Live webchat with Miriam Stoppard 22 September 1-2pm

Ooh I do have a question which is to the Gransnet team really. Not sure how live webchats work. Unfortunately I'm at work on 22nd September and wondered if there is a summary of all the questions and answers to read after the live chat.

My daughter struggles getting my 17 month old grandson to eat. He's never been overly fond of meal times and it takes a good deal of patience to get food down him. If he's in the mood for eating (which isn't often) he'll just sit there and open his mouth for her to spoon feed him but doesn't participate himself. If he's not in the mood then she has to put all the items of food on to his highchair table and hope for the best that he might eat some of it, though he usually ends up throwing most of it on the floor. I know she gets very frustrated and worries that he's not getting enough nutrients, although he seems healthy enough and has put weight on since birth at a very steady 1-2lb per month. She gets fed up because she tries to cook him healthy home cooked food only to find that he won't eat any of it. He seems to be surviving on mainly toast, yoghurt and peas which is not a very balanced diet. Any ideas on how to make meal times a bit more fun would be welcome.

We have a 5 yr old granddaughter whom I care for twice a week. We are pretty close. She has spent quite a lot of time with us over the years, although my hubby is usally at work when I collect her (twice a week from nursery school). The problem is that she has always been very wary of my husband, even as a 9 month old in terms of closeness and affection and I know he finds this difficult and hurtful. She talks a lot about him and is very excited when she knows he's coming home, but this is always short-lived and as time has goes on she can sometimes be quite spiteful toward him too. Although he's mostly put up with the situation his patience is now wearing thin and its especially difficult for him to know what to do to improve matters as I know that we would both like him to have a closer relationship with her and are at a loss to know where her behaviour has come from. He is an intelligent and thoughtful man who does not normally react impetuously toward her, but tries to deal quietly with the situation, but its clearly not working. Is this a common problem with girls and Grandfathers?

For Dr Miriam what in your view was so wrong with the traditional upbringing of discipline and standards in the home and society thast it needed to be rejected by todays childcare gurus. Everytime I mentioned something to my daughter about routines, bedtime , table manners, eating nutritionally and healthily I get the reply ' the book says you should do this or that'. I was once admonished by my daughter for giving my grandson a spoon of honey when he was about 14 months old ' the book' apparently said children cant have honey until they are three? I want her to act on her instincts as a mother rather than refrring to a book all the time - is this wrong?

With a 2 year old grandchild and doing quite a lot of childcare the question of discipline is coming up for me too so I second the question put above by Lizh....precisely what I need help with.

This is for Dr Miriam Stoppard:
There has been recent publicity about the lack of discipline our children are providing for their children. ie we provided a lot more discipline in our day!
Do you think this is because most mothers are now working and the day to day care is shared amongst a number of carers. Are the children confused as to who is in charge? Is everyone trying to be too careful with them as their time together is relatively short? And as grandparents, if we provide the discipline that we gave to our own children, will they still love us?!