Food refusal (undated) - Ursula Wise refers to 'the pleasures of tyranny' occurring around eating and drinking.

Undated and untitled - in the Ursula Wise archive as a typed manuscript. 

“J. S. F.” writes:“I should deeply appreciate your valuable advice on a matter which has gradually developed into a problem for me. I have a little daughter of two and a half, who is very difficult with her food. I want to know what attitude you would suggest for me to take  up when she says, ‘Take it away,’ which she so frequently does when a dish is put before her. She is quite happy to go without until her next meal. I have tried persuasion with no success. Of course, I try to think of dishes which I know she will enjoy, and on the whole she is quite good in finishing the meal, but two or three sips of milk is the most she will ever take without a good deal of persuasion. I don’t think it is that she dislikes it so much as that she doesn’t feel thirsty, and therefore doesn’t wish to take it. She drinks very little during the day of any liquid, but wakes two or three times during the night for little drinks of water. I feel if she would only drink a normal amount during the day she wouldn’t want it in the night. I must say that we are great friends, and that I try to be as cheerful and patient as possible during meal times. Just now she is recovering from an attack of ‘flu’ and is especially difficult. Naturally, I am trying to be as gentle and patient as possible, but it is so necessary for her to take nourishment and drink. 

I hope I have made this plain, and that you will be able to give me some of your excellent advice.”

I think I should certainly avoid persuasion with such a child. it very rarely I successful and just defeats itself. It really is very much better to leave the child not to eat if she doesn’t want to, and not to show any concern at all yourself. If she knows that you are worried when she says, “Take it away”, the pleasures of tyranny may easily prove more attractive for her then the normal pleasures of the appetite. It is not always easy for anyone with comparatively limited experience to believe this, but it has been fund to be true over and over again. Children do actually eat more when they are provided with the right sort of food and left to it. I think your little girl’s asking for drinks of water in the night does lend colour to the idea that her contrariness about food and drink is a way of asserting her control over you. I should be inclined to lessen the attention you give her in the night. I would not cut the drinks all at once, but I would definitely limit them, beginning, of course, only when she is quite over the effects of the influenza. If she has been having three drinks in the night, I would cut them down to two, refusing more quit definitely, telling her before the second one that you were not going to give her any more till breakfast. Then, after a week or two, I would bring it down to one only, making this quite definite and clear, and then a little later on to none at all at night.

            On the other hand, I would leave a drink near the child in the night in a mug or cup that she could manage herself, so that she could get out of bed and manage independently.
This is different from demanding attention from you, and it would be a good thing to lessen her demands upon you as soon as you can.