Melanie (00:00)
Katie, I am so excited that you are back here on the Homeschool Sanity Show to share with us about a topic that was really a problem for me as a mother of six, and that is picky eating. Before we jump into that topic, though, I would love to have you update us on what you have been up to and what is going on with you and your family since we talked last.

Katie Kimball (00:27)
Sure. I don't remember how many years it's been, but my kids are currently 21, 18, 15, and 11. So we're, you know, they keep getting older every year. Oh my goodness.

Melanie (00:36)
Yeah.

Katie Kimball (00:38)
And my 21 year old is engaged to be married next May. So that'll be a whole new phase. We we I get a new I get a daughter in law. So that's like super exciting. Um and my eighteen year old, my only girl, is headed off to college. And, you know, my my son didn't choose college. He became an entrepreneur. So this is my first go round.

with college orientation and you know the move-in day and all the things. Um so it's just it's crazy, you know, my 15 year old is learning to drive and it's there's all those all those phases. And then we still have an 11 year old who's is supremely short for his age. People will pat him on the head and assume he's in second grade. So I just I feel like I still have like all the ages and stages.

Melanie (01:18)
Yes. well, I can relate to to so much of that. and I'm sure our listeners can too. Maybe our listeners can relate to having a picky eater as well. I had two of them. And what I thought was so interesting, because I have read your forthcoming book, loved, loved, loved it.

But you say that picky eating isn't really about the food. What do you mean by that?

Katie Kimball (01:55)
Yeah, that's the title of my TEDx talk, Picky Eating Isn't About the Food. And about three hundred thousand people have seen that. And so it's there's something about that phrase, I think, that gets people saying, What? That doesn't make any sense. It's eating, Katie, duh. Like, um

But what what I mean by it's not about the food is that a lot of times there are physiological blocks in the child's body that are preventing them from approaching food with curiosity instead of fear, or more seriously, that are maybe causing some pain in their bodies or some problems with chewing. And and in that case, it's not about the actual food on the plate. It's really about either their relationship with food, which can be like the psychological part, or

the way the food is interacting with their body, that physiological piece. And so we focus so hard. Like recipes for picky eaters is highly searched up. And people ask me all the time, well like what's the best recipe for picky eater? And I'm like, that's you're asking the wrong question. Because it's not about what you put on the plate. It's about how you teach your child to interact with what's on the plate.

Melanie (03:03)
I mean, that is so good. And Katie, I wish you would have been around when I had these younger kids who I think what is so interesting for me about what you're saying there about there could be a physiological reason. Both of my picky eaters had trouble with their pronunciation, with their diction.

with their speech and I suspect that their mouth muscles weren't developed enough to, you know, chew up the food thoroughly. And when I was a kid, I hated food, which was primarily meat, most meat that had to be just chewed and chewed and chewed. So maybe they partly inherited that from me, but I also

Just as you're saying, I also noted anxiety in one of my kids. I figured out that this kid isn't being uh rebellious, he isn't being truly picky like I don't like this. I could see that he had this fear over the food that was on his plate. And so, yeah,

Katie Kimball (04:18)
Those are Yeah.

Melanie (04:19)
go ahead.

Katie Kimball (04:20)
Well, those are two really good and really common examples. And if I may, I'd love to unpack both of them because A, some parents are gonna have the exact same issue. And B, I think hearing how how that works, the path from root cause to what we're seeing at the table will help parents understand, oh, like there's a dozen or two dozen other potential root causes, but if we can unpack it in a similar way, it can help them get to their own root cause. So yes, the the mouth and the chewing is such a big deal, and particularly so when we think of what picky eaters gravitate toward.

It does tend to be softer foods. So we say real moot, real meats and real vegetables can be a real struggle for kids because of the chewing. And so the crunchy vegetables, and we say real meats, so like chicken breast or a steak or whatever. And kids gravitate toward chicken nuggets and hot dogs and sausages. And those are really pre-chewed meats. They're very

Melanie (05:11)
Right.

Katie Kimball (05:12)
easy. They're very easy for the choppers. Um, and so so what does that look like? It looks like a picky kid, but it's just a kid saying, This is hot.

