Help My Seven Year Old Spills His Drink at Every Meal!!

filling the glass half full is a good idea or he can eat first and then get his drink when he is done eating. Maybe you can find a cool cup with a lid and straw and DONT call it a sippy cup. tell him he can earn having an adult cup once he is more careful

Does he spill when trying to drink or is he knocking it off the table? If he is knocking it off the table then maybe (like all kids mine too) he is putting it right in line of his arm moving to and from his mouth , you just have to be on the ball all the time and remind them to move it to the top of the plate. If he is spilling when trying to drink from it then that is a different issue , I would suggest maybe a coordination problem of knowing when the cup is at his mouth and tipping it too much?

My 3 & 4 year old both have gone at least 2-3 months spill free & this is how I did it. at home I use my glass low ball glasses. I bought really thick glass ones from walmart for $10. They are heavy and not top heavy. They are large enough that they have to use both hands to pick the glass up. I do use bendy straws sometimes too. Inthe car, cups with lid & straw. In resturaunts, I ask for to go cups or I bring in metal drink bottle to transfer drinks to. Hope this helps. I always say I would spill often too if my arms were a different length every other day. :D

My mom used to call it the quarter inch theory. Every time I came within a quarter inch of the plate, the glass, a chair, the counter. I would hit it, spill it, knock it over. I was such a klutz. I still run into things. My kids are used to yelling POLE!!! whenever I back up in the van.
Now I have 2 of my own klutzes. I clean up alot, move the glass back, and always have napkins and rags on hand.
Keep on him. Keep pushing the glass back and maybe fill it half full and give him a couple glasses at dinner instead of a full glass.

My sister is a natural spiller. At 46 years old, she still has not out grown it. If you can serve him drinks in a travel coffee mug or a sports drink bottle, you might be able to make your supply of paper towels last a little longer.

My step son use to do this when he was your sons age. I think they just get busy talking or eating and forget it's there and spill it. I had a bad habit of this as a little kid too. Always seemed to do it at restaurants too. We started setting his cup up on the counter and totally away from his seating area. He was free to get up for a drink but normally waited until after his meal and then had his drink. Either way it worked for him and it avoided a messy table for the rest of us.

As a childcare provider, I operate on the theory of only giving the kids as much as I'm willing to clean up. I definitely wouldn't go with a sippy cup at his age, but try giving him a very small amount and giving him his cup only after he's done eating. I'd also try stopping eating yourself when you give him his cup and just chatting with him while he drinks. His spilling might be because he's not paying attention and messing around while eating or it might be a behavior that has been developed because it gets your attention on him during the meal. If you focus on him when he has his cup, you can watch for signs that he might spill to teach him to be more cautious or to be more calm at the table and you can give him some one-on-one attention that might solve the problem totally. Good luck!

there are some great ideas listed below - another thought is if he is knocking it over and needs to know where to place it you can put a coaster on the table as a visual reminder of where to place the glass.

Make him clean it up EVERY TIME. Don't make a big deal about it. Just make him do it. He'll be motivated to pay more attention. I would also second the suggestion of getting his vision checked.

My son (almost 7) tends to put his glass, cup, water bottle, whatever, very, very near the edge of the table when he is eating. We are FOREVER reaching over and moving it up to O. o'clock of his plate. It seems it will NEVER end, but we're hoping it will! LOL

They do make washable cups with lids and straws. Whenever my 3 year old starts to spill again (it's because he's being careless and not paying attention) we go back to the straw cups, which he hates because he thinks they're 'baby' cups. We tell him if he wants to drink out of a big boy cup, he has to pay attention like a big boy - so tell your son the same thing. When he's ready for the responsibility of a big boy cup, he can have one.

Also, make him clean up his own mess. He'll probably be more careful when his precious time is taken up with wiping and mopping up spills.

My kids are SOOOOO clumsy, so I feel your pain with the cups at dinner. I actually started filling their cups only halfway, and having a towel nearby. I also teach them to keep their cup on the other side of their plate to prevent elbows from causing spills. They also used to be told to use two hands. Another thing I started doing, which honestly became the turning point for us, is I started making them clean up their own spills. They used to spill a drink every single day. BUT, after I started saying "get a towel and clean it up" and then checking to see if they got it all, the spills became fewer and fewer! Now, they're 6 and 7, and we only have spills maybe every couple of weeks or so. It's amazing what personal responsibility can fix when you make them do the cleanups!!

The making them clean it up is a good thing. Another trick we found was to give them a cup with a handle. you find them in plastic everywhere. make sure also that the cup is a kid size cup and not an adult one. sometimes adult size dishes are just a little more than a kid can grasp. also only fill it about 1/2 full to start. better to refill it a dozen times than clean it up off the table. another good trick is to use a dish towel as a placemat for him. i would get a good thick bathroom type towel. that way if something spills its easy to wipe and wala into the washer it goes. (you can find th towels in just about any color style)

Have his vision checked. My 5 year old was doing that and come to find out, he had a vision problem and physically couldn't see the cup where I had it and so he would forget that it was there and spill...every meal. I then started enforcing sippy cups even though they were embarrassing but I got so tired of the mess/ extra work. He is better now (with glasses). Hope this helps. Good luck.

N.

I don't have an answer, but your post made my laugh about my son and wanted to share with you. He is 15 years old and every night he pours himself a big glass of milk with dinner. It is a running joke at our house about he just about every night he fills it up so full it overruns just enough to make a small mess. If anyone is in the kitchen when he pours and does not spill, we joke about him finally doing it right. This is the same kid who has just in the last couple of weeks emptied entire water bottles on the floor when he picked them up, and who has had food just "jump" off his plate onto the floor! He's an awesome kid, so this is just a good laugh for us. I'm sure your little one will get the hang of it and you have some good advice!

I have found cups designed for adults that have lids with a lever that one pushes to open a hole in the top so that you can drink. They are not sippy cups. I use them with my grandchildren both at home and in the car. They are called Autoseal and made by Contigo They come in "adult" colors. Mine are an army green with orange accents and a medium blue with lime accents. They are made of plastic and are double walled. They have a non-slip bottom.

The cup is an adult sized cup. You could use one too.

Don't fill it all the way don't fill it halfway just enough till he is done with dinner & ask's for more.