ‘shorted’ myself, at least in early childhood. Then, at around 16, I realized that eating was fun, and never looked back. I caught up to my peers in height, and am 6’ tall. I can tell that my interest in food is now higher than for most people. I’m fortunate that I have a fast metabolism and get lots of exercise, or I’m sure I’d be overweight. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/49 "2021-01-28T14:58:24Z")
**WTF?!** 😳 ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/50 "2021-01-28T15:13:38Z")
Exactly. What the ever loving fuck? I can’t see how that is even remotely funny. Not only that it seems like it would have the opposite long term effect. Associating terror with eating? Good luck with that. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/51 "2021-01-28T15:22:07Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > That’s just like, your opinion, man. It is also the opinion of most experts. As parents our job is to be in control of what where and when the choices available are. And to empower the child to be in control over how much of each of those healthy options they eat. There are multiple reasons. 1. Even with the abusive approaches linked in this OP most often parents will lose a food power battle. Avoid power battles with your kids that you will lose. You need the track record. 2. The result of these losing battles is reinforcing the “no” behavior so that persists lifelong. They don’t know why they don’t like broccoli just they never have … but they don’t even remember having tasted it. Just keeping it on the plate to be chosen or declined more often results in the repeated occasional taste that eventually results in liking it. 3. Parents being in control over how much to eat is associated with both obesity and eating disorders. The common theme is that kids are discouraged from paying attention to their own internal cues, instead learning that eating is something done to please or displease someone else, outside of themselves. Emotional control issues. The must eat it/clean plate and bribery styles that attempts to eliminate any control from the child is part of what gets called authoritarian parenting. The other end of allowing kids whatever junk they want is called permissive. I’ll ignore neglectful. The goal is to be _authoritative_. Neither food fascist or short order cook be. This is what there is, a reasonable range of healthy choices. This is meal time. Eat it or don’t that’s up to you. While modeling the healthy choices. Generally speaking over time given a variety of healthy options and junk limited to small amounts, kids can be trusted to eat the right amount, in a healthy variety, over time. It serves development of long term healthy habits best. Review of some of the research. > **[The Role of General Parenting Style in Child Diet and Obesity Risk - Current...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13668-020-00301-9)** > > Purpose of Review The childhood obesity epidemic is widely considered to have reached pandemic proportions. Across the world, children with obesity are facing numerous psychological and physiological issues that follow them into adulthood, frequently... ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/52 "2021-01-28T15:29:37Z")
One of the many on eating disorders and it’s association. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26271810\_Parenting\_styles\_and\_eating\_disorder\_pathology](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26271810_Parenting_styles_and_eating_disorder_pathology) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/53 "2021-01-28T17:17:35Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > This is meal time. Eat it or don’t that’s up to you. That was my parents’ attitude (and that was in the period immediately after food rationing ended in the UK, so faddy eating was not on their mental agenda). The two things I remember them saying quite often (not entirely without a smile) if there was something I didn’t like - “You’ll eat what you’re given _and you’ll like it_” and “All the more for the rest of us”: but nothing like a punishment ensued (well, maybe a slightly smaller portion of dessert). My first thought on reading the OP was of the notion of a “[whipping boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipping_boy)”, but now I see that may be mythological. It surprises me that people might do something like that for real, even if it’s only Teddy that gets beaten up. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/54 "2021-01-28T17:31:18Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Years ago, there was some talk in parenting circles about putting a favorite stuffed animal in “time out” as a way to motivate kids who didn’t seem to mind when they, themselves, were put in time out. Even that horrified me. This is sickening. Yeah. If you are a movie character, and you try to punish or persuade one of the other characters by hurting their innocent loved ones, it’s a sure bet that you are the villain of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/55 "2021-01-28T17:39:59Z")
Good god. I didn’t find that funny in the least. It’s straight-up fucked-up. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/56 "2021-01-28T18:38:13Z")
Yeah, that sounds a heck of a lot like some creepy hostage standoff. We had a friend (emphasis on had) who used to have some predetermined notion of how much food his kids should eat. He or his wife would plate their kids’ food with these enormous piles and require the kid to stay at the table until they ate “enough.” His wife often bragged that her son would sit there for hours, only to have the same food served for breakfast, lunch, dinner. When we would go to their house, they would attempt to do that to my kids, too, saying, “Our house, our rules.” We stopped going to their house after that. Things got so weird about food with them, we stopped inviting them over to our place, too. The final straw was getting yelled at by my friend for the mistaken assumption our four kids were going to share an order of crab rangoon, sweet & sour chicken and steamed rice. (Apparently their kids were required to receive and eat their own order.) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/57 "2021-01-28T18:42:05Z")
> [@overlyverbose](#): > > When we would go to their house, they would attempt to do that to my kids, too, saying, “Our house, our rules.” They would try to control how much food your kids eat? That is crossing an enormous boundary. I can’t imagine anybody I know doing something like that, and if they did, our relationship would end right there if they insisted and pulled some “our house, our rules” crap. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/58 "2021-01-28T19:08:14Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > It is also the opinion of most experts. It’s also my opinion, but I could see myself arguing for the clean plate club. I know/knew people who believe(d) kids should clean their plates. I didn’t mean to start a debate about it, just to point out that not everybody agrees about that. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/59 "2021-01-28T19:43:13Z")
I used to do ‘clean plate bonus’ for my kids; If they cleared their plates, I put a coin in a jar for them (I think it was only 10p) - there was never any great pressure or argument about it, and they still got the clean plate bonus even if it was a meal I knew they really liked eating anyway. At the weekend, they could take the money from their jar and do what they liked with it - spend it on sweets, or put it in their savings. Yes, it’s technically bribery, but it was all incredibly mild mannered. They seem to have turned out OK. ---
**Author:** ![eschrodinger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschrodinger/32/122_2.png) [@eschrodinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschrodinger)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623/60 "2021-01-28T20:20:19Z")
Why would you want to pay your children to eat more than they were hungry for? What were you trying to teach them? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beating-a-stuffed-animal-to-encourage-little-kids-to-eat/931623.md?page=4)