Take the Headache Out of Holiday Meals, For You and Your Selective Eater

 Holidays can be hard for any number of reasons. But with the intense focus on food and meals, they can be especially challenging for parents of children with extreme picky eating. So let’s say… Timmy is a selective eater… You’ve hated cranberry sauce since your folks forced you to eat it as a child and they try to make your kids eat it every year… Marie is heading into puberty and has put on a little weight in preparation… Bobbie is smaller than cousin Cort who was born six months after him… Susie has been in feeding therapy for a month, and the family wants to see “progress”… Sam gets overwhelmed by all the noise and new people and tends to melt down… All will be fodder for the Thanksgiving and Holiday tables. Your feeding (thus parenting) may feel in question. “What are you feeding him!?” “Just make her eat it, she won’t let herself starve.” “Here Marie, have some more salad if you’re still hungry!” “If you add gravy to his potatoes, he won’t be so scrawny.” “Stop spoiling her, that’s not how I raised you!” Gramma Eve raised six kids and they’re all “fine,” so she is the expert, Uncle Steve just lost 30 pounds, winning his work’s Biggest Loser contest (which he also won two years ago and then gained it all back), Betty actually force-fed your three-year-old bacon and garlic smashed potatoes last year (then he threw up) because she’s convinced he’d “like potatoes if he just tried them!” What to do? Your family may intrude, say or do the opposite of what you are...

The Lonely Kitchen Island: Physical Obstacles to Family Meals

This post isn’t specifically about the spectrum of picky eating… but it is. One of the major goals of our STEPS+ approach is for families to enjoy eating together again— or perhaps for the first time. We wrote a whole chapter on rehabbing family mealtimes, and one often overlooked piece of the puzzle is the physical space where meals happen. Consider the kitchen island. Other than just being a place to throw keys and homework, the kitchen island in many houses and apartments has replaced the kitchen table. Granite countertops sell homes— humble tables don’t. Growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, most Midwestern middle class kitchens I dined in did not have elaborate islands or counters with stools. I remember sitting around tables. As homes generally got bigger over the last 30 years, it seems the kitchen island became standard and the eat-in kitchen disappeared. On house-calls and play-dates over the years as a childhood feeding specialist and mom, I’ve watched the parent or childcare provider standing behind the island counter preparing food and serving children. By design, the island makes line-cook/wait-staff the easiest option— and there’s nothing wrong with this on occasion. But if it mostly or always happens, it robs children of the most important mealtime ingredient—a loving adult providing company and eating from the same foods (including at least one item the child generally enjoys). So, did form follow, or dictate function? Were parents already standing and serving meals and needed a more efficient way to do so, or did the changing design of modern homes assist the slide of communal family meals?  Moms  (both...

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