The Division of Responsibilities Explained for More Successful Mealtimes

Mealtime can be a challenging and stressful time for parents, especially with picky eaters. However, the Division of Responsibilities, a research-based approach by Ellyn Satter, can help alleviate some of that stress and create a more positive mealtime experience for both parents and children.

The parents’ responsibility is to determine what to eat, where to eat, and when to eat, while the child is responsible for deciding how much to eat and whether or not to eat.

What is the Division of Responsibilties?

The Division of Responsibilities is a research-based approach by Ellyn Satter, which divides up the responsibilities of mealtime between parents and children. The child’s responsibilities at mealtime are to determine how much they eat, and whether or not they eat (meaning we don’t force them to eat, whether physically forcing, emotionally forcing via bribes, or pressuring them to eat more, whether it’s preferred or non-preferred/new foods). It is the parent’s responsibility, however, to decide what to eat, where to eat, and when to eat.

How can I trust my child is eating enough?

Young children typically have an innate ability to determine how much food they need*. This innate ability can be altered as the child grows older based on eating habits that have been taught (whether explicitly or implicitly) and modeled. By giving children the responsibilities of deciding how much they eat and whether or not they eat at a young age, we can help children learn to trust their body. Paired with the research that has shown us that pressuring children to eat negatively impacts children’s eating, while reducing pressure to eat (and instead making nutrient-dense foods available, modeling healthy eating, and setting mealtime routines) actually increases positive eating habits, these strategies can be powerful tools towards more successful mealtimes.

It should be noted that children with feeding disorders may have more difficulty with this innate ability to know how much they need to eat due to difficulties feeling their hunger/full cues (which can result from a variety of factors including gastrointestinal problems, difficulties with their sensory system, frequent pressure to eat in the past, stress around mealtimes, etc.). That said, by following the Division of Responsibilities along with a feeding schedule, we can help increase children’s ability to feel and respond to their natural signals. Be sure to consult with your pediatrician and/or a registered pediatric dietitian to help determine how many calories your child should be consuming to maintain their own personal growth curve if you have concerns with this. Consult with your feeding therapist and nutritionist to determine the best way to ensure your child is able to meet their calorie requirements.

The Parent’s Responsibilities:

What to eat:

This means the parent determines what foods are served, aiming to serve a balanced meal, with one protein, one carbohydrate, and one fruit and/or vegetable at each meal. It can be a tricky trap to ask your young child what they want to eat.

When given the opportunity to choose what to eat, of course a young child is always going to request their favorite food.

While young children may have an innate ability to determine how much they need to eat, they do not yet understand the importance of balanced eating. As the parent, it is your responsibility to choose the foods and help teach balanced eating. We teach this not by telling children, “You have to eat your vegetables because they’re healthy for you,” but by both serving them these foods thereby providing opportunities for them to eat them, as well as by modeling eating them, by eating with our children.

Aim to serve a balance meal including 1 protein, 1 carb, and 1 fruit/vegetable, such as eggs, pancakes, and blueberries.

What should I do if my child is currently deciding what to eat for each meal?

It’s easy to fall into the trap of asking our children what they want to eat when we find our child not eating the foods we prepare. We do want to respect our child and set them up for success, so it is recommended to serve at least one preferred food at each meal, but it does not mean they get to choose what that preferred food is.

If you are already stuck in this trap and your child is used to choosing their meal, you can start by giving two firm choices to choose from (e.g. “Do you want chicken nuggets or mac and cheese?”). If they request something else, you can say something like, “Grilled cheese is not a choice tonight, do you want chicken nuggets or mac and cheese?” (even if you could make the requested food, it’s better to stick to the two given choices). This gives them some control, without being completely in control. It will take time to adjust to this change, but stay strong, it will be worth it in the long run to be in charge of choosing what to serve. Over time, this can be faded to them choosing one of the side dishes (e.g. “Do you want green beans or corn?”), and eventually fading this out all together. Eliminating giving choices all together can also help prevent power struggles that may occur, which is definitely not an ideal way to start a meal.

Avoid Becoming a Short-Order Chef

This also means that you do not want to fall into the trap of being a short-order chef. Your child will quickly learn that if they refuse the foods they are served and you offer to make them something else, they can always refuse to eat and they will get what they want. If we always serve at least one preferred food, if our child chooses not to eat the foods, that is their choice. By sticking to a feeding schedule (see When to eat), we can rest assured that our child will be offered food again in 2-2.5 hours. Try a different preferred food at the next eating opportunity.

