Snacks as reward?

Your son, despite being picky, has a nice variety of foods that he is willing to eat, and all the food groups are represented. I hope also that he is drinking milk each day. You should be pleased that he includes fruit and some vegetables in his repertoire.

You are correct in feeling that perhaps the snack should not be offered as a reward. Your son can best stay tuned in to his internal eating cues without outside rewards and punishments. Offering food as a reward for anything — be it good behaviour or finishing his vegetables — takes food out of the realm it is meant to be in and can set up attitudes and habits towards food that may be unhealthy in the long run.

If your son is hungry he will eat his dinner. You want him to learn that food is to satisfy hunger. If he is not hungry, you don't want him to eat or to eat more than his body is telling him he needs to for fear he may not get his evening snack. An evening snack is fine for a young child, even if they didn't eat all their dinner. The same is true for an adult. We should all learn to push the plate aside when we are full, not just when the plate is empty. Likewise, it is OK to have a healthy snack in the evening if we are hungry. So, I suggest you continue the evening snack, unattached to any other previous behaviour, and perhaps you can even join him!

Thank you for writing.