This is a hard task. And even at 46, I don't actually like doing things that are hard. Kids don't like doing things that are hard and they don't have the conscious ability to explain to you.

why it's a hard task, they just push it away. But like you and I do too. When we look at our to-do list and like the hardest task, we're like, ooh, I see five other things I could do instead. And I'm gonna be productive and skip the hard task. And so it's really just a kid saying, this is hard for me, whether that's the chew, whether that's the swallow, whether that's the overwhelmingness of looking at a plate full of food, if it feels hard, they're gonna do anything they can do to get out of it.

Melanie (05:59)
Yeah.

Katie Kimball (05:59)
Um

and so that's the kind of trend. When I say it's not about the food, it's obviously it's related to the food. We're still we're still trying to eat. But if you notice a trend like, my goodness, yeah, my kid gravitates toward easy to chew.

things. or my kid gravitates toward uh like very bland, highly highly palatable, or my kid gravitates toward very spicy and like needs that, you know, lots of flavor. All of those are signs and signals that the body might be telling you something, right? And then you talked about the anxiety piece and that is so common that just general, like whether it's anxiety about food or just stress about the day, like we have one body and we have one stress bucket. So if your kid

is stressed out about his or who's her schoolwork or a sibling or a friend who's not treating them well or the parents are talking about somewhat stressful things at the table or in the earshot of the children and their stress bucket is getting full and of course some kids have smaller stress buckets than others, right? Are highly sensitive or are more anxious kids. If their stress bucket is getting full, what happens when we're stressed? Our adrenaline goes up and one of adrenaline's purposes is suppressing the appetite.

Melanie (07:09)
Hm.

Katie Kimball (07:10)
And so

again, like you said, your son was not just trying to be a brat. He was

Melanie (07:15)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (07:15)
just stressed, and maybe he was particularly stressed about the food, but it's so important for parents to understand that if we're if our kids are stressed or anxious about anything in their day, it can absolutely impact their appetite and their ability, especially to try new foods, because a new food could be a stressor. Um and so it's so there then it's like it's literally not about the food at all.

Melanie (07:38)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (07:38)
It's about their stress bucket.

And so that would be a r another really important pattern for parents to watch

Melanie (07:43)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (07:43)
for.

Melanie (07:44)
I just

appreciate so much how you are considering the whole experience. Um and when so often I think just as you're saying, people are telling us to focus on the food.

Katie Kimball (08:00)
Right.

Melanie (08:00)
As a result, what are some things that some parents who are very well meaning, do to encourage their kids to eat.

Katie Kimball (08:09)
Yeah, I mean it's so common.

To have a rule about taking one bite or just taking three bites, you know. Where I think luckily in our culture we're moving away from the entire clean plate club, as I

Melanie (08:21)
Mm.

Katie Kimball (08:21)
call it, as in you have to clean your plate before you leave the table. that was, you know, probably w a a generation ago or so. That was the well meaning parents. And and and of course that's teaching a child to eat beyond fullness or to eat foods that might be hurting them, and to it's teaching the child not to listen to their bodies. Um, so

Melanie (08:38)
I mean.

Katie Kimball (08:39)
we think one bite or three bites might be

better. Or if you eat your peas, you can have dessert. Um or if you don't eat your broccoli, we won't watch a movie, right? Like it really any anything where you are, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter if it's positive or negative. Um, if you are asking a child to put something in their mouth to it and swallow it, here's the deal. You can't actually follow through on that. Unless you are willing to forcibly

make a child chew and swallow, which is like a little disgusting in civilized society. And so I don't think any of your parents, like if we think about it, I say the the first rule of parenting is always do what you say you will do, which means you have to be able to do what you say you will do. So if you say, you know, you have to have a bite, you have to have a taste, you have to have three bites. Following that all the way through to the end of the child who legit says no, means you're force feeding them, that's not okay, which means you can't say that rule.

Because it is disrupting the child's bodily autonomy. And

Melanie (09:41)
Mm.

