Article November 18, 1996 Issue

No beans, no cookie

The Christian Science Monitor

It was dinnertime, and our two-year-old was again avoiding her vegetables. I asked her to eat her beans, but she refused and asked for a cookie instead.

"No beans, no dessert," I said. She started to get upset. But I remained unmoved, determined that she finish her dinner. Soon she had worked herself into an uproar. I decided that I needed to leave the room and pray for a solution.

As I prayed I began to wonder if it was so important for her to eat her beans after all. I could see now that the real issue was not what she ate, but learning how to work with each other.

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