What do you think?
Helping Your Child When Mealtimes Are Hard: Loving Support for Anxious Eating, Weight and Nutrition Worries, and Everything in Between
Are
Anxious about your child’s nutrition?
Frustrated with confusing and unhelpful advice?
Trying, and failing, to get your child to eat more, less, or different foods?
Worried, or been told to worry, about your child’s growth or weight?
Stop the battles over food and gain confidence to help your child do their best with eating, nutrition, and growth.
When Mealtimes are Hard helps you understand your challenges and discover practical solutions that work for your family "picky" eating, from mild to extremefeeding children with sensory and nervous system differencesanxiety around foodfood preoccupationmenu planning for different needs, including your ownsupporting your child to tune in to hunger and fullness cuesWhether your child is a typical picky/selective eater (a third to half of all young children) or is anxiously eating only a handful of accepted foods, this book has you covered. A responsive feeding philosophy decreases conflict and power struggles around food and sets the stage for your child to tap into curiosity and hunger and fullness cues. Support tuned-in eating (interoception) and self-regulation of intake.
With trauma-informed guidance, you'll learn how to help your child with a sensitive nervous system or feeding differences. Learn how a focus on felt safety (calm) and connection supports physical and mental health and well-being, and over time, improved nutrition.
From infancy through the teen years, with a focus on toddler to school age.
“I actually look forward to eating with my kids.” - Martin, dad
“I’ve been able to support my autistic daughter to discover foods she wants to eat - without pressure - and ease the anxiety for us both.” - Amber, mom
“I will definitely recommend it to clients. I love how Dr. Rowell describes a flexible approach and explains the nuances behind concepts and strategies that we sometimes take for granted. She invites us to think less about what strategies are “right” or “wrong,” “helpful” or “unhelpful,” and more about how to respond to an individual’s needs so they feel safe and loved and can reach their potential with eating.” - Hazel Wolstenholme PhD, child feeding specialist
*This book is adapted from Rowell's book Love Me, Feed The Foster and Adoptive Parent's Guide to Responsive Feeding, with significant overlap. Content specific to foster and adoptive parents has been removed.
Anxious about your child’s nutrition?
Frustrated with confusing and unhelpful advice?
Trying, and failing, to get your child to eat more, less, or different foods?
Worried, or been told to worry, about your child’s growth or weight?
Stop the battles over food and gain confidence to help your child do their best with eating, nutrition, and growth.
When Mealtimes are Hard helps you understand your challenges and discover practical solutions that work for your family "picky" eating, from mild to extremefeeding children with sensory and nervous system differencesanxiety around foodfood preoccupationmenu planning for different needs, including your ownsupporting your child to tune in to hunger and fullness cuesWhether your child is a typical picky/selective eater (a third to half of all young children) or is anxiously eating only a handful of accepted foods, this book has you covered. A responsive feeding philosophy decreases conflict and power struggles around food and sets the stage for your child to tap into curiosity and hunger and fullness cues. Support tuned-in eating (interoception) and self-regulation of intake.
With trauma-informed guidance, you'll learn how to help your child with a sensitive nervous system or feeding differences. Learn how a focus on felt safety (calm) and connection supports physical and mental health and well-being, and over time, improved nutrition.
From infancy through the teen years, with a focus on toddler to school age.
“I actually look forward to eating with my kids.” - Martin, dad
“I’ve been able to support my autistic daughter to discover foods she wants to eat - without pressure - and ease the anxiety for us both.” - Amber, mom
“I will definitely recommend it to clients. I love how Dr. Rowell describes a flexible approach and explains the nuances behind concepts and strategies that we sometimes take for granted. She invites us to think less about what strategies are “right” or “wrong,” “helpful” or “unhelpful,” and more about how to respond to an individual’s needs so they feel safe and loved and can reach their potential with eating.” - Hazel Wolstenholme PhD, child feeding specialist
*This book is adapted from Rowell's book Love Me, Feed The Foster and Adoptive Parent's Guide to Responsive Feeding, with significant overlap. Content specific to foster and adoptive parents has been removed.
394 pages, Paperback
Published March 26, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 30, 2026
Knew a lot of this as it has been engrained into my mind by my smoking hot wife. Should be required reading for parents.
July 10, 2024
I would have to look into more research to get behind this book. A lot of the principles behind it were really uncomfortable for me. I know I didn't grow up with good eating messages, but I'm not sure that this book is the answer either. I know I read that the author has a background and expertise with foster and adopted kiddos, and maybe this makes sense for kids who have experience with much bigger traumas.