Katie Kimball (09:41)
it's not the appropriate parent-child relationship when it comes to food. And so that's, you know, it's Ellen Satter created the division of responsibility. It's super common. um But it's very wise. She really just looked at what what do our bodies do?

You know, should a parent be force feeding a child? No, that doesn't feel right. Therefore, the parents' responsibility, division of responsibilities, the parent's responsibility is you choose what is served, you know, what goes on the table, you choose where it is served and you choose when it is served, and then you're done. The child chooses whether

Melanie (10:12)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (10:14)
to eat and how much to eat. And and you know, Ellen Satter was brilliant. What I like to say that my superpower is, is making that practical.

So what does that look like? It looks like you can't say three bites because how much to eat is the child's responsibility. Um

Melanie (10:30)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (10:31)
you can't say if you eat this, you'll get dessert, because A, like what if they don't? Are you are you willing to follow through? But B, it also, you know, you get dessert or you lose something. It's really creating a lot of pressure. It's going to increase the child's stress.

And it's going to tell them that eating is something that either has rewards or punishments attached as opposed to being a relationship. And the eating needs to be that relationship with food really, really, really important. Um

And then then there's the last thing as I would say is that making a separate meal, the short order cooking, or the you can go get a peanut butter sandwich. Um that is not the division of responsibility either, because the parent, the adult, is supposed to choose what is served. And that's super, super important. There's um there's a comment on my TEDx talk from a dad who says, Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. I've tried all this, like, like everything in the 15 minute talk, right? and it doesn't work. My kid just won't eat vegetables, so I'm cool.

With gummy vitamins and Pedia sure, I've given up with a three-year-old. And I'm like, you've given

Melanie (11:37)
Yeah.

Katie Kimball (11:40)
up on your child's eating at

Melanie (11:42)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (11:42)
age three? Dude, like you're that you are not being a responsible parent. Um, I'm sure my my my response is like much more gentle, but the thing is.

the child at age three, at age five, at age seven, they have to be served a wide variety of food if they're ever going to eat a wide variety of food. So when we make mac and cheese or make chicken nuggets or allow them to go to the kitchen and and make a PB and J, that's a super, super common rule. If you don't like dinner, you can you have this like one out. Um

Melanie (12:13)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (12:13)
but all of those put the child in charge of his or her eating choices and nutrition.

Melanie (12:20)
Mm.

Katie Kimball (12:20)
And that's too big. That's like way too mature of a decision for them. And it's actually can be kind of anxiety inducing.

Because they can't again can't communicate this consciously, but when you feel like your parent is allowing you to make the adult decision, then it's um it's like a heavy weight. It's like an anxious feeling. my gosh, I have no fences. I could just run free, where kids really do need the parents to say, here are your boundaries. Within these boundaries you can make choices. What does that look like at the table? This is what is served, not

You have to clean your plate. But this is what is served. You've got a couple choices here on the table. You know, you may choose what you eat. And then when dinner is over, I'll see you again at the next eating opportunity. So the child

Melanie (13:05)
Yeah.

Katie Kimball (13:06)
gets to make lots of choices within the meal, but they don't get to choose what is served because that's not their responsibility.

Melanie (13:14)
Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. Very good. And so uh I think our listeners are probably wondering, well, if I don't do those things, what do I do to get my

Katie Kimball (13:26)
Yes.

Melanie (13:27)
child to try new foods or eat a variety of healthy options? And so you are encouraging parents to replace the pressure with what?

Katie Kimball (13:40)
Yeah, with curiosity with that relationship. I'm thinking of Jessica as a mom who took my no more picky eating challenge and she was like super anxious. She's like, Katie, if I don't tell this kid to eat three cucumbers, like he's not gonna eat any vegetables. If I you know, I have to put the food on the table and I tell him this many strawberries, this many cucumbers, and it's

Melanie (14:00)
Mm.

Katie Kimball (14:00)
the only way. And I said, But what if it's not? What what if it's not the only way? Like just give it a shot.

see what happens. Um and so she did and she was a little too anxious to use like the full system and allow the child to make all the choices. But so she went like a middle ground and she said, um you need to eat either the strawberries or the cucumbers.

