eat for your granny, eat for your uncle

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JACEK1

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Hello everybody!

There is something that has been bugging me for the last few days. While spoon feeding their children, some parents in Poland have the habit of saying: eat for your grandpa, eat for your auntie, eat for your granny, eat for your uncle, and so on and so forth. What the parents do while feeding their children is a way of encouraging them to eat more.

I would like to ask you how such encouragement is expressed in your country.
 

GoesStation

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Parents often play choo-choo train with their toddlers. The child's mouth is the entrance to a tunnel, which the child has to open to admit the train represented by a spoonful of mashed peas and carrots.

One of my brothers-in-law used to tell his daughters "Don't eat anything green!" This provoked endless giggles as the girls disobediently did exactly that.
 

emsr2d2

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A similar trick is done with babies and young children by pretending that the spoon of food is an aeroplane, moving it around above the head of the child (or even all round the room), making aeroplane noises, and finally zooming it down out of the "sky" and into the child's open mouth.
 

Tdol

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How about one for granny?
 

abaka

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"Baby num-nums. Baby num-nums. Baby num-nums..."

(And sometimes a birdie substitutes for the baby.)
 

Skrej

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One of my brothers-in-law used to tell his daughters "Don't eat anything green!" This provoked endless giggles as the girls disobediently did exactly that.

Sometimes I think 99% of parenting is reverse psychology, at least at younger ages.

My cousin routinely tricks her finicky toddler by pretending not to share whatever food the kid won't eat. When she's thoroughly convinced mommy won't let her have any, she'll usually end up begging for it, then conveniently forget that she supposedly didn't like it to begin with.

Sometimes the kid has to see several adults sampling said food and gushing about how good it is, then "refusing" to share before she buys into the act. I was supposed to help once, but got confused by all the reverse psychology and messed up my role....
 
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