Study Reveals How Many Hours Parents Spend Negotiating With Their Kids Each Year
You could take an entire extra weekend getaway for the same amount of time!
triocean | Shutterstock Much of parenting is all about the art of negotiation, especially when kids are little. It's either scream your lungs out or spend mountains of time striking deals with the little pint-sized terrorist wreaking havoc in your home! And a new study shows just how much of moms' and dads' time this bargaining swallows up, especially when it comes to one part of the day in particular.
A study found parents spend 67 hours per year negotiating with their kids.
Yep, 67 hours — that's more than two days. It's basically an entire weekend from laptop close on Friday to laptop open on Monday, spent making deals with a tiny tyrant (but a cute one!).
That's according to a new research study of 2,000 households with at least one school-aged child. And it will come as absolutely no surprise that one aspect of life in particular is at the center of most of these battles — mealtimes.
Mealtime negotiations are the most common, resulting in an average of 260 bargaining sessions each year.
Mealtimes are certainly not the only time parents have to strike deals with their kids, but all that vegetable hatred and squinty-eyed suspicion of new foods eats up the biggest proportion of this parental deal-making, according to the study.
The research identified the age of 5 as the time when parents' deal-making skills are most tested, leading to an average of five contentious bargaining sessions every single week. That's just the average, though. Many parents are being taken to task far more often!
All this arguing over food has parents highly stressed, too: 44% of parents said they are worried about their child's nutrition because of this constant back-and-forth. Unsurprisingly, vegetables are the number-one bone of contention with kids, comprising 37% of parents' reported negotiations.
Rounding out the top five food bugaboos were sensory objections like smell, at 33%; visual appearance and just not liking the look of a food at 32%; spiciness at 22%; and texture issues like food being "too mushy" at 18%. Straight-up refusing to try anything new for no reason was up there too, at 14%.
The survey also revealed the helpful practices that have helped parents avoid so much negotiation.
So how can you avoid having to turn every mealtime into the Camp David Accords? Well, for a lot of parents, you can't, because your kid is the kind of guy or gal who knows what they think and isn't budging on it. And honestly, good for them! And also godspeed to you!
However, respondents to the survey did have a list of other practices that they've found helpful in avoiding all this back-and-forth. Kitchen collaboration was the most successful, which makes sense, Parenting experts say involving kids in food preparation can often help allay many of their fears about trying new things by letting them use their senses to explore new foods.
Parents also found success with the gradual introduction of foods — basically going a bite at a time — and "flavor bridging," combining a new flavor with one a kid already knows and likes, as ways to ease them into trying things they're averse to.
Creating a positive atmosphere around food and mealtimes, with no pressure, anxiety or tension, was also cited by parents as helpful, as was modeling diverse eating habits themselves and basically leading by example when it comes to the "excitement" of trying new foods.
And a lot of these parents — 28% of them, in fact — claimed that explaining the nutritional value of new foods helped their kids be less picky, but those parents are lying because in what world does any kid care about this? But who knows, maybe your tyke will be the exception to the rule!
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.