When children have choices...

To set the scene, it was the week before Christmas, in Australia, years ago.

Jo Isaac wrote:

This morning Kai opened his advent calender, ate the chocolate, and then said 'Ugh. I'm so sick of eating all this chocolate! Please can I have a plate of cold food.' (It's *really* hot here today!) He's now saving his chocolates for when he wants them, and eating a plate of baby corn, cucumber and apple. 🙂

—Jo Isaac

True Tales of Kids Turning Down Sweets
photo by Susan May

Charlie eats an apple

Sarah Dickinson wrote:

I was looking at the photos on my phone tonight and found this (Jack must have taken it, hence the angle). It is Charlie (3) eating an apple in front of the telly right beside of a full pot of sweets. I thought it was a rather lovely illustration of the choices kids make when they have them, and I thought of you because they never would have had that choice without all your writing.

—Sarah Dickinson

SandraDodd.com/eating/apple.html
photo by Jack Dickinson

Turning down sweets

"I have many, many tales of my four unschooled kids turning down sweets or having a cookie in one hand and an apple in the other..."

—Emily Strength

Read two of those stories here: SandraDodd.com/eating/sweets
and accounts by other parents, too.
photo by Margie Rapp

Gone in no time

"We always have ice cream in the freezer—he rarely eats it, but an apple or watermelon will be gone in no time."

---

A mom named Kris wrote that ten years ago, of a child who is probably grown now.

SandraDodd.com/eating/sweets
photo by Sandra Dodd, taken from a distance,
of watermelons now long gone
__

Charlie eats an apple

Sarah Dickinson wrote:

I was looking at the photos on my phone tonight and found this (Jack must have taken it, hence the angle). It is Charlie (3) eating an apple in front of the telly right beside of a full pot of sweets. I thought it was a rather lovely illustration of the choices kids make when they have them, and I thought of you because they never would have had that choice without all your writing.

—Sarah Dickinson

SandraDodd.com/eating/apple.html
photo by Jack Dickinson