Bribery - Does it work?

It may, but it will get expensive after a while.  The bribery I refer to is both monetary and food consumption.  I'm not great at this, yet.  I think it has to do with a lifetime of dessert bribery from my parents (and myself).  If I eat a meal, I can have the cookie.  I can't just eat the cookies for dinner - that would be wrong.  (I recently had to fess up to my doctor that I had ice cream for lunch - very embarrassing).  I know that none of you have ever had that conversation in your head.

Anyway, if you tell kids if they eat their veggies, they can have dessert.  It makes the vegetables the enemy and the reward for conquering them is dessert.  First of all, you don't want to make dessert the reward.  Just Google "Dessert as reward" and you'll get an earful (or eyeful) on why you don't want to do that.  Second, you don't want to make the vegetable out as the bad guy. 

What we do in our family is allow everyone to have dessert no matter how much of their dinner they eat.  However, we do regulate the amount of dessert.  There are no seconds.  If they are still hungry after dessert, they have the option to eat more dinner or a piece of fruit.

Bribing with food causes all types of psychological food issues.  Most of us probably grew up with those issues, so it is hard to see the problem.  But it is there.  Please don't use dessert as a reward for eating your vegetables.