Same as above. The food comes out. If you choose to eat only one of the items on the plate, you don't get seconds of that item! If you want something that is not on the plate, you don't get what you want! If you choose to get up and walk away in the middle of the meal, I will take that as a statement that you were done, and your plate is picked up and removed from the table.

Any other habit is a recipe for misery for you, and also for everyone who ever tries to feed that child a meal for the rest of their natural lives. There are adults who act like toddlers at mealtime. If you indulge the toddlers now, you will increase the number of terrible houseguests and restaurant patrons in the world. For the sake of some infant out there who is going to grow up to be the server at that table, don't let your kids turn into mealtime divas.

Re: being hungry at pick up: if the kids are stuffed at supper time, the parents are going to be upset, and rightfully so. I have found that my picky eaters either load up on snacktime and ignore lunch, or ignore snacktime and load up on lunch. Don't stress. They will eat when they're hungry, but don't feed them outside of meal times because then they will never be hungry enough to eat at the actual meal time.

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