Stephanie Landis (00:06):

Hello and welcome to Unbabbled, a podcast that navigates the world of special education, communication, delays and learning differences. We are your host, Stephanie Landis and Meredith Krimmel and we’re certified speech language pathologist who spend our days at The Parish School in Houston, helping children find their voices and connect with the world around them.

Molly Weisselberg (00:27):

This episode of Unbabbled is brought to you by Houston’s pediatric dentist, Dr. Steven Hogan and Dr. Natalie Harrison. I know my children’s first visit to the dentist was nerve-wracking, but Dr. Hogan made it a sensory friendly and fun visit for both of them. From the fun art on the walls to the goodie bags to Dr. Hogan’s gentle demeanor, My kids keep asking when they can go back. Houston’s pediatric dentists serves infants, children, and teens of all abilities in the Houston metro area. They are devoted to comprehensive and preventative patient care for everyone. Whether your child loves going to the dentist or dreads that first visit, Dr. Hogan and Dr. Harrison strive to make each visit comfortable, effective, and fun. Visit their website at www.houstonspediatricdentist.com. Again, that’s www.houstonspediatricdentist.com.

Stephanie Landis (01:34):

This episode features pediatric dietician Jennifer Anderson in an informal q and a, using questions submitted by Un Baba listeners. Jennifer is a registered dietitian with a master’s degree from John Hopkins School of Public Health. She founded Kids Eat and Color a resource that helps families feed their children from their first fight of solid food through picky eating and elementary age nutrition needs. Jennifer has firsthand experience, not only as a dietitian, but as a mother of a picky eater. She uses her expertise and life experience to answer questions ranging from how do I introduce more protein to help my child, needs to gain weight, to how do I speak with well needing adults who pressure my child to eat? Her advice is based on research and best practice, along with an understanding of real life expectations.

Stephanie Landis (02:23):

Welcome, We’re so excited to have pediatric registered dietician Jennifer Anderson on with us today. She has an Instagram account and website Kids Eat and Color. If you haven’t checked it out before, you definitely should because it is full of amazing resources and we’re so excited to have you here today. Thank you so much for having me. Today’s episode is slightly different. Meredith is out, so it’s just me, Stephanie here, and we thought that we would get questions from the community and ask Jennifer, So these are questions that you guys came up with and sent to us. So we’ll start. Well, before we start with the questions, I’m assuming that everybody follows you. Since I do <laugh>,

Jennifer Anderson (03:02):

I always come across parents who, who you know think, Oh my gosh, you’re that mom on Instagram, which is a hundred percent right. And I started Instagram as a mom, and now kids eat color is the leading resource of nutrition information for parents and kids, um, for nutrition, information, feeding advice, picky eating, all of that. But it’s all started with me and having my child fall off the growth chart. And it happened early and I thought, how is this happening to me? I’m a dietician. Kids don’t care what their parents do <laugh>. And uh, next thing you know, I started an Instagram account and it has grown into what it is now.

Stephanie Landis (03:44):

One of the things that I love is you have created community of not just registered dieticians, but people looking at feeding from like a holistic approach. I know that you have occupational therapists and other people on your team and it’s just amazing and I love referring families to you because it’s so well rounded.

Jennifer Anderson (04:02):

Well, I certainly appreciate that. What we find is a lot of feeding accounts are like just dieticians and nutritionist, maybe, maybe some occupational therapists, but they completely leave out the psychologist and the disorder specialist and you know, parents like that as well. And so, well, I mean, they are all our parents on our team, but <laugh> ex experts is really what I meant to say. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And for us, it is so important to have that breadth of information so that we’re meeting parents where they’re at, but also kind of pushing them to understand more about feeding.

Stephanie Landis (04:40):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I could go on about how much I like your website all day, but we’ll get to <laugh> in your information, but we’ll get to the questions. So the first question says, My son will only eat food that is not mixed together and no sauce or dressing, no food that touched. What would you do when well, meaning or not friends and family try and fix or force your child to eat?

