Peer Pressure

Zach is exposed to a lot of kids his age and he figured two things out.

1. Apparently, we are supposed to be picky eaters
2. Accidents get the adult's attention.

Picky Eater:
Suddenly, he's very specific in how he likes his food. He eats a wide variety of food, mostly healthy, but he's noticing that most other kids his age are pickier then that so he's decided to be too, at first. The truth is he likes the variety so he rarely sticks to his original statement. Most days after school I have made a turkey, ham and cheese sandwich for him (nothing on it) and a banana. I have turkey on my salad. My rule is that I only make the one thing for any given meal and if you don't eat it, you go hungry until the next one. But I do make things I know he eats (if I try something new I am willing to offer something else). Anyway after school he claims he's only willing to eat the ham not the banana or turkey or cheese. Of course the first thing he eats is the banana but he does ignore the turkey (I think he's just sick of the turkey next week it'll just be the ham and cheese). He likes the banana but sees other kids being difficult at snack time so he's decided to be too.

By sticking to my "this is it for a couple of hours" rule he drops his pickiness. He's trying to see what he can get away with. For snacks he doesn't get a new snack unless he's finished the first. example: if his original request is grapes (I've been having grapes and cheese so it's right there), then his asks for nuts, once the grapes are finished he gets the nuts. If he wants something too close to dinner, sorry sweety you should have eaten lunch.

"I Had An Accident":
We look, no you didn't. In school, the kids who get the teacher's undivided attention are the ones who are potty training and have had an accident. He feels left out since most kids his age are starting potty training now but he did that a long time ago (I haven't needed to buy a diaper since the end of July). We're working on helping him understand it's something he can be proud of that he was done potty training a while ago. The closest to an actual accident he's had since that time the teacher put him in a diaper (post below) is a couple of pee pee drops from standing up too quickly. But he has our attention when we check. Yes, we give him plenty of attention for other things but he's an only child and that means, at least at this age, he's an attention hog. I've observed that on school days he'd rather play at my parent's house so he doesn't have to share attention then go to the park.

http://homewithmommy-fran.blogspot.com/2012/01/mommy-please-dont-go.html