Stop Striving and Start Thriving (with feeding resources for families and SLPs)

Stop Striving and Start Thriving (with feeding resources for families and SLPs)

It’s easy to believe that if you provide the perfect care for your family, you can raise kids who never get sick, have genius IQs, perfect skin, perfect behavior, and amazing athletic abilities.  But is all of this optimization actually best for the children in our care?  I have seen too many parents in tears because they feel they are somehow failing to provide their children the “optimal” experience.  But what if what’s praised as “best” by society isn’t actually the best option for everyone?  What if by working so hard to meet a perceived societal standard, we are actually distracting ourselves from the ways we can thrive in our own unique situations?  And what if to thrive, we have to let go of control and allow ourselves to rely on tools, resources, and others’ helping hands?  

If you feel insufficient, it’s because we are all insufficient.  God doesn’t expect us to do everything on our own, or even to do everything an exact specific predetermined way.  He asks us to rely on His help, often offered through others, and sometimes using surprising resources.  And there are some decisions with neither a right nor a wrong answer.  What matters isn’t that your life looks optimal or perfect.  What matters is that you can find ways to thrive in whatever situation you are in.

To consider the many kinds of resources and choices God provides for us, let’s take a closer look at feeding kids. 

Feeding children is an overwhelming responsibility even without societal pressures.  As a feeding therapist, I have experienced only a small taste of the stress of feeding children who don’t eat well.  It is natural to feel stressed when a child has feeding difficulties.  Fortunately, we live in a society with many resources to assist with infant and child feeding:  lactation consultants, feeding therapists, breast pumps, formulas, nipple shields, slow flow and other adaptive bottle nipples, sensory exploration tools and adaptive utensils, and many other innovations.  These days, the prognosis for infants and children with feeding difficulties is very good.  Doing everything on your own, or doing everything the way we read about and see in the media isn’t the point.  The point is to use the resources available to you and your family to help each child thrive in their own way.  

The media has many opinions on what children should eat (or not eat).  Restrictive diets are trending:  gluten free, fat free, dairy free, sugar free, low carb, no carb, you name it.  And for children who have been tested positive for food allergies or a health condition such as diabetes or Celiac’s, one or more of these restrictions may truly help with weight gain and development.  But for kids without such health conditions, every food can offer important benefits.  Yes, I said every food.  Even food that is considered “junk” food.  Take cheese puffs and potato chips, for example.  They are meltable in the mouth and easy to eat with an immature chewing pattern.  For a child with even a slight oral-motor difficulty, cheese puffs may be a more efficient way to consume calories than, say, a kale salad or a steak, which both require lots of rotary chewing.  And candies can be used for good too.  Candies with strong sensory properties (such as a bright green color or a strong sour flavor) can be used to help children with easily overwhelmed sensory systems to feel less overwhelmed by the sight or taste of fruits and vegetables with strong sensory properties (bright green color, strong flavor, etc).  As a feeding therapist, I recommend providing the widest variety possible to your family (without stressing yourself out!).  Instead of rejecting unpopular foods, let’s keep every food in its place and understand which benefits are necessary for each situation.  

Likewise, breast milk and formula both provide many advantages.  Neither option is “evil” or “lesser”.  Historically, the media has gone from one extreme to the other, first advertising that formula is superior to breast milk, and now that breast milk is superior to formula.  But current research is revealing benefits often attributed to breastfeeding may be more dependent on family situation than on the decision to breastfeed, and that the differences between children who received breast milk vs. formula evened out after five years.  One choice is not inherently superior.  Each child and each family have different needs.  There is no morality to the decision; each parent must make a choice that fits their child and their family best. 

My takeaway from all this is that our lives don’t have to look like a textbook exemplar.  It’s OK to deviate from what is considered “normal” or “trendy” to find creative ways to solve our problems.  Instead of working so hard to “optimize” our lives and our childrens’ lives, let’s find the best way forward for ourselves and our families.  What’s best for one person may be different than what’s best for another. In the wise words of Katherine and Jay Wolf:  “Perhaps some detours aren’t detours at all.  Perhaps they are actually the truth.  The picture.  The plan.  And, perhaps most unexpectedly, they can be perfect.”

*

Resources:

I have added some resources to the Speech Therapy Tab for families with feeding difficulties.  Here are links:

When should I consider a feeding evaluation for my child/infant?

What Does a Feeding Therapist Do?

Benefits of Breast Feeding AND Bottle Feeding: A Venn Diagram

Communication Tips for Families of Picky Eaters

For more excellent resources, please refer to the following websites:

Ellyn Satter's Division of Responsibility for Feeding: this is a great way to establish healthy authority and boundaries at the table.

Jenny McGlothlin's Extreme Picky Eating website:  Jenny McGlothlin was my feeding therapy instructor in graduate school and she is an excellent resource for parents and SLPs seeking to understand how to help picky eaters!

SOS (Sequential-Oral-Sensory) Approach to Feeding:  Developed by Dr. Kay Toomey, this approach to feeding therapy is an excellent method for helping children with sensorimotor feeding disorders to eat well.  I attended an SOS conference in January 2018 and learned so much from Dr. Toomey and her colleagues.  This website also includes a link for parents to find providers who are SOS trained.  Providers:  please note that it is very important to receive SOS training before using any of Dr. Toomey's handouts or resources.  Feeding therapy is a very delicate situation with serious health consequences if handled improperly.  So be sure to register for the appropriate training before using the SOS feeding approach.  

What's your experience?

Have you had a unique challenge feeding your children?  What solutions worked best for you?  I would love to hear about your experiences in the comments.  Let’s all remember to use positive language—we want to avoid speaking negatively about someone else’s solutions.  And let’s also remember that positive language about one particular solution does NOT condemn other solutions offered.  Everyone’s “best” solutions are different because every family situation is a bit different.