Jennifer Anderson (05:01):

You know what, as a parent, it is just one of those things where there are gonna be grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends who are gonna assume the worst about you. They are going to give you advice, they’re gonna try to fix your child. I think at the end of the day, we have to protect our kids and what we know is our preference. Like we’re the parent, the our friend is not the parent. Our friend doesn’t spend hours and hours with the child. And at some point you just have to say, you just have to either say, Look, I we’re not gonna talk about that. Or you say, I’m not gonna hang out with you anymore. Or you have a conversation and you say, Hey, here’s what we can do. Here’s what we can’t do. Let’s compromise. Every family has such a different situation that it’s so hard. We, um, just launched a new line of courses designed, designed to help get partners, grandparents, other people on board, because this is something that we hear over and over and over. Other people are not on board with this idea, and we really have to give people a conversation point as well as some teaching. Like, here’s some evidence based information. Every family’s gonna do what they want and what’s best for them, but at least you can start here with the conversation.

Stephanie Landis (06:23):

That’s fantastic. I feel like every expert we have on from a variety feel like whether it’s social emotional or mental health or occupational therapy or we get the same question with speech therapy. It’s like, how do I, what do I say to the people who are asking me all these questions? That’s great that you’ve started a course to kind of give people Yeah, the knowledge and the confidence, right, to know what to say and do.

Jennifer Anderson (06:47):

Because also we have a lot of moms <laugh> like, moms are very interested in this. And then, and then they’ll often say, Hey, my husband is not interested in this topic. I don’t even know how to talk to him about this because he hasn’t been watching, you know, mom centered Instagram content for two years. Like obviously that makes no sense that he would. So that’s why we took a totally different approach. They’re comedy based, they’re short, we call them the mini courses, and, um, they’re really designed to help pinpoint whatever you’re struggling with.

Stephanie Landis (07:18):

That’s fantastic. All right, our next question. It says, I have two children. My doctor says that one needs to cut back on fats, but I need to encourage my older son to eat more quantity and healthy fats. How do you accommodate one child needing more food and one child needing less? I don’t want to shame my younger child for wanting more.

Jennifer Anderson (07:42):

Yeah, so I think there are a lot of well meaning pediatricians out there who want to put your child on a diet. If for some reason they’re on, uh, the higher end of the weight spectrum. Um, I don’t want any parents put their child on a diet. This is not something that our eating disorder dietician recommends. And we know that this can just cause so much damage for kids. And I love that this parent is like, Hey, I don’t wanna cause any shame for my child. And this is such an amazing gift that you’re giving your child for a pediatrician to say, I want your child to eat less fat. Unless they have a medical condition in which they need to eat less fat. Um, you’re gonna be taking calories and fat outta their diet, which fats are very important or function as a human, and they’re also important for satiety, for feeling full and feeling satisfied and staying full to the next mealer snack.

Jennifer Anderson (08:41):

So honestly, it is hard. It is really hard to feed a family where everybody is different. But at the end of the day, giving kids the ability to learn to listen to their body over time is a gift that is going to give to them their entire life. And maybe you have a child who is larger, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to be healthy or that they’re gonna be larger for their entire life, or that somehow you have to change the size of their body, um, just to make them healthy. If you’re taking a lot of the fats out of their diet, there is a good chance that they might end up a little healthy, unhealthy. I mean, so I would take a more holistic approach and say, I’m gonna serve the same thing for my kids. Now I have a child who tends to not even eat enough calories when I serve one kid bread with butter on it.

Jennifer Anderson (09:41):

I serve what I would consider to be like a normal amount of butter on it. For the child who is like barely staying alive because of calories, I give him a very generous serving a butter. Nobody really wants that much butter <laugh>. But if my other child says, Hey, I wants more butter, I say, Okay. Um, so I think it’s important to, you know, at some point you might make small, uh, you know, changes. Like if we have somebody, I don’t eat a lot of dairy because it like makes me go to sleep. So we serve things that are separate. I don’t put the cheese on mine. Other kids put the cheese on theirs, the one who needs the calories, I might, you know, say, Hey, would you like more cheese and go out of my way to, to um, set the cheese bowl right next to him? And I wouldn’t do that for, you know, my husband and my other son. So you kind of have to, to take your, um, gut, which is, hey, I don’t wanna shame anybody here. I don’t wanna pressure anybody here, but I do want to give everybody the option to eat what they need to.

Stephanie Landis (10:47):

Yeah, I like that. That was a lots of layers in that question.

