Author’s practical guidance
Listening to body signals
Source named in the book: eating competence research (Satter) · AAP
Hungry, tired, needing the toilet, too hot — these are signals a small child feels clearly and cannot yet identify.
Say this now
“Is your tummy still hungry, or is it full?”
A question, not a ruling. Accept the answer even when you disagree with it.
“Your body has gone wobbly. What does it need?”
Point at the signal and let them name it. Wrong answers are fine and still count as practice.
Do this
- Keep the division clear: you decide what is offered and when; they decide whether and how much.
- Ask rather than announce about hunger, fullness, tiredness and the toilet.
- Name your own signals out loud: "I've gone snappy. I think I need to eat."
- Watch for the same time of day showing up repeatedly, and change the schedule rather than the child.
- Talk to your doctor if a signal seems genuinely absent — pain, fullness, or the need to go.
Avoid this
- "You're not hungry, you just ate." — contradicts the one instrument they have.
- Deciding how much of a meal is enough once the food is on their plate.
- "You're tired." — said as a verdict rather than as a guess they can check.
If it repeats
Recognizing hunger and tiredness with a prompt starts around three. Acting on a signal before it becomes behavior is closer to five or six, and it stays unreliable when they are excited or absorbed — which is true of most adults as well.
Why the book suggests this
Hungry, tired, needing the toilet, too hot — these are signals a small child feels clearly and cannot yet identify. What comes out instead is behavior: the meltdown at half past five, the wild half hour before sleep, the sudden refusal in a shop.
Adults tend to work in the other direction, telling children what their bodies contain: you're tired, you're not hungry, you don't need to go, you just went. Every one of those overrides the signal the child was reading, and the reading is the skill being built.
From this collection
Same Words: Big Skills
45 prepared situations in this family area.