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This month, we’re exploring the theme of meal times—because it's not just about food.
Theme Email
Week 1
Focus: What’s actually hard?
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Meal times is one of those subjects that can get dicey, pretty quickly. There are a lot of facets to look at, but because they're all happening at the same time, the waters get muddied.
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Weekly Challenge:
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This week, we're going to work on identifying all of these facets, and parsing out which ones are stress points for you.
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To get you started, here are some of the possible facets that might be present for you during meal times:
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Picky eating (regardless of cause)
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Mood
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High needs (of adults or children)
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Time of day adds difficulty
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Table manners
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Setting comfort/discomfort
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Are any of these lighting up anything for you? Spend some time this week observing and exploring which things actually feel hard during meal times.
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As always, please feel free to share as much or as little as you feel inspired to in our WhatsApp Community!​​
Week 2
Focus: Regulation Before Nutrition
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If I'm starting to sound like a broken record (regulation this, regulation that)... then you've been listening!!
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Friends - so much of our childhoods are spent feeling the biggest feelings in the tiniest bodies. Regulation is the name of the game.
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Now let's marry the regulation concept with the mealtimes theme of the month. Consider the following:
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1. How often is the meltdown you're seeing due to hunger cues that didn't get caught/noticed/displayed earlier?
2. How often is your child dysregulated at the table? Which meals?
3. What strategies are you already implementing to keep mealtime tenable? e.g. you might have meals in front of the TV, or eat separately, or you might just be doing a lot of yelling.
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​​​​​Weekly Challenge:
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This week, your challenge is to pay attention to your child's nervous system in relation to food times. Examine their behavior, and look to see if there is something underneath that requires attention.
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Is hunger affecting your child's mood? Are they able to notice hunger cues?
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Is the setup of the mealtime affecting their ability to eat peacefully?
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Are you going into mealtimes regulated, or are you hoping the mealtime itself will do the heavy lifting? (read that one 2x.)
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What are your current priorities for mealtimes, and are they working for you, or do they need assessing?
Focus on nervous systems, not bites taken this week!
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Can't wait to hear from you in our WhatsApp Community!
Week 3
Focus: Autonomy, Power & Control
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Recap: By now, you've got an idea of what your stress points around meals
actually are, and have a plan for regulating in those moments.
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This week, we're going to bring our focus to the topic of autonomy.
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Autonomy can play out in several different ways - your kid might try to be in charge of what their food options are, or when they eat, or how they eat.
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What often ends up happening is some version of a power struggle. It might not be a major one (i.e. meltdowns over putting toys away), but it's not the setting you ever want to have one. I think I can speak for us all when I say: meal times should be calm, relaxed, neutral-leaning-positive, connection focused times.
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Weekly Challenge:
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Your challenge this week is to observe meal times in these three specific ways:
1. The autonomy your child is striving for,
2. The tug on your own nervous system that autonomy reach causes,
3. Your control reaction.
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What would it look like to let go of "winning" mealtimes? Where do you feel the need to control sneaking in (even with good intentions)? Don't try to fix it all this week - just get honest and real about what the situation looks and feels like.
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Can't wait to hear from you in our WhatsApp Community!
Week 4
Focus: The long game
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It's so easy to get tunnel vision - it happens to us all. Yes, me very much included!! The consistency of the typical day-to-day battles suck us into a routine that, even when it isn't really working, can feel sort of comfortable. We are wired for reliability, even when the things that are happening aren't great.
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You've had 3 weeks of focusing on ​the things that might not be working for you during meal times, and even how you might approach shifting those troubles. Now, I want you to zoom way out.
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Weekly Challenge:
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Shift your thinking from the daily battles to a values-based perspective.
What do you want your child to internalize about food? Or even (head's up this might hurt) about your relationship with food? What might you be holding on to that just isn't doing what you thought it might? Does your version of "success" maybe need redefining?
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Ponder over these things, and give us a shout in our WhatsApp Community!
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