Jennifer Anderson (10:52):

<laugh>.

Stephanie Landis (10:53):

The next one is kind of along the same lines. How do you talk about foods that help you grow?

Jennifer Anderson (11:00):

Okay, so if we’re gonna talk about foods that help you grow, that is all foods. All foods can help you grow. If you go into an area where you have child malnutrition, they are going to be giving children a, a food that is high in sugar, high in fat, and uh, has a significant amount of protein. This is how we keep kids alive. And so if your, your child can actually grow eating primarily cookies and also some protein foods. So there’s this message out there that says, well, we talk about grow foods and we talk about slow foods and we talk about these foods. At the end of the day, almost virtually everything is a grow food. I think what we really wanna help kids understand is all food helps you grow some foods help you build your muscles. Some foods help you fight off sicknesses, you know, uh, chicken, um, at some levels can help you fight off sicknesses.

Jennifer Anderson (12:06):

Chicken soup is actually a great example of that. Um, but if you only chicken, you might run into some health related issues. <laugh>, there’s no vitamin C in chicken. So we have to teach kids to understand food from a broader perspective. Um, growing food is, is a, it’s just not accurate because all foods are gonna help you grow. Um, cookies you can grow on that, but also that’s gonna make you feel sick if you’re just eating cookies all the time. So introducing them to the idea and really you don’t even have to talk about that. All you have to do is serve cookies infrequently for them to begin to understand, hey, cookies aren’t, uh, twice a day food in our house unless they are, In which case that’s, that’s part of your family culture and that’s fine. But for a lot of kids, no cookies don’t show up twice a day every day and they just start to understand, oh, that’s not, that’s not how we eat.

Jennifer Anderson (13:06):

So I prefer to give kids an age appropriate piece of information that’s accurate. So, um, vitamin C is going to help, uh, your teeth stay in your gums, <laugh>, you know, if you have scurvy, guess what? Your teeth are gonna fall out. Um, no, and I would never say that like a negative like piece of information until kids are much, much older. But to a small kid understanding, hey, this keeps your gums healthy. Um, saying broccoli, broccoli does help your bones grow. It has a lot of calcium, right? So these sorts of messages can be helpful for kids and then they have something to actually understand like, yeah, carrots are actually important for my night vision. Um, and they like that.

Stephanie Landis (13:57):

Yeah, <laugh>, I was just thinking that example in my head cause my daughter had a friend over playing on Friday and she was like, I’m gonna eat some carrots cuz I wanna get really great eyesight.

Jennifer Anderson (14:06):

<laugh>. Yeah, <laugh>. There is this idea that carrots give you good eyesight. That is kind of a myth out there, but vitamin A is absolutely necessary for good night vision. And that’s where I I, so I would say they help you see in the dark because some <laugh> people come back to me and they’re like, Don’t you know anything about nutrition? That was the myth that was, you know, I’m like, well no, actually carrots do help you see in the dark.

Stephanie Landis (14:32):

Our next one is, Any tips on getting my child to eat more protein or introducing proteins?

Jennifer Anderson (14:41):

Yeah, so there’s a lot of options for protein foods. Sometimes parents think it’s only meat or, um, and that’s, that’s not necessarily true. You got all of your beans, lentils, peas, you have um, whole grains and dairy products. You have dairy products, but themselves you have eggs. So if you’re mostly concerned about your child eating meat, they actually don’t have to have meat in order to be healthy. Now if you do wanna continue to expose them to meals, continue to make meals in which you have meat or in which you have those protein foods. Every meal and snack really benefits from having a protein food. So the more they see it, the more they’re gonna be likely to eat it. And you might choose to have snacks where really every, every food on there is some sort of protein food and see how that goes and see if it’s a little easier.

Stephanie Landis (15:38):

Yeah. For my son, I took your advice of introducing dips and man, he dips his into like everything. And I’m like, that’s mostly barbecue sauce, but that’s okay. We’ll, we’ll slowly decrease that. Least he ate some chicken. This one is kind of twofold, so I’ll break it up. It says what to do about a kid who’s struggling to gain weight. Should we stay away from shakes? Are they any supplements that you recommend?