Some of the issues that came up for me personally when I read this book:
- It says the book is for all age children, however the majority of the examples given are geared towards toddlers and kids under 5 years of age. My children range from 9-16 and a lot of the principles are not working well so far.
- It says to limit food to set snack and meal times and if kids are hungry to tell them we will be eating soon. I think that's great and probably better eating at mealtimes would happen if this were the case. But what do you do when your older children can walk into the pantry and help themselves to snacks at any time? Even if you put them high up or hide them, they are finding them and eating tons of snacks and not eating at mealtimes. Do you lock your pantry? The author doesn't really address this. And because she advocates for having "treat" (junk) foods several times a week that they can eat at snacktime in unlimited quantities, having those in the house has only encouraged my kids to sneak those on all the other days we're not having those for snacks. My guess is because she advocates for kids being able to make their own decisions around eating that it is fine if they take snacks throughout the day and don't eat a meal, but I don't love the thought of making dinner for 7 to only have maybe 3 people eat it every night, which is what is happening when they are getting their snacks whenever they want. The author says kids will always get the nutrition they need to grow, but as a parent, I don't want that nutrition to come from all processed foods with such harmful, unnatural ingredients.
- I also have a very difficult time as a parent treating kool aid the same as vegetables and saying all foods are equal. I feel like it's our job as parents to educate our kids. Kids often are not left to decision making because they don't have all the info and are not great decision makers yet. Is it not ok to let kids know, "hey, kool aid and snickers are not great for your body and it wasn't designed to operate on large amounts of those foods. In small amounts, it's totally ok, in large quantities, your body is not going to feel as well as it could"? Arent there non-shaming ways of teaching our kids what foods our bodies operate best with? Letting a child eat until they throw up and then just saying "sorry your tummy hurts, do you want me to rub it?" (which is what the author suggests) sounds ludicrous to me. And it happened with my stepson (11 y/o) since following this plan and has not deterred him from eating less at any other meal since then.
- When one child in a large family has an overeating issue, it doesn't take into account what following this plan does with the other children. Letting the overeating child eat as much food as they want during family-style meals seems to create a scarcity effect with the other children who then may feel they need load their plates as fast as they can to save the favorite foods from being obliterated by the overeater.
-The author censors the words overweight and obese in the book. I am all for Health at Every Size. I completely believe it is possible to be overweight by medical standards, active and still healthy. But if you have children who do not move their bodies regularly and are only eating junk food and are very overweight, they are going to have health problems. Period. The author uses examples of how overboard our society has gone with our weight standards by telling of parents of infants that are told to let their babies cry longer between feedings if they are "overweight" by pediatric growth charts, or to bottle feed less. That is absolutely crazy and I was shocked to even hear that a doctor would recommend that. But if you have a child who eats more than the adults in the family, who is off the pediatric growth chart for weight, we as parents are setting them up for future health problems. I don't think the author advocated enough that some kids may have an eating disorder or other emotional issues that require the need to be evaluated by a professional (not your average family practioner). She really spoke a lot of doctors being in the wrong for telling kids that they were too overweight.
Things that are working well-
- Overall I enjoy serving dinners family style with dessert and letting kids put the foods on their plate. It does eliminate some of the meal struggles of "how many bites do I need to eat to have dessert?" Serving dessert with dinner also means that I portion it out, and I portion it out much smaller than if they would serve themselves later in the evening. They also feel like it is exciting that they get to have dessert with dinner and choose whether or not to eat it first. Most of the kids actually eat dinner first, and occasionally a child will decide they are full and not to have dessert at all which was surprising to me. However, we are not a family that usually eats dessert every night but have been since starting this plan. The author does say that sometimes dessert can be some fruit and I have not tried it yet, but I'm pretty sure there would be a mutiny at this point, since they have come to expect an actual dessert at dinnertime.
- Telling the kids there are set snack times seems to be beneficial with most of them. Which includes having a pre bedtime snack (now that dessert is with dinner). Serving them at the table and not letting them play or watch tv does cut down on the mindless snacking.
My overall review of this book is that I just need to research it more. I think while it may work great for some of the kids in my family, it is definitely not the best approach for others and unless I find really extensive research from more than one professional, I just can't get behind the idea that we should tell kids that vegetables and chicken are the same as candy bars and slurpees and then allowing them to eat as much as they want of anything. I don't know how long you have to implement this before you start seeing changes, but in the 3 weeks that we have been doing this so far, I am not seeing a benefit to the kiddos that were originally struggling the most to begin with.