Melanie (14:24)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (14:24)
And she came back flabbergasted, reporting that he ate the exact number of cucumbers she would have mandated.

But he did it on his own. And that's how you build a relationship. So when when we think about our kids' relationship with food, if we get in the way, it's kind of like getting in the way of their friendship. Like we don't go out back with our kids and say, You will now play tag for 16 minutes. I am setting a timer. you think you're gonna have a conflict with your friend? Uh-uh. I'm gonna fix that. Like, no, we don't

Melanie (14:56)
Mm, mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (14:57)
do that. So we shouldn't with food. And in fact, your your question betrayed a little bit of of a

American sensibility, you said, how do we get our kids to eat? That's not

Melanie (15:04)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (15:06)
our job. It's not our job to get our kids to eat. It's our job to present a wide variety and then to allow them to make choices. And if you're shifting from a family culture where there are expectations to eat, and maybe

Melanie (15:21)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (15:22)
you've crossed those lines of the division of responsibility before, parents out there, like no guilt,

Melanie (15:26)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (15:26)
no shame, it's okay, you didn't know. But now if you can, if you're willing to shift, it will it will take

some time. That's the thing. So parents don't usually see an immediate change in one day if

Melanie (15:38)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (15:39)
kids have a little bit of anxiety about food, if they've been required to eat in the past. Because they'll take, it'll take some days for them to believe you when you say

Melanie (15:45)
Yes. Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (15:48)
things like my favorite phrase in the world, you don't have to eat that. What a relief for kids to hear, yeah,

Melanie (15:54)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (15:55)
this is what's served. it's gross. You don't have to eat that.

You can't

Melanie (15:59)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (15:59)
say it's gross until you've tried it, but you don't have to. You don't even have to take a bite. but

Melanie (16:02)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (16:05)
it'll but it takes a little bit of time for that for that pattern to re unset and reset.

Melanie (16:10)
Mm-hmm. Yes. And the other thing that I have noticed is that there are a lot of parents who feel like their strategies have been successful when they don't um they are definitely not in line with what you're talking about here, with allowing

Katie Kimball (16:34)
Yes.

Melanie (16:35)
your child to get curious and to make those choices.

They feel like, well, you know, I would only um let them have vegetables as a snack, and only then could they have, you know, something else or or whatever. Whatever it was.

Katie Kimball (16:51)
Yeah, have you heard?

Melanie (16:52)
Or they had to do a thank you bite. And so this is what has turned them into um more adventurous eaters. And so,

Katie Kimball (17:00)
Right.

Melanie (17:02)
or or maybe a parent says, Well, this is how my uh parents

did it and now I'm not a picky eater. So how do

Katie Kimball (17:09)
Yep. Yeah.

Melanie (17:12)
you respond how do you respond to that when people say, Well, um, these things work though.

Katie Kimball (17:18)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Th there's three answers. One is that they do work for some kids. They work for fairly compliant kids who don't have any physiological blocks in their body. Um, and and that's maybe that's okay, but the other two answers are that first of all, do we want to set a system or routine that won't last for the child's adulthood?

Melanie (17:41)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (17:41)
Right? Or

do we want to give them a gift that they can carry into their adulthood? So if you are willing to go to your child's apartment when they're off on their own at age 22 and say, three bites, take that thank you bite, honey, you know, then it's a great system. And it's one that you should start and keep. If you're not willing to do that, you might want to think, hmm, is there is there potentially a system that I can set up that they can carry into adulthood? The third

Melanie (18:08)
Okay.

Katie Kimball (18:08)
answer is that sometimes it works until it doesn't.

Melanie (18:11)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (18:11)
And that's

Rochelle's story. Rochelle um had a nine-year-old girl, and for for most of her life, she had had the three-byte rule, and it was working.

until the child decided no. You know, until the child went through whatever developmental phase. this little girl happened to be sensory sensitive. She happened to be um have some aggressive tendencies and so there was a lot going on that that they were working on in their life. And so when the three bite roll stopped working, Rochelle was like, no. Like now I have no idea what to do. Which is when she came to me. Um and so and it and it took time because again sensory sensitivities are a big psychological block. You know the aggressive tendency

was a big problem with the relationship between mom and child. And so it took some time, but

Rochelle was able to figure out how to serve meals where the food wasn't touching, because that was one of her child's sensitivities. So that, and so it's not like that's very different than short-order cooking. You're still making the variety that you want. You're just making a slight adaptation, you know,

Melanie (19:12)
Yeah.

Katie Kimball (19:12)
to fit what the child needs in that time. And so she the the best story is that she tells of a meal where it was like a like an Asian dish. And so there were rice noodles and there were some vegetables and some meat and the sauce.

And this girl would never she'd never mix her food together and she had never tried a sauce.

Melanie (19:29)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (19:30)
And she all of a sudden goes, You know, I think I'm gonna put a little bit on my plate. She puts a little dot on her plate and then she like tried dipping, you know, the noodles in the sauce and like Rochelle almost fell over. She's like, This like this is incredible.

But that was that was what it took. It took removing the three byte rule. It took saying phrases like, Don't worry, you don't have to eat that. You know, you have choices, and then letting

Melanie (19:51)
Hmm.

Katie Kimball (19:53)
it go for some time to settle in, and then all of a sudden, the little girl just decided that on her terms, she was willing to try that. That's the kind of habit that one can carry into adulthood.

Melanie (20:04)
Mm-hmm. Okay, very good. So I am thinking about when you were saying, you know, um, you don't have to eat it. I'm just going to, you know, these are the options that I am providing you with. I can absolutely see, especially a homeschooled child, uh, who tends to be home um throughout the day, at least on non co op activity days.

And let's say you present something at lunch and then uh or multiple things and then your child says, Nope, not interested in any of that. And then I can see the child wanting snacks. Okay.

Katie Kimball (20:46)
Yep.

Melanie (20:46)
And so uh let talk to us about how do we deal with the meal and the snack routines and you know, how are they going to impact picky eating?

Katie Kimball (20:59)
my gosh, so so important. Snacks can be the bane of parents' existence for very many reasons, but they could definitely be a big problem for picky eating. And and I share a statistic in my book, and I'm not gonna get the numbers exactly right, but in the last, let's 20 years or so, we've gone from an average of, I think, two snacks a day to like eight.

I eight. I know. I was editing my own book in the car once and I read it out loud to my family and they're like, Eight snacks a day? Like who are these people? Um, but it's it's the people with no

But with no boundaries, right? With no routine. And

Melanie (21:35)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (21:36)
so it is so, so important, both for the body and for the mind, to have times of eating and times of not eating. Okay. We

Melanie (21:44)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (21:45)
we need to, like our bodies as adults and as children, we need to have rest time where we're not eating to digest our food. That is a minimum of 90 minutes.

And as the kids get older, it should, it should stretch up to three hours of rest time without putting food in her mouth. And so that's, I mean, that's the physiological bit, right? Your your kids are going to feel better, they're going to digest better if they have some rest time. The the other piece is that if a child has just snacked within a half an hour or an hour of a meal, everything feels very optional because they're

Melanie (22:17)
Mm.

Katie Kimball (22:18)
not that hungry.

hungry. And and I know I mean there are some people giving bad advice out there like get your kids hungry enough and they will eat. Like that's a little bit it's outdated and it's not true. But it's very true that if the kid is not if the kid is not hungry, there's everything that you do at the dinner table will be sabotaged.

So super important to keep those snacks away from the meal. Particularly, so yes, before and after. Because you're talking about the kid who like chooses not to eat the meal and then they wander into the kitchen half an hour later and they satiate themselves and they're they're satisfied and they're fine. Um, but any but the fact that the child has that option makes the

Melanie (22:57)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (22:58)
lunch or the breakfast or the dinner optional.

And that's a huge, huge problem. So you

Melanie (23:03)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (23:04)
need to have defined eating opportunities for a homeschool family. No more than one snack between breakfast and lunch. No more than one snack between lunch and dinner. super, super important because you'll sabotage all the good things you're trying to do at dinner if there are snacks too close.