Jennifer Anderson (16:05):

So if a child is struggling to gain weight first I recommend a, um, high calorie diet. So adding in fats, protein rich foods, anything that has a lot of calories, really sticking to the higher calorie fruits and vegetables, like a sweet potato instead of an orange. Um, a uh, you know, something you could put butter on broccoli instead of maybe a cucumber, which you wouldn’t necessarily put adding in those high calorie dips and really focusing every meal and snack has to have a high calorie food. Can shakes be helpful? Absolutely. So my son, for years before bed, he would have a high calorie, um, smoothie. We called them banana milkshakes. They’re bananas, peanut butter and milk. Um, he liked that name, obviously <laugh>, who doesn’t like a banana milkshake. And so that was helpful. I recommend having them at the end of the day though, because they can cut their appetite because there are so many calories and, and we don’t want kids to get used to only eating those foods. We do want them to really have a variety of foods. Um, because you do get into some situations where like a child is only drinking PediaSure. We don’t want that. We don’t want that situation. Not to say you can’t use that, but if you do, I recommend only doing it under the supervision of a dietician or doctor. And then also adding that in to the end of the day so that they’re getting the rest of the food.

Stephanie Landis (17:43):

Are there any gi or other issues that might pop up if you, Most of your food and calorie is coming from like say PediaSure?

Jennifer Anderson (17:55):

Um, not necessarily. So you have kids who are tube fed. Um, it’s almost like they’re, they’re um, it’s just pre chew <laugh> and a little bit digested. So generally it’s okay. What we worry about with PediaSure is kids stop chewing and that becomes an issue for oral motor development. And we end up running in like the child isn’t getting exposure to textures, to flavors. They’re just drinking it. They’re not even necessarily smelling it that much. And so it can really contribute to more severe pey eating, especially if that’s all they’re, they’re eating. The other thing is they’re very sweet, so obviously they’re very sweet so that your child is more likely to eat it, which is what we want. But also we want to maintain their ability to eat a variety of flavors, not just sweet foods.

Stephanie Landis (18:52):

Yeah, that makes sense for sure. The next question says what to do when your child has a hard time mixing things together or if things are mixed together, they refuse to eat it.

Jennifer Anderson (19:04):

We call, especially in our picky eater course because we have a range from like typically picky to extreme picky, we just call mixed foods a phase two food. It’s, it’s unpredictable. Like you think about rice mixed with, uh, chicken mixed with something crunchy. How are you supposed to know what’s gonna go on in your mouth? We as adults can look at this and say, okay, there’s something crunchy, there’s something, you know, kind of chewy like meat and then there’s some rice. I know what that’s gonna feel like in my mouth. A small child has no idea what’s gonna go on and they’re gonna chew it and one part of it is gonna be crunchy and the next part is gonna be mushy and then maybe a little piece of fat in there and then they’re gagging, right? So it’s just an unknown. Now if your child does eat mixed foods, continue to serve them if they don’t want to, I’m just deconstructed.

Jennifer Anderson (19:58):

It’s, once you get into the habit of it and you realize like casserole are just out for a little bit, it becomes pretty easy to just say, Okay, for this phaseable lives we’re gonna have things that can be mixed, you know, on the side. And I can have mine mixed, you know, like a taco salad. I might want to eat a taco salad. Um, my child will, will not for sure eat that taco salad. He wants to eat in courses and he wants everything not touching. Sometimes he wants things on different plates. And you know what <laugh>, that’s like a new thing. He’s like, now I want them on different plates. I, and you know what, we have a dishwasher so it’s fine for us. Um, so I think you can meet your child in the middle, you know, sometimes you say this isn’t gonna work in our family and sometimes you say, Hey, it’s fine, you’re gonna grow out of it. You’re not gonna go to um, you’re not gonna graduate from high school. You know, eating seven plates of food with different foods on each plate, most likely <laugh>.

Stephanie Landis (21:05):

You know, you say that, that I was a person who did not like my foods to touch or mix. And as a joke, a few of my friends from high school got us like plates for our wedding that were divided.

Jennifer Anderson (21:18):

Oh my gosh,

Stephanie Landis (21:19):

<laugh>. They have come in very handy with my children, let me tell you. <laugh>. Yeah,

Jennifer Anderson (21:23):

That’s amazing. Jokes

Stephanie Landis (21:24):

On them. I use them all the time.

