2 (almost 2.5) y/o flinging food

[Disco Infiltrator]

DS (who is mostly a wonderful little boy) has taken to throwing food. He's a kid who has never thrown food previously so it's kind of a surprise that all of the sudden things are flying everywhere. Once he's done with his food he'll pick up his bowl/plate, extends it over the floor and DUMP. A couple days ago he was eating a peach, I look over to see him squishing the peach through his fingers, smearing it on the table and on his thighs and flinging the rest onto the floor.

Our discipline style is unconditional parenting, we don't do time outs, we don't punish, so we remind DS that it's not appropriate to fling food, clean him up and get him down from the table. I've tried asking him to tell us when he's done instead of flinging to no avail. I've finally come down to not commenting whatsoever, getting DS down and cleaning up his mess while he goes on his merry way.

He is SO oppositional right now I feel every word we say is going in one ear and out the other. The answer to everything is "nope". Okay, whatever, I know he'll get through this, but the food flinging is making me CRAZY. If we used time outs, he'd be in time out for every. single. meal.

So, any really good tips/tricks within the range of our discipline style that might help with this behavior. I almost wrote "modify this behavior" but I don't really want behavior modification, just more effective ways to discipline when the food flinging happens.

Thanks!!!

[readytobedone]

you could have him "help" you wipe up the food after he makes a mess. like "oh, dear. this is a mess! let's get it cleaned up so we can [insert fun activity here]."

DD sometimes throws food. she did it tonight because "zucchini is yucky, i no like it"

so i reminded her that we don't throw food, we just leave it on our plate if we don't want it. and then after she was done eating, i asked her to pick up the piece of zucchini and throw it away, and she did.