Melanie (23:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Um, and no, I think all of this is so tied into parenting boundaries. and I am sure that there are parents listening to us right now who wonder if their child has a bigger problem.

Katie Kimball (23:42)
Yeah.

Melanie (23:43)
than

just picky eating um that might require professional help. How can a parent tell the difference between just ordinary picky eating and that situation?

Katie Kimball (23:54)
Yes. I mean this is a super great question and a couple of good answers to that. But first I want to mention you you called out that this is such a parenting issue and I think it's worth sitting there for sixty seconds because so many parents will say, But Katie, how do I prevent them from snacking? Like how'd I possibly stop that? And I say, Well, how did you stop them from running into the road when they were two? How do you keep get them to stay in their bed when they're eight? How do you get them to do their schoolwork? It's we we have this weird disconnect sometimes in our brains or in our hearts thinking

Thinking

that food is different than other parenting issues. It doesn't

Melanie (24:27)
Mm.

Katie Kimball (24:28)
have to be. When you're talking about just the routines, again, picky eating is not about the food. Sometimes it's about the routine and making sure that you set those boundaries and you're the parent and they're the child and that is that. So whatever parenting strategy you use, like I'm not gonna tell you that, you use your own parenting strategy. Whatever you did to keep them from running in the road, that's what you use to keep them from going in the pantry.

Melanie (24:49)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (24:49)
End of story. And don't let

the fact that it's food give you this like psychosis that you're like, it has to be different. It doesn't have to be different. It's just another task in the day. Um, okay, so more severe picky eating. Absolutely. Um, the book, The Picky Eater Playbook, is is for parents of at more average picky eaters. The good news is that if you do have a more severe col like problem feeder.

everything that I teach in the Picky Eater playbook is the same foundation that you need. So that's the good news, whether whether you figure out, you know, where your child falls on that spectrum or not. Um and in fact I had I had this parent work with me for a couple of years. Um

Lisa from Australia and she just emailed me a few months ago and said, you know, we've been we did all the routines, we did it and it was going well. Jensen was adding lots of foods, but we hit a point where we realized he needs more. You know, he was really a problem feeder. And they went to feeding therapy and in the intake, um, the feeding therapist said, you know, I've evaluated Jensen and he doesn't fit into any of my normal boxes. Like he definitely does need help.

But he's doing so much better in so many areas than most of the kids I see who who are presenting, you know, in a similar way to like what he had going on. And then she gave them some homework to do before the first session that she would meet with the child. And every single piece of that homework was stuff they were already doing. That's why he didn't fit in the boxes because they had these amazing

Melanie (26:15)
Mm. Hmm.

Katie Kimball (26:18)
routines and environment in their home where he could have, he could build like a good relationship with food, but he still needed a little help. So how do you know if your kid needs a little help?

Definition

of a problem feeder is that a certain number of symptoms have been going on for at least two years or more. And then the biggest hallmark one is that your child eats 20 foods or less.

Melanie (26:39)
Mm.

Katie Kimball (26:39)
Okay? And so if you if you can start counting, and by the way, a red delicious apple is different than a golden delicious apple, and a Ritz cracker is different than a cheese it. So we you don't get to say crackers. You you have to say goldfish ritzcracker. Okay, does that make sense?

Melanie (26:54)
Yes.

Katie Kimball (26:55)
So so

it's you know, most parents are gonna go, oh, well if I count the foods like that, yeah, my kid'll get over twenty. Super. Pr likely not a problem feeder. If you're actually running out of fingers and toes before you get to twenty, then you're gonna wanna, you know, look up look up another list of like what does a problem feeder entail. If another big hallmark is if the child's picky eating is so disruptive to family life that you can't even eat elsewhere.

Melanie (27:23)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (27:24)
you know, that it's like you

Melanie (27:25)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (27:25)
can't even you cannot go to a potluck or a family party or have another family over for dinner or go to someone's house. That'd be that'd be another like red flag. Um

Melanie (27:34)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (27:34)
and then we also want to think about, remember, you might need so that would need feeding therapy. There's good and bad feeding therapy. That's a whole separate conversation. but you also might need other kinds of professional help if your child has something going on with their jaw or their tongue, or they have an undiagnosed food sensitivity, or they're one of the ten percent of kids who has constipated.

and they always feel ugh full and so they don't want to eat because they hurt. um So

Melanie (28:00)
Hm.

