Satisfying hunger by eating is an inherently pleasurable experience.  As a couple, you have shared food and drink and it has served to enhance your relationship.  Eating and sleeping define our basic vegetative needs and provide a potential structure and rhythm for people who meaningfully share their lives.  Harnessing the potential of food and meals in your family will allow you to define your core values and share in the everyday joys of those you love.

Helping your child struggle to put a puzzle together, working together on an arts and craft project, helping your child learn how to set the the table, or make his or her bed - these are activities that children need to be taught to do by parents who will use  empathy for their child's frustration to assist so that the child experiences mastery and satisfaction and the parent and child can share a sense of pride and satisfaction.  Empathic frustration is the sensitive push that you give your child to delay gratification in the service of managing their needs and desires so that they learn the basics of impulse control and sustained effort.  Empathic frustration assists your child in building the emotional muscles to withstand the demands that a successful life requires.  Helping children learn how to postpone gratification and accept and even enjoy challenges needs to be introduced and fostered by parents from an early age.