Jennifer Anderson (21:27):

What’s interesting is that child will not use a divided plate and never has because he’s always associated them with being a baby, even as a toddler. He just realized nobody else on the table at the table has a plate with dividers, so why should he? And I’m like, you know, they make plates for this situation, but he finds that offensive so

Stephanie Landis (21:49):

Well in my house, everybody but my husband has divided plates some nights.

Jennifer Anderson (21:54):

<laugh>. Yeah. So there you go.

Stephanie Landis (21:56):

Yeah. And I have been there taking like soup and pulling out like, here’s just the chicken, here’s just the noodles and it takes forever, but it was worth it for my mental health. I think that kind of leads very nicely into the next question, which was how to approach meal times. Do we have strict rules? Do you give structure but not create a power struggle? How do you balance that?

Jennifer Anderson (22:17):

I think the more you can stay away from just straight up power struggles, um, the better because they have to brush their teeth. They have to, uh, ride in a car seat, they have to go to bed, they have to wear clothes, they have to have their diaper changed. There’s a lot of things that I am absolutely not going to compromise on. You know, you have to come with me if I leave the house <laugh> and you also have to come back with me if I’m coming back to the house. So there’s plenty of these situations where it’s just a non-negotiable. Um, do I care if you eat your carrots at the dinner table? You know, that’s really up to you. And that’s something that I enjoy giving my child. I also let my children pick their own clothes. Do you wanna wear mismatching clothes?

Jennifer Anderson (23:04):

That’s really up to you. That’s an easy thing for me to give you, but it’s not an easy thing for me to say, you get to call the shots at around food in my house. That is not right in my opinion because now there are always exceptions, but that’s not going to lead to a balanced diet. It’s not going to lead to healthy offerings for my kids. And so there’s really this, um, separation. Do you have to eat it? No, that’s up to you. But also I’m not gonna get up and make something else. I’m the parent. I’m gonna choose what I get from the grocery store. I’m also going to choose what I serve for meals. I’m gonna take you into consideration because I care about you and um, I’m gonna make sure there’s something on the table that you feel comfortable with. But at the end of the day, if you want to eat or not, it’s really up to you.

Jennifer Anderson (23:58):

And I’m gonna make sure that I’m feeding my child regularly so that they know when to, you know, they know food is coming and they know, hey, if I’m not going to eat lunch, I’m gonna have to wait until after nap time and my snack at that time. So, um, there is this balance where, no, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna get up from the table of spaghetti and meatballs and go make you pancakes. Like you are free to ask for that. You are free to hold out for it, but I’m just not gonna do it. Maybe I’ll make you pancakes tomorrow because you asked. But really that’s my job as a parent

Stephanie Landis (24:39):

In my home. I have one very active child and one that is likely to just sit and slowly eat. Do you have any tips for getting the active children to, to stay at the table long enough to, to eat? Or do you allow them to like eat, walk around a little bit, come back and finish?

Jennifer Anderson (24:57):

Yeah, so it’s, it’s really up to the family. I, well we don’t wanna see is the active kids running around the house and you chasing them with a spoon. Um, I think if you have an active child, you’ve probably done it at least once. I know I have, even though I tell parents not to, um, because there are those times, but it’s not safe and it’s not teaching your child that they need to eat and then they need to do other things. We’re confusing other activities and eating it can contribute to picky eating and it can add just a lot of challenges when eating. I know how challenging it is to have a very active child at the table and I recommend starting with an age appropriate amount of time as a starting place, which I like to recommend like one minute per year of age, which is generally like a good starting place and you’re like, wait, that’s only two minutes.

Jennifer Anderson (25:50):

Yeah, I get it. But you have a child who doesn’t wanna sit at all, so two minutes is better than no minutes. And from there we can slowly inch up the time that they’re sitting. We love having a visual timer, uh, you know, a sand timer, something like that where they can see, oh, when this is running, when this has run out, ran out, run out, whatever it is, <laugh> I can then, uh, I can then get up from the table and I can go and I can run around. It can also be pretty tricky and you’re like, um, and then I’m gonna let you come back and then you can run around and then you can come back. I, that can be really disruptive for the family. So it’s really up to you as a parent, do I wanna allow that or do I wanna say, hey, when you get up, we’re done. And then the next meal or snack is at x activity or X time. Um, but really I recommend trying to help them stay and if you, you’ve got that really active child who only has eight bites of food before, they cannot sit any longer, then really focus on that high calorie like nutrient dense food so that they can get as much as possible in that eight bites. And then also serving food more regularly. Like you may have three meals and three snacks a day instead of three meals a day and one snack.

