Are we teaching our kids all wrong?

As any parent knows meal time with our children can sometimes be an all out battle.

Sit still !!
Stop playing !!
Come eat now or your not getting any other food for the rest of the night !!
Eat your veggies and you can have dessert
Eat ALL your food !!

Its the last three that I would like to discuss.

First we can talk about meal 'time' itself. Nutritionists around the globe drive it home to everyone that the healthiest way to eat is 5 small meals aday. 5 meals insted of 3 for healthy metabolism
But I know in my household and most likely yours there are only 3 meals(most of the time only 2) -Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. So just with that in focus it would seem that we are teaching them the wrong way.Now I know it is a heck of alot easier to prepare 3 meals rather than 5, but are we compromising health for convience?

Secondly rewarding children with a sweet treat for eating vegetables or any other food they refuse to eat. I dont know about you guys but I have a hard enough time getting my kid to bed a night without the aid of some sugar rush after dinner. And also to me, offering a child a reward for eating a certain thing seems that it would teach the kid that (insert food) is undesireable and requires a reward. So it MUST not be good for me then. And ontop of that we are teaching them that after meal time, is treat time. Personal I have been trying to sneak healthy treats in there, but my 4 y/o is a quick one. So are trying to bribe our children to eat better with somthing that is worse for them?

Lastly and probably the biggest issue at meal time is FINISH YOUR PLATE. Are we teaching our kids that if there is food infront of you, no matter wether you are full are not, you HAVE to finish it or you will be in trouble?
How are we, as parents, to know how the childs stomach feels. Maybe after eating half their plate, they truly do feel full.

So when meal time comes do we have our childrens best intrest in mind when we do these things or is it more for our own convience?

I agree with you on the cleaning your plate thing. I never understood that concept and wasn't raised with it. Of course, in as big a family as mine, if you couldn't clean your plate, somebody would gladly clean it for you, especially when my brother got a little older .

Also, the concept of "eat what's on the table or don't eat at all" came from a time when a meal was likely to consist of at least half a dozen things and probably more than that. If you couldn't find at least one thing you'd eat, you were probably just pouting. Folks didn't skimp on mealtime unless they absolutely had to. These days, there's not really time for that sort of big meal preparation, not even at Thanksgiving.