Katie Kimball (28:01)
that would be back to the beginning where we're putting our detective hat on, we're looking for patterns and we're wondering could something be going on in my child's body. And maybe you start with the pediatrician, maybe you start with the dentist or an orthodontist. There's so many different professionals who might be needed depending on what's going on in the kid's body.

Melanie (28:19)
Mm, that is very, very helpful. Okay, so now I am imagining that some of the parents listening to us are thinking, Well, I've already messed this up. Hi,

Katie Kimball (28:32)
No, it that's it's okay.

Melanie (28:36)
I have done everything wrong. Everything Katie said, don't do this. I'm doing all of that and more. And I'm having a battle.

with my picky eater at every meal. So what is the first change that you would have a mom make in this situation?

Katie Kimball (28:56)
I would incorporate that magic phrase, you don't have to eat that. Because a

Melanie (29:00)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (29:00)
battle takes two. I mean, you've just said it. Oh, every meal is a battle. Guess what, moms? If you stop battling, there's no battle. And the simple reduction of stress in you, not the kid, in your body, is going to make such a difference for how the whole table feels to the entire family.

Okay. So ceasing any requirement to eat would be a really big deal. and again, like in the book, there's a whole system and that's one piece, but that's a really, really important piece. And then I mean you gotta and give yourself a pep talk too. Like we're not gonna say I've screwed everything up. We're gonna say I'm I am about to make some changes. You know, I haven't I haven't figured this relationship with food thing out yet.

for my kid and yet is one of my favorite phrases. In fact that's what we teach the kids to say is I haven't learned to eat yet. I'm still learning to eat. My taste buds aren't grown up yet. And just that growth mindset for them s is so, so helpful.

Melanie (30:02)
Yes, I love that. Well, I bet um your book has some some help, some encouragement, and some tools that parents

Katie Kimball (30:14)
Mm-hmm.

Melanie (30:14)
can use too. Can you tell us the best place to find the book?

Katie Kimball (30:19)
Yes, the Picky Eater Playbook is available wherever books are sold. So Amazon, Barnesand Noble dot com, bookshop.org, go into, you know, and request it from your local library. I think that's fantastic, obviously the most budget-friendly way. Um and the book is set up, first of all, to be really doable, because I'm I'm a mom.

too right so it's packed with anecdotal stories from moms it's also packed with research and evidence but it's set up in a way that you could take it as a 30-day challenge and read one chapter a day it's set up in seven sections so you could say I'm gonna do this like a seven week process and read one section so we start with snacks I call it preparing the space then lead with your ace which we didn't even get to talk about set the pace which is dinner so it kind of moves through the process

Start to finish, or you can say, I'm just gonna read this, and when I get to an action step, I'm gonna take that action step. And when I hit problems, I'll go to the FAQ piece, you know, of that section and figure it out. And when I feel like I've got that routine down, whether it takes three days, three weeks, or three months, I'll move on to the next one. So it's really, it's really set up to be very um

chunked, I guess, so that any

Melanie (31:30)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Kimball (31:30)
mom can go, I'm gonna I'm gonna just touch it and do a little bit. Um and every section does have like an FAQ and a common objections. So if you're saying like I don't like this one. I don't even like this rule, like what is this Katie Kimball trying to tell me to do? She's dumb, go to the common objections because other parents have said the same thing about me and you can work through it with them.

Melanie (31:52)
Mm. I love that. Well, will you remind us of your website so our listeners can connect with you also?

Katie Kimball (32:01)
Yes, they can go to raising healthyfamilies.com slash picky Melanie just for you. And that's where they will find uh where to get the book.

Melanie (32:11)
Oh, thank you so much. I know this is gonna be super, super helpful to parents of picky eaters. Thank you for taking the time to share with us today.

Katie Kimball (32:20)
my gosh, happy to help.