Friends and relatives

some neighbors and members of your extended family are wonderful about food. But others, however much you love them, can drive you crazy. And it can be hard to confront the problems, since after all they are family and friends. The elderly neighbor who gives your child brownies just before dinner for a weekly meal with a large chocolate cake and a 2 pound box of chocolates are equally frustrating. It is not that they are trying to wreck the nutrition plans you've carefully laid for your child. Rather, they may come from a background where showing love with rich sweets was acceptable and normal.

If it happens only occasionally, your best defense is simply to ignore it. You don't need perfect nutrition every day for your child to have an overall good diet. Your child doesn't want dinner because of the M&Ms he just ate next door? Simply require him to sit at the table with the rest of the family, as normal, and tell him he doesn't have to eat anything if he's not hungry. This way he never gets to learn that it eating M&Ms is something special that you don't want him to do. As for the weekly chocolate cakes, if you can't bring yourself to stop them from being brought, throw out the remainder when the guests are gone.

If visiting your neighbor to get cookies at 5:00 p.m. becomes a regular habit, with your child as a willing accomplice, simply tell them both that you want it to stop because this spoils his appetite for dinner. If you don't want to take away the pleasure of the visit, you can perhaps suggest it as an earlier snacktime routine instead, and set firm limits on how many cookies or whatever can be offered.