If your child is holding out, meal after meal, and not eating (especially if it persists beyond a day), and you are offering a preferred food at each meal, speak with your pediatrician.

Is this an all or nothing method?

Maybe in your house you choose it is okay and doable for your child to choose what they eat for part of their breakfast or lunch, but that mommy and daddy choose dinner. Maybe you have a few dinner options for the week and your child can help give input on which meal they want which day. There can be flexibility in this. Some children on the other hand, may have difficulty understanding they can make requests for some meals but not others. You know your child best and what strategy will work best for your family.

At the end of the day, your mealtimes are going to be much less stressful if you are able to prepare one meal for the whole family, rather than cooking something different for the parents and the children in the family, and your children will be exposed to a larger variety of foods and learn balanced eating through your model.

When to eat:

This means we provide meals at regular 2.5-3 hour intervals, rather than providing snacks on demand throughout the day for grazing (time intervals refer to the time from the start of one meal to the start of the next meal/snack, rather than from the end of the last meal/snack). This typically looks like 3 meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and 2-3 planned and balanced snacks throughout the day (morning snack, afternoon snack, and possibly an evening snack depending on your child’s schedule). Grazing (or having access to snacks and food across the whole day) typically reduces the overall calories and nutrients children eat across the day, because they are eating just enough to take the edge off of their hunger, usually with low nutrient foods like crackers. Their body also becomes out of tune with their natural hunger/full cycle because they are never fully hungry or full. Grazing reduces the chance that your child will eat at meals and planned snack times. By providing consistent meals/snacks every few hours, your child’s body will learn to better listen to natural hunger/full signals.

What do I do if my child is asking for snacks throughout the day?

If children are asking for food outside of the planned meals/snacks, try to stay strong and just offer water (avoid milk and high calorie drinks, because these can fill children up the same way as grazing). You can say something like, “We’re having a snack in an hour, we just ate breakfast a little bit ago. You can have some water,” or, “The kitchen is closed, you can have some water, we’re having a snack in a little bit.” Over time, your children will adjust to eating the right amount at each meal. If we continue to let them decide when they want to eat, they will continue to eat less at planned meals/snacks, continue to eat less nutrient dense foods, and wait until after meals to ask for something different.

Aim to offer balanced meals and snacks every 2.5-3 hours to ensure your child has plenty of healthy eating opportunities without grazing.

Example Feeding Schedule:

Breakfast: 7:30am

Morning Snack: 10am

Lunch: 12:30pm

Afternoon snack: 3:30pm

Dinner: 6pm

Where to eat:

This means we provide a calm, positive, and supportive environment for our child to eat in. By providing supportive seating, including making sure our child’s stomach is meeting the table at the right height (between breastbone and belly button) in order for them to comfortably reach their food, and providing foot support in order to help our child’s body feel stabilized (imagine sitting in a chair where the table is at your armpits and your feet are dangling with nothing to rest them on – are you comfortable? Is your body in the optimal state to think about doing something difficult like trying a new food?), we are setting up our child’s body for successful eating, and increasing their chances of staying seated at the table long enough to finish eating. There are many positive effects of eating together as a family, which ranges from benefits for healthy eating habits, to social and mental health benefits. Family mealtimes may not be doable every night for your family, but having your child eat at the same time as at least one other adult carries similar benefits. Try to make it a goal to prioritize family mealtimes when it works in your schedule.

Provide supportive seating for your child, and eat at the same time as them with limited external distractions.

Minimizing Mealtime Distractions

Additionally, it is your responsibility to help minimize distractions during mealtimes. Eating in front of screens including phones, tablets, and TVs have long-term negative effects. Eating in front of a screen takes away from the child actually focusing on what they are doing. If a child only ever eats in front of a screen, their “cue to eating” is a screen, and they become less likely, or even unable, to eat when the screen is not there. Children are not focused on chewing their food, which can increase choking hazards, are not focused on the sensory properties of foods, which can keep their diet limited, and are less tuned into their hunger/full signals. Meals are not only about eating food, but are a very social part of life and culture around the world. It is our job to teach this to our children. Of course there will be times this rule may need to be broken (who doesn’t love family movie and pizza night?), but the key is to make the screen-time at mealtime an exception to the rule, rather than the routine. Determine if there are other mealtime distractions that are making it difficult for your little one to focus at meal times, including loud music, and even pets. Check out my guide to transitioning to meals on a positive note, too.