Some of the issues that came up for me personally when I read this book:
- It says the book is for all age children, however the majority of the examples given are geared towards toddlers and kids under 5 years of age. My children range from 9-16 and a lot of the principles are not working well so far.
- It says to limit food to set snack and meal times and if kids are hungry to tell them we will be eating soon. I think that's great and probably better eating at mealtimes would happen if this were the case. But what do you do when your older children can walk into the pantry and help themselves to snacks at any time? Even if you put them high up or hide them, they are finding them and eating tons of snacks and not eating at mealtimes. Do you lock your pantry? The author doesn't really address this. And because she advocates for having "treat" (junk) foods several times a week that they can eat at snacktime in unlimited quantities, having those in the house has only encouraged my kids to sneak those on all the other days we're not having those for snacks. My guess is because she advocates for kids being able to make their own decisions around eating that it is fine if they take snacks throughout the day and don't eat a meal, but I don't love the thought of making dinner for 7 to only have maybe 3 people eat it every night, which is what is happening when they are getting their snacks whenever they want. The author says kids will always get the nutrition they need to grow, but as a parent, I don't want that nutrition to come from all processed foods with such harmful, unnatural ingredients.
- I also have a very difficult time as a parent treating kool aid the same as vegetables and saying all foods are equal. I feel like it's our job as parents to educate our kids. Kids often are not left to decision making because they don't have all the info and are not great decision makers yet. Is it not ok to let kids know, "hey, kool aid and snickers are not great for your body and it wasn't designed to operate on large amounts of those foods. In small amounts, it's totally ok, in large quantities, your body is not going to feel as well as it could"? Arent there non-shaming ways of teaching our kids what foods our bodies operate best with? Letting a child eat until they throw up and then just saying "sorry your tummy hurts, do you want me to rub it?" (which is what the author suggests) sounds ludicrous to me. And it happened with my stepson (11 y/o) since following this plan and has not deterred him from eating less at any other meal since then.
- When one child in a large family has an overeating issue, it doesn't take into account what following this plan does with the other children. Letting the overeating child eat as much food as they want during family-style meals seems to create a scarcity effect with the other children who then may feel they need load their plates as fast as they can to save the favorite foods from being obliterated by the overeater.
-The author censors the words overweight and obese in the book. I am all for Health at Every Size. I completely believe it is possible to be overweight by medical standards, active and still healthy. But if you have children who do not move their bodies regularly and are only eating junk food and are very overweight, they are going to have health problems. Period. The author uses examples of how overboard our society has gone with our weight standards by telling of parents of infants that are told to let their babies cry longer between feedings if they are "overweight" by pediatric growth charts, or to bottle feed less. That is absolutely crazy and I was shocked to even hear that a doctor would recommend that. But if you have a child who eats more than the adults in the family, who is off the pediatric growth chart for weight, we as parents are setting them up for future health problems. I don't think the author advocated enough that some kids may have an eating disorder or other emotional issues that require the need to be evaluated by a professional (not your average family practioner). She really spoke a lot of doctors being in the wrong for telling kids that they were too overweight.
Things that are working well-
- Overall I enjoy serving dinners family style with dessert and letting kids put the foods on their plate. It does eliminate some of the meal struggles of "how many bites do I need to eat to have dessert?" Serving dessert with dinner also means that I portion it out, and I portion it out much smaller than if they would serve themselves later in the evening. They also feel like it is exciting that they get to have dessert with dinner and choose whether or not to eat it first. Most of the kids actually eat dinner first, and occasionally a child will decide they are full and not to have dessert at all which was surprising to me. However, we are not a family that usually eats dessert every night but have been since starting this plan. The author does say that sometimes dessert can be some fruit and I have not tried it yet, but I'm pretty sure there would be a mutiny at this point, since they have come to expect an actual dessert at dinnertime.
- Telling the kids there are set snack times seems to be beneficial with most of them. Which includes having a pre bedtime snack (now that dessert is with dinner). Serving them at the table and not letting them play or watch tv does cut down on the mindless snacking.
My overall review of this book is that I just need to research it more. I think while it may work great for some of the kids in my family, it is definitely not the best approach for others and unless I find really extensive research from more than one professional, I just can't get behind the idea that we should tell kids that vegetables and chicken are the same as candy bars and slurpees and then allowing them to eat as much as they want of anything. I don't know how long you have to implement this before you start seeing changes, but in the 3 weeks that we have been doing this so far, I am not seeing a benefit to the kiddos that were originally struggling the most to begin with.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews