Note to Reader: If your child is a picky eater your family might be feeling more stress than needed during mealtimes. Jo shares her practical and accessible approach to picky eating with Stress Free Kids readers. EAF (emotionally aware feeding) is based on psychological research and theory. Jo lives with her husband and three daughters in the UK. She is passionate about helping parents make mealtimes happy again.
by Jo Cormack
Picky eating: It’s all about feelings
Do you experience mealtime stress in your home? If you are one of the 50% of US parents who would describe their young child as ‘picky’*, then mealtimes are probably challenging in your household. As a loving parent, the urge to feed and nurture your child goes deep. In fact, that drive is part of what it is to be human – without it, the very survival of the human race would be in jeopardy. When you prepare a healthy meal for your child and she enthusiastically eats it up, that feels great. Conversely, when food that you have invested thought, time and money into preparing ends up being rejected, that can feel terrible.
As a Child and Adolescent Therapist, much of my work is about understanding and processing emotions. Here are some of the emotions that can be around when you have a picky eater:
- Anxiety – worrying about your child’s health and growth is an understandable reaction to picky eating.
- Anger – Although you might try to hide it, it is natural that you will sometimes feel frustrated about your child’s food rejection. This tends to be in direct proportion to the effort you have put into preparing the food!
- Guilt – Guilt is such a destructive emotion. Many parents talk to me about feeling that their child’s picky eating is their fault.
Rather than focusing on the child, I teach parents to process their emotional reactions to their child’s pickiness. Often, children use mealtimes to test boundaries or to get a particular response from a parent. It sounds strange, but even a negative emotional reaction is a kind of pay–off for a child. My work is all about changing that dynamic. Once children are eating because they are hungry, not because they are stuck in a pattern of subconsciously using food to control their environment, things will start to improve.
My tips for getting it right at mealtimes
1) Unpack your baggage! Every parent is influenced by how they were parented. Talk to a friend or partner about your childhood. What values did you get from your upbringing in relation to food?
2) Get your child’s weight and growth checked by a health professional. Research shows that most picky eaters have no problems with their growth. Once you have been reassured that your child is healthy, you can worry less about what she eats.
3) Keep mealtimes relaxed and positive. Concentrate on the social side of eating. Chat with your child about the day, or about anything that isn’t to do with how much of his dinner he’s had… If the focus of the meal is all about what’s being eaten, you can get dragged into that emotional dynamic where he refuses to eat and you respond with an emotional reaction, giving him a reason to carry on refusing.
Above all, celebrate your food and the time you have with your children. Let them make their own choices about how much of their meal to eat and concentrate on enjoying their company.
British writer and therapist, Jo Cormack, is the author of War & Peas, a book about how to tackle picky eating by understanding the emotional and psychological aspects of children’s eating behavior. War & Peas is available on Amazon in paperback (currently $7.19) or for Kindle ($6.25) It is also available as an i-book via the . You can find out more about Jo’s work on her blog: http://www.ea-feeding.com . She is also on Twitter: @Jo_Cormack
*Research carried out in 2007 found that between 20 and 50% of US parents would describe their child as ‘picky’
One of our children is quite fussy but that restricted. We have become more relaxed about it but one thing we do is taste challenges where he tries new food blindfolded and has to guess what the food is.
That’s a great idea Naomi – games with food and tastes AWAY from the table keep mealtimes stress-free and help your child enjoy food and eating…
solving picky eating
What do you do when it’s situational pickiness? One day they love something and the next they refuse. When they whine and cry about it at 11 yrs old?
Hi Shannon – great question – it’s really common for children to be inconsistent with their pickiness. The good news is that this implies that the problem is fundamentally behavioural/emotional and therefore as a parent you have a lot of scope to change things for the better.
Admittedly, it is harder to help an 11 year old improve his or her relationship with food that a younger child, but it’s still very much worth addressing.
My approach (EAF) has several strands to it, but in terms of the behaviour you describe (whining and crying in response to what you serve up) I advise parents to teach their child the following EAF rule: “It’s never acceptable to be rude about your food”. It’s fine for them to decide to leave all or part of their meal, but in a laid-back, respectful way.
I explain how and why this works in more detail in my book, but basically, being firm about how they behave at the table whilst allowing them to make their own decisions about whether or not to eat what you have prepared (whilst making it clear that no alternatives will be available) takes away the potential for mealtime power battles.
Good luck!
My invention, The Eating Game, is making a difference in the lives of many children and their families. Kids love it because it is fun! They like it s a daily routine to plan their meals and snacks for the day. It gives them control over the choices using a very visual and structured program for 2 – 18 year olds. It makes for a very predictable eating environment that many kids benefit from. Learn more about it http://theeatinggame.ca/2013/11/09/here-you-have-the-whole-story/