THE SENSORY MADE SIMPLE PODCAST

Transcript

Welcome back to the Food Explorers Podcast, my friend.

I want to know what you have thought of these first five episodes. If you have a moment, I would love for you to share them with me at DrSamGoldman on Instagram. Either send me a direct DM or take a picture of you listening to this episode and tag me.

So there's something you've heard me say over and over in these first couple podcast episodes, and that is that I am not a fan of pressuring children to eat. But that may have left you wondering, how do you help a child eat if you don't pressure them? One thing parents always say to me is, I've tried not pressuring them, but they just ignore the food.

Well, here's the thing. Some children do need a little more help. While removing the pressure is a very necessary step to helping your child become more comfortable at the table, many fail to explain what the next step is, how to help them learn to eat without it.

If you're here with me today, I'm guessing that at some point, you've tried removing the pressure from the table, but then you got worried or frustrated when your child just ignored the new or challenging food on their plate. And then you went back to pressuring and take a bite rules. But what if I told you there was a different way, a way to help them learn and engage with the food without the pressure?

We call this exploring. As an adult, we can look at a zucchini and know it's a zucchini. We have an idea of what the outside peel feels like, what's on the inside, how it feels in our mouth, and the taste.

We know this from our previous food experiences. Children have had many less food experiences, so they don't have the same amount of knowledge. For example, if you took your child to a grocery store, they likely wouldn't be able to identify all the produce there.

And actually, I really encourage you to do this because it's eye-opening. Maybe they could tell you what the color was, but they might not be able to tell you the name or how it feels in the mouth or what it tastes like. But then we ask our child to just take a bite of it?

Hmm. How would you feel if someone asked you to take a bite of something totally unfamiliar and new? I'm guessing you probably wouldn't be very open to the idea.

Let's imagine this. Say you went to a new and foreign country where the menu was in a different language. So they brought you a plate of something.

Do you think you would dig right in? Or are you more like me and you would smell it, poke it with your fork, or maybe try it on your teeth first? This is food exploring.

Food exploring helps bridge the gap and allows children to learn the characteristics of a food and become comfortable with it before eating it. They love that they don't get pressured, and parents love that they have a concrete plan they can use to help their child learn to eat new foods. Here's what food exploring entails.

Break it in half, smell it, touch it to your lips, or do a bite competition where you see who could crunch louder. Instead of jumping right to take a bite, we allow kids time to become comfortable with the food. Specifically, in our Food Explorers membership, we work on progressively helping your child up these steps in a way that is comforting to their body and brain so they have the opportunity to become more comfortable around a food one tiny step at a time.

In my opinion, one of the best things you can do to help your child learn to eat new foods is to shift the focus away from taking a bite to how can your child learn everything they possibly can about this food. Grow it in the garden, have your child cook with you, take them to the grocery store. All of this helps them learn more and more about the food.

Even if it's not obvious right away, this sets the foundation for a positive food relationship because it gives them the opportunity to predict how it will feel and taste like in their mouth and the autonomy to place it in their mouth when they are ready to do so. The number one place parents go wrong with food exploring is giving up too soon. When I see parents try food exploration, they haven't fully given up that goal of taking a bite at the meal.

And so they get discouraged when their child doesn't try the food immediately, and they just stop. But food exploring isn't about the immediate outcome. It's about setting the groundwork for empowered and confident children at the table.

When you really lean into this and focus on the fun in food rather than the bites, that's where the magic begins to happen. When you have fun with it, your child will too. And suddenly, the table starts to become more fun, more magical, and more friendly.

If this sounds like something you're interested, I really encourage you to check out my Food Explorers membership, where I help parents explore new foods every single month. I come up with the activities and teach them how to help their child progress in a fun and no pressure way. Just go to the link in my bio at DrSamGoldman on Instagram to get started.