My 8 yr old dawdles painfully at meals. He takes a little bite of food and then he puts his fork down, chews so slowly, picks his fork up, plays around with the food (moving it here and there), looks at it, takes a second bite, puts the fork down, stares at the ceiling - I feel like I'm going to explode with impatience! He can take an hour to finish a meal that should be cleaned up in 15 minutes or so. When I tell him to concentrate and get on with it, he doesn't seem to understand what I am talking about and he just continues in his way. Should I just let him be?
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| It's important not to make dinner time a battle scene. So don't nag him to eat more quickly, stop dawdling, hurry up and so on. Instead, just tell him that dinner is over at "such & such" a time - naming a specific time on the clock. Let him eat however he wants to eat, give him a 3 minute warning before the end time arrives and then when the time is up, just let him know - and then quietly clear his dishes off the table. Firm and consistent dinner rules will help him learn to adjust his eating rate eventually, although it is possible he'll always eat a little more slowly than others.
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