Gratitude

How does one teach gratitude to a 3 year old?

Christian has been regressing a little in terms of behaviour. All throughout the trip (Thur - Sat) he had been picky about food, and refused to chew the meats, and would fuss over the littlest greens in his rice.

We were very patient with him, and negotiated with him to take a mouthful of rice interspersed with a mouthful of chocolate tart / other desserts. I wondered why he had been battling us during meal-times, given that it's been a while since he took issue with having to chew meat.

On Sunday, when P brought us to a nearby country club for dinner, our son barely ate the dishes and had mainly soup with rice. The one mouthful of chicken that he deigned to put in his mouth was chewed on for so long that it ended up being dry and fibrous. Peter laughed, but I was pissed. Christian ended up spitting the remains of the chicken out, and I just shrugged it off, not wishing to berate him too harshly over it.

However, on Monday night he insisted he only wanted to eat egg, rice and nothing else, after Ida presented him his dinner. I was firm, and said No, he could just go hungry if he didn't want to eat what we'd cooked. I was getting ready to show him a video of the 'hungry children of Africa', when he sulked and started pushing blocks under the shelf. That got a brief rebuke from me, and he pouted some more. I snapped when he threw a wooden block into a CPU (it was an old CPU which we weren't using) and whacked him on the back. He wailed silently before escalating to a full bawl which woke his sister.

I showed him the youtube video, which was more of a powerpoint presentation filled with images of malnourished African children, thinking it would help him understand that there are people in this world who go hungry, and would love to have food, any food at all. He stared silently, tears running down his cheeks, and repeated himself over and over "I want egg and rice. I want egg, Mama."

I explained that I understand him, I understand his preference of egg, but we can't always have what we want and even if it's food that's not our favourite, we cannot waste it nor complain about it, but should just eat it up. I thought I didn't get through to him, cos he remained stubborn. I gave up at the end of the video and walked away, asking Ida to try and feed him again later.

He finally ate after Ida bluffed him that some white bits in his rice were egg. He shouted "There's egg, Mama!" I knew it was a face-saving measure for him and just 'hmmmphed' without contradicting him.

Anyway, I put him to bed that night and just when I thought he had fallen asleep, he suddenly turned back to face me and asked "the poor children of africa have no food right, mama?" "No water right?" "No toys? they have no toys?"

"Can you show me tomorrow, the poor children who don't have mamas and daddys?" (He remembered what I said about orphans long long ago and made the link!)

"i like mama and daddy.. I like daddy because he brings me to the beach."

"Oh, why do you like mama then?"

He struggled to find a reason, then said "Because mama shares meat with me, meat from the table.."

then continued to ask.. "They have no school right?"

I of course took the opportunity to tell him that some children would love to be able to go to school, and he should be grateful for what he has. We ended by praying and giving thanks to God, though he kept interrupting me with questions of what the impoverished children don't have, that I'd to shush him so he would sleep.

Sigh. I hope it's not too traumatic a lesson for him. P thinks Ch might be too young for this, at 3.. but he should learn what real life is like for some other children. How else should I teach gratitude?