Stephanie Landis (27:05):

Yeah. I found out at my house I had to let go of the strict rule of like, we just sit and if I let my daughter like stand or like half sit, half stand, then she would stay. But if I was like, You must sit, she’s like, No, it’s not happening.

Jennifer Anderson (27:19):

Right. It’s hard.

Stephanie Landis (27:21):

So some of those rules that I thought, I, of course my kids will sit and eat nicely at the table. Oh, before I had children.

Jennifer Anderson (27:28):

You say before you have kids. <laugh>,

Stephanie Landis (27:31):

This one takes a slightly different turn. Do you recommend daily probiotics or any daily kids’ vitamins?

Jennifer Anderson (27:39):

So, um, with probiotics, when my children were in daycare, I did daily probiotics. There is, um, there is a brand, I think it’s cultural that, um, does have a probiotic that’s associated with less diarrhea disease in daycare settings. So I did provide that. Um, different probiotics do different things in your body. So I primarily use them to target a specific thing as opposed to just, Hey, let’s take a broad spectrum probiotic just for the fun of it. They’re expensive. So generally I recommend, you know, using ’em for a specific reason. Um, uh, in terms of a multivitamin, if you have a child who’s eating no fruits and vegetables, for sure, because we’ve gotta make sure they’re, they’re getting that vitamin C. Um, if you have a child who you feel like it’s a pretty extreme picky eater, even if they just eat like one vegetable or something like that, then a multivitamin and might really be warranted. If you felt like your child eats a fair amount of food and eats a variety of food, then a multivitamin may not really be necessary.

Stephanie Landis (28:54):

What about other supplements like iron elderberry, things that are marketed to parents as your child needs this <laugh>?

Jennifer Anderson (29:03):

Yeah, so I would never give my child an iron supplement unless the doctor recommended one. Um, that one can be dangerous so that one especially so unless your child is, um, is deficient in iron, um, and it can sometimes be useful in the case of like a small infant who doesn’t have any fortified foods at all. Um, but I would always check with your pediatrician before giving an iron supplement. In terms of elderberry, there’s a lot of good evidence for elderberry fighting off, um, viruses. There’s just, just emerging emerging evidence for it with covid. So we can’t really say, um, and that evidence really is that it doesn’t really seem to be harmful. But again, emerging evidence means there’s not much that the research community is saying. So if you say, Oh, there’s this one study, think about one study, I wanna see 50 studies before I say, Oh, we know, or we really think based on the research, but especially with kids who are in daycare who are constantly coming back with this and that and the other thing at the first sign of it providing that now there is, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen any research, um, for it in small kids.

Jennifer Anderson (30:30):

Um, so it’s really up to you. I would never give it to an infant. Um, personally, uh, there’s like almost no things that I would give to an infant unless I was working closely with a doctor and even toddlers as well. So much of, I’m trying to think if I’ve seen one in kids at all. I don’t have any that are coming to mind. So most of this research has been done in adults. Do I give it to my kids? Yes. But I always say, Look, this is what I feel comfortable with. This doesn’t mean that this is what you feel comfortable with and we don’t have a lot of evidence to fall back on. So, um, is it safe for long term use in children? I have no idea. And I would never use it like that. You know, the way that I might use it is, hey, you came home from a sniffly nose, I see that little thing coming out of your nose and you’re four years old and I wanna nip that in the bud, so I’m gonna give you a little bit and then I’m gonna, you know, only for, you know, until your symptoms to subside and then we’re done.

Jennifer Anderson (31:32):

You know, and I’m not gonna give this to you continuously, um, but it can be a great thing for helping prevent, you know, worse RSV and a flu and things like that. So it can be a useful tool.

Stephanie Landis (31:47):

Great. I will keep that in mind, especially since I have two kids in school that come home sharing a lot of germs with each other.

