Picky Picky!
Raise your hand if you have a child who is a picky eater. Most of us do, and there are so many contributing factors that goes into a child having selective eating habits. The good news is, you are off the hook for mom guilt for a big part of this! Thanks to Ellen Satter’s Division of Responsibility, we know that there are aspects of your child’s eating habits that you can control, and aspects that are in your child’s control. This theory reminds us that you, as the parent, can provide healthy choices, offer 3 meals and 2 snacks per day, and model positive mealtime behaviors. Your child is the one who is responsible for deciding how much and of what they are eating. There are some things you can do to encourage your child to increase variety in what they choose to eat, and that’s what I’m here to help you with.
Last week, on WRAL, we went live with The Nurtured Nest and Julie Kennedy Nutrition to offer some guidance about meal planning for your family as well as some simple strategies to tackle picky eating in your family. This was the coolest experience, and I loved every minute of it. Here we are in the studio right after our segment.
It was so fun to collaborate with Julie, a registered dietician/nutritionist, as we covered some of what she shares in the Feeding the Family class, hosted by The Nurtured Nest. It’s so important to have a support system of professionals to help you navigate this, and to know who can help you in what areas of feeding your family. So why did we need a registered dietitian AND a speech-language pathologist? A registered dietitian is highly trained in what our bodies need in terms of nutrients, and how those foods are processed in our bodies. That is why Julie is the perfect person to teach our meal planning class! On the other hand, for tips on picky eating, or increasing variety in the textures and tastes that your child is comfortable eating, you are going to want to find someone with training in how the mouth works, what motor skills we need for different textures and self-feeding, and most importantly, how our sensory system works and processes textures and tastes. Speech-Language Pathologists and Occupational Therapists have masters degrees and clinical experiences that make us experts on motor and sensory needs in the mouth. Registered Dietitians have masters degrees and clinical experiences that make them experts how different foods fuel our bodies and what nutrientsour bodies need. Make sure if you are getting advice from social media sources or professionals in your area, that you know their credentials, what they are trained in, and why they are recommending certain strategies.
I only got to discuss part of what I had prepared to share in our segment on WRAL, but we did give the first few of our 5 ways to encourage your child to interact with their food. I planned to share all of these:
The first is to include your child in grocery shopping. Have them help you make a list, go through the pantry together, and have them help you in the store to choose items. Have them choose which pepper to buy or which bag of frozen broccoli to buy. Give them choices.
The second is to get your child involved in food prep. You can have them measuring ingredients, putting a teaspoon of salt here, or stirring something. We will discuss how to do this safely in our Picky Picky class, coming up March 14th.
Third, give them choices and control when it comes to plating. Serve family style and have them choose “Do you want the blue spoon or the orange spoon?” “Do you want a big scoop of rice or a small scoop of rice?” It gives them the feeling of having control over how the meal will go, even though you, as the parent are deciding what to serve.
Let’s say you do all of this and you’ve come this far, and they do not want to eat anything. We are going to show you how to help your child to interact with their food, even if they are not chewing and swallowing it. They can make a tower of cucumbers, or feed some potatoes to their giraffe toy. They can mash their beans up, one by one. Touching and exploring with the food is the first step to eating the food. It is ok to say “You don’t have to eat it.” We will do a whole blog post in the next month about language and how you are talking to your child about food.
This brings us to our fifth point, and that is knowing how language plays such a huge part in your child’s mealtimes, and how just a few tweaks can make a big difference in helping your little ones. Instead of you saying at the table “I don’t know, she’s so picky! I can’t get her to eat anything”, Try saying something like, “You are being so brave trying those green beans!” Because our kids are listening, and any chance you have to encourage them will be helpful to take the pressure off of them for mealtimes. I try to avoid the word ‘picky’ when talking about kids, as they hear what we are saying and can take on this as part of their identity. I try to focus on the positive, like “Look at you with those orange carrots on your plate!”, or “I love how you’re mashing up those sweet potatoes.”
In some cases, feeding therapy is recommended. If you think your child may benefit from one on one feeding therapy in the home setting, contact me for an evaluation and check out the FAQs on my website HERE.
I will elaborate on all this in the ‘Picky Picky’ class on March 14th from 9:30-11:30am, hosted by The Nurtured Nest, and you can register now HERE. We touch on the 5 strategies shared above, as well as discussing how to branch out from preferred staples in your child’s diet, how to introduce new foods, and responding to your child’s behaviors surrounding food to help empower your child to increase their variety in what tastes and temperatures they are comfortable eating. Bring all of your questions, and leave with answers and a personalized plan for your child.
Don’t forget to follow us on instagram HERE and like our page on Facebook HERE. Register for Picky Picky, hosted by The Nurtured Nest, before it’s full!