No.

Learning to make food choices and judge proper portions occurs very early in life, so give your kids a chance to determine when they are full. Let your child's appetite guide how much food is enough.

A pattern of overeating can lead to your child being overweight and underfeeding also can lead to weight gain if your child sneaks food when he is hungry between meals.

Encouraging your child to clean his plate can aid in overeating or a food aversion, which are habits that could set up a child for weight or nutritional problems later.

I don't think so at all. Most children are not serving themselves, and therefore cannot exert any control over their portions. The body has a way of telling itself when enough is enough in regards to food, and that is when it is no longer hungry.

I don't know when this tradition started; I know it was big during the implementation of the Marshall Plan. But whenever it started, teaching someone to continue eating when they are full is pointing them on a lifelong path toward obesity.

Especially in a day and age when most parents are unable to pry their children away from electronic entertainment and get them to play outside like in the good old days, forcing a child to finish what they did not ask for is a recipe for disaster, and likely one of the contributing factors in the national weight problem the US has today.

No. Children's appetites vary and aren't the same as adults. And I've always been more of a consequences person than a punishment person. If the child doesn't want to eat and gets hungry later, he'll learn to sit and eat eventually. Children don't starve from not finishing their plate.

No, not really. The parent should be able to tell how much their child is capable of eating. And shouldn't fill their plate past that capacity. To force a child that is full to finish what's on their plate wouldn't be right. If the child just refuses to eat because they don't like the food presented... well too bad. I wouldn't force them to stay there and finish it but I would make them stay until everyone else finishes and then they can be excused but if they are hungry, well, the food we made for them is still waiting to be eaten. If they don't want it well they can wait to eat till the next meal.

no, it encourages obesity. also, taste buds take time to develop, and what a child does not like one year may be his/her favourite the next. Forcing them to eat it when they do not like it, may turn them off it for life. I have problems with many cooked vegetables for this reason. Encourage them to try everything, and insist that enough be eaten to satisfy nutritional needs, then let them make the decision if they have had enough.

Absolutely not! If you force them to eat after they are full, you set them up for eating those supersized portions that you get at restaurants and we all know where that leads. I let my kids eat until they are full and don't force it. However, if they don't eat the veggies, they know not to ask for dessert. As a parent you know how much your kids will eat, so you put food on the plate accordingly. I usually put a little less than I know they can handle and then they can ask for more if they want it.

Also, I never tell them, if you don't finish everything on your plate you won't get dessert, that's like rewarding them for over eating. We only have dessert Friday and saturday anyway (ocassionally sundays)

That was how they did it the "old school" when I was growing up..it was wrong then and it's wrong now. I wouldnt want to be forced to eat.

No way. Children have tastes too. If a child doesn't like something, what is forcing them to eat it going to do, other than prove you are a bully? Also, they may not be hungry enough to finish everything. So if you force them to finish, they could end up being sick. Again, not what you want. Both my kids were raised to try things, but were never forced to eat anything or finish. Both are now adults that eat just about everything.

No not in this day and age its totally cruel this was done to me as a child,i know back then money was very tight,a lot of the things i didnt like like stringly potatoes yuck would make me gag!!!

If i didnt eat it at dinner time my mum would give it to me again at tea time,the same meal re heated(no microwaves back then)it was dry and horrid id literally go hungry and often did until the next day,as i couldnt eat it!!

Id never subject my children to this its cruel!

No.

If your child eats a resonable amount of food and doesn't like peas you should only make him eat half of them (veggies are healthy to eat). Eating half of everything else should be OK too.

I sat at the dinner table from 6 until 8 O'clock one night because I wouldn't eat my peas.