Table 3 Supporting quotations for themes related to aspirations that influence feeding practices

Preventing hyperactivity and tooth decay

So the first time she drank Pepsi, I literally thought my husband was drinking my sodas at night, and I was getting mad. But one time I caught her. She was like nine months and unscrewing the top to the Pepsi and taking it to the head. That’s what made me stop drinking Pepsi because I was wondering why she was always hyper late at night.

He had two cavities. They told me they wanted to take his two front teeth out. So, I said no because, I actually have a niece who is four-years-old and they went to the doctor at the same time, and they told us that we have to take their two front teeth out. I said, “No way!” My niece is four-years-old and she got her two teeth out, her two front teeth. I don’t like that. My son still has his teeth. Because they said, “Ok, ma’am, I understand you don’t want his teeth out, so, we’re going to go another route.” So they capped them. So, I was not having that. Couldn’t have his teeth out.

I’m not a big sugar kicker. I feel like the sugar keeps them going! If it’s 100% juice I feel like they’re getting the fruit out of it but, as far the sugar content, I don’t want to deal with that all day! So they get the flavor, but I still dilute it and she’s four.

Teaching life lessons to children

I buy a case of water and the packets of the juice. I count- you get a juice with your dinner and then you get another juice- that’s the only juice you’re going to get, two juices out of the day. The rest you have to drink water.

So she got the cookie or the cake or the cupcake, but I feel like it gives me something, if I feel like she didn’t eat that fruit that I sent in the snack pack for lunch or she didn’t drink enough milk or something, it’s like a trade-off. You don’t get the cookie.

Being responsive to children

They won’t eat peas, for some reason. They say it looks nasty to them so they don’t eat peas. So I won’t cook peas for them, so I know they only like corn, broccoli, string beans and maybe greens.

Sometimes I’ll give my kids two [juice boxes] in a row. If I see that they guzzled the juice down really fast, I can see they’re really thirsty, so I’ll say, “Go ahead, you can have another one”.

Knowing your child is to understand, where they stand, and how they function and when you can kind of judge.