Jennifer Anderson (31:56):

Yeah, <laugh>.

Stephanie Landis (31:59):

All right. Our last question on here is about bedtime snacks.

Jennifer Anderson (32:06):

Yeah. So some kids need ’em, some kids don’t. I would say if you, if it’s not obvious that your child needs one, I wouldn’t start one. Uh, keep in mind I had a child who needed, um, some extra calories. So bedtime snack is what our family does. We always do it. We don’t base it on what happened at dinner. So, um, if we do bedtime snack, we do bedtime snack. I mean, we always do it, but when I’m talking to other parents, like, don’t, don’t offer one just because they didn’t eat very much dinner. Like it has to be consistent and kids need to know what to expect, otherwise they’re gonna use it as a tool to not have to eat dinner. Like, and I didn’t feel like spaghetti meats and broccoli today, so I’m just gonna hold out and then you’ll give me whatever I want and I can just eat goldfish for dinner. That’s not what we wanna see. Instead we wanna see, oh, you know, we always do bedtime snack and maybe, and as parents, we are deciding what is served there, but the kids aren’t really playing a role in whether or not it’s being served.

Stephanie Landis (33:11):

Yeah. I feel like I have this conversation with my husband too, because when he is like not really into dinner, I’m like, He’s totally gonna have a peanut butter sandwich at 9:30 tonight. <laugh> sure enough he does <laugh>.

Jennifer Anderson (33:22):

Yeah. And you know, as adults, like, you know, adults are adults, but, um, but the kids, we just, we don’t want them like getting into the habit of being like, and now I want you to provide the granola bars to me. I mean, obviously as parents we sometimes make exceptions, but we wanna keep ’em as exceptions, not as the norm.

Stephanie Landis (33:45):

Great. Well this was so entirely helpful. I really appreciate your time. I just have one more question for you before we let you go. And this is a question we ask everybody. If you have one piece of advice to give our listeners, what would it be? And it could be on this related topic or it could just be any life advice.

Jennifer Anderson (34:06):

Yeah, so I always remind parents that your best is good. We often hear that your best is good enough. I don’t buy into that. Nobody else knows your family, nobody else understands your children like you do. So whatever your situation, whatever rules you are following or not following, whatever advice you’re taking or not taking your best is good.

Stephanie Landis (34:35):

I like that. I like that a lot because every situation is different and especially with the population that we work with at our school, we just, everybody is doing what they can in their specific situation.

Jennifer Anderson (34:49):

Yeah, absolutely. And I don’t know what your priorities are. I don’t know what your daily, you know, reality is, of course. Like I have advice and I have quote evidence-based strategies, but I don’t know if they’re applicable to your situation based on what’s going on.

Stephanie Landis (35:04):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate all of your input and your time, and it was a pleasure.

Jennifer Anderson (35:13):

Yeah, likewise. Thank you so much for having me on.

Stephanie Landis (35:16):

Hey, this is Stephanie jumping in really quickly to tell you about our sponsors Soccer Shots, Houston. The Parish School has been lucky enough to have a group of students participate in Soccer Shots right here on our campus for the past couple of years. And it has been an amazing way for our students to be a part of a team. Soccer Shots began programming in Houston in 2009 with a goal of positively impacting children’s lives and supporting their learning of their favorite game, soccer. Their program was formed under the guidance of childhood education specialist, professional soccer players, and experienced and licensed soccer coaches. They use a developmentally appropriate curriculum that meets children where they are, and the coaches place an emphasis on character development and skill building. The coaches use words like respect, confidence, and determination in their weekly classes. To learn more about soccer shots, visit their website@www.soccershots.com/houston. Again, that’s www.soccershots.com/houston.

Speaker 5 (36:18):

Thank you for listening to the Unbabbled Podcast. For more information on today’s episode, please see our episode description. For more information on The Parish School, visit parishschool.org. And if you’re not already, don’t forget to subscribe to the Unbabbled Podcast on your app of choice. And if you like what you’re hearing, be sure to leave a rating and review. A special thank you to Stig Daniels, Andy Williams, Lesley Hawley and Molly Weisselberg for all their hard work behind the scenes. Thanks again for listening.