The Child’s Responsibilities:

How much to eat:

This means the child decides when they have had enough to eat. It is okay to provide more of their preferred food for them to fill up on, and it’s okay if they do not eat the other foods you served. What is important is that they have the opportunity to eat the foods, and that they listen to their own body to know if they are full. If a child says they are done and you do feel they may not have eaten enough, it is okay to help them check in with their body. You can say something like, “Check-in with your tummy, are you sure you’re done? We are not eating again until our afternoon snack.” Over time, in combination with you sticking firm with not serving unplanned snacks between planned meals/snacks, children will learn if they are really full or if they need to eat a little bit more.

Reducing Pressure to Eat

Letting children decide how much they eat also means that we avoid pressuring them to eat more. This includes avoiding using phrases like, “Three more bites,” or, “You have to take one bite of the [non-preferred food] before you can leave the table.” Can you imagine being told you have to take three more bites when maybe your stomach doesn’t feel good, you are actually truly full, or you really don’t like the food? At the end of the day, it’s probably going to do more harm than good, such as teaching children to ignore their hunger/full signals and over-eat, or leave them with a negative memory of being forced to eat a food, which will most likely make them even less willing to eat it in the future. Reducing the pressure to eat also helps decrease the stress children may feel around mealtimes. Increased stress can reduce the feeling of hunger, therefore by reducing stress, we can help to make sure our child’s appetite stays intact throughout the meal, until they’re truly full.

Respond to your child’s cues and reduce the pressure to eat or take more bites to create a positive feeding environment and healthy eating habits.

Whether or not they eat:

This means that the child decides which foods, if any, they are going to eat. This also means we don’t force them to eat, whether physically forcing (e.g. holding their hands down, forcing their mouth open, tricking them into eating foods by hiding them in other foods), or emotionally forcing (e.g. bribes (“you can have a cookie if you eat your broccoli”), telling them it’s hurting your feelings that they won’t try it, withholding things like a toy, tablet, or dessert if they don’t eat) whether it’s to eat a preferred or non-preferred/new foods. Forcing and pressuring children to eat foods does not typically have long-term success. Just having the food even available and on their plate (which is what happens if you follow your end of the responsibilities) is already a big step towards children being open to trying new food. Check out my posts about strategies that can help your child work towards trying new foods that don’t include pressure and bribery, including getting messy, playing with food, what food to serve, and additional mealtime strategies.

Having the food available on your child’s plate gives them the opportunity to explore and interact with it through senses like touching and smelling, even if they’re not ready to eat it.

In Conclusion

The Division of Responsibilities can be a helpful tool for parents to create a more positive mealtime experience for both themselves and their children. By dividing up the responsibilities of mealtime between parents and children, and following the guidelines for what to eat, when to eat, and where to eat, parents can help their children learn to make choices and eat what is served while also respecting their preferences and providing a supportive environment for successful eating. It takes the stress off both of the parents and children by allowing parents to cook only one meal for the whole family, using routines and a schedule to make meals predictable, and trusting our children with listening to their bodies in knowing how much to eat and what foods they’re ready to try.

*If you are concerned with your child’s weight gain and growth, speak with your pediatrician and get a referral to a pediatric registered dietitian to get help specific to your child’s needs. There may be other underlying issues contributing to your child’s picky eating. If you are concerned with your child’s feeding and picky eating, speak to your pediatrician and ask for a referral to a feeding therapist (feeding therapists have the title of speech-language pathologist or occupational therapist). Signs your child may benefit from feeding therapy include gagging, vomiting, and/or coughing while eating/drinking, difficulty chewing, rejection of foods, less than 20-30 accepted foods, little to no foods they will eat in certain food groups (e.g. proteins, fruits, vegetables), consistently needing a different meal than the rest of the family, and/or tantrums at the sight or presentation of new or non-preferred foods at the table or on their plate. In some cases, your pediatrician or feeding therapist may also refer you to a gastroenterologist (GI doctor), allergist, otolaryngologist (ENT doctor), or other member of a feeding team.

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This website and information on this blog post is provided for educational purposes only. It is not meant as medical advice, intended to replace a speech-language or feeding assessment, therapy from a speech-language pathologist, or serve as medical or nutritional care for a child. It is recommended that you discuss any concerns or questions you might have with your Speech-Language Pathologist, pediatrician, and medical team, and develop an individualized team plan specifically for your child.