December Specials

Holiday greetings!

This can be a stressful time of year. Our regular routines are often disrupted. We may feel as though we have to pull off the "perfect" holiday for our kids. Plus we're dealing with longer periods of darkness and cold. In an effort to help ease some of your stress, I would love to help you on your path to empowered parenting and successful family meals. What better gift can you give your children than the gift of a confident parent?

As my gift to you, I am offering the following specials for the month of December:

Free Teleclass Thursday 12/3/09 at 9pm with Courageous Loving with the opportunity for discussion of questions and concerns about parenting during the holiday season. To register, click here. Also, take this survey to submit questions and content suggestions for the teleclass.

Dr. Cuneo's Parenting Assessment, only $40 (regularly $50). The Parenting Assessment is ideal for anyone who desires a clear roadmap for building confidence in their parenting and strengthening their relationship with their children. See here for more information about the assessment.

Dinner Together Assessment, only $40 (regularly $50). The Dinner Together Assessment is ideal for anyone struggling with making enjoyable family meals a regular part of their routine. Aspects of cooking and meal planning as well as child eating behaviors will be reviewed in this assessment. Learn more about Dinner Together here.

These offers expire 12/31/09. Each assessment includes a phone consultation, which can be scheduled anytime up til 3/1/10. Gift certificates for these offers are also available. Why not give a loved one the gift of empowered parenting? E-mail drcuneo@drcuneo.com to make arrangements or for more information about any of these offers.

Fostering Gratitude at Thanksgiving and Beyond, Continued

Earlier this week, I wrote an article, "Fostering Gratitude at Thanksgiving and Beyond" for my Dinner Together newsletter. In that I asked for readers' ideas for activities or crafts to do with children on Thanksgiving that truly highlight gratitude and thankfulness as part of the Thanksgiving celebration.

I wanted to share some of the responses I received. One reader shared an activity that she had done with her family.

One year we found a small branch with several smaller shoots coming off of it. We made a "Thanksgiving Tree" by cutting out construction paper leaves and attaching them to out "tree" with yarn. Each family member got a few leaves and wrote on the leaf something they were thankful for. We anchored our "tree" in a terra cotta flower pot and put it on our kitchen the table. On Thanksgiving day we brought it to my mom's house and we passed it around and each person read aloud what they were thankful for. Of course younger children can draw a picture of what they are thankful for.

Another reader directed me to her blog, where she had just posted on article on "Teaching Your Children the Meaning of Thanksgiving." Her blog, in turn lead me to another post on cultivating gratitude in children. An idea mentioned in that post, the family gratitude journal, struck home with me. We had started a family gratitude journal back in 2002. I pulled it off the shelf. It has a spattering of entries over the course of several years. My 8 year old was excited to see this because she really didn't have much memory of this journal from its early years. The older two, however, were not so enthusiastic. More like, "Oh no. Not the gratitude journal again." I was surprised at their negative reaction, but as they talked I realized that their negativity had more to do with the process than the content of the activity. In the past we would try to do it at the dinner table. I think they felt too pressured and inconvenienced to do this during a meal. So now I said I would just leave it out and whoever wants to write in it can whenever they want. We'll see how it goes.

But we did have a discussion last night about what gratitude activity we will be doing this year at Thanksgiving. I brought up a few suggestions, but they came up with their own idea. And I have to say, I'm very proud of them. So what we will be doing is creating a sheet of paper for each of us, all our Thanksgiving guests, and some of our family who won't be with us that day. The kids will decorate and personalize these papers before the guests arrive. We will leave them out on a table in the living room for each guest to write on each other person's paper stating something that they are thankful for about that person. Then each person will bring home their personalized paper.. Hopefully everyone will feel affirmed, grateful and blessed.

I'd love to hear any of your ideas for working in gratitude traditions with your family. And Happy Thanksgiving!

Easy Spinach Lasagna

I haven't posted a recipe in a while and have been wanting to. Tomorrow night my family will be eating a spinach lasagna that a made last month and froze. I never make just one lasagna. Whenever I make one, I make two. I either give one away (perhaps to a friend who just had a baby) or freeze one for later. No friends have had babies lately, so I saved the second one for us this time. Consider this recipe to be more of a guideline than an exact recipe. I usually make my own marinara sauce, but feel free to use jarred. Sometimes I use fresh mozzarella, sometimes I use the pre-shredded bagged cheese. Use whatever you have on hand ~ or whatever is easiest! This is also a great recipe for including kids as helpers. The recipe below is for 2 lasagnas.

8 cups marinara sauce

3 lbs. ricotta cheese

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

10-oz box frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

2 8-oz boxes Ronzoni Oven-Ready Lasagna, uncooked

4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Combine ricotta cheese, eggs, grated Parmesan cheese, and spinach.
• Spread a thin layer of marinara sauce at the bottom of two 13x9x2 pans (you can use a disposal foil pan if you're giving one lasagna away, or if you don't have two pans).
• Layer in the following order: lasagna noodle, ricotta cheese mixture, mozzarella cheese, sauce.
• Repeat. Each lasagna should have three layers and be topped with a lasagna noodle.
• Cover the entire lasagna with sauce. When using oven-ready noodles, it's important that all the noodles are moist and covered with sauce.
• Top with mozzarella.
• For the lasagna you are cooking, cover with foil.
• Bake for 30 minutes.
• Remove foil and cook another 10-15 minutes.
• For the lasagna you are freezing, cover first with plastic wrap, then with foil. When you're ready to cook it, remove the plastic wrap and replace the foil. Bake frozen lasagna covered for about 90 minutes. Remove the foil for the last 10 minutes of baking.

Each lasagna serves about 10-12.

Enjoy!

2 boxes

Mistakes with Feeding and TV

In last week's guest post from TwinToddlersDad he wrote about some of his family's struggles applying Ellyn Satter's division of responsibility in feeding. One of the struggles involved managing TV time for his children with dinner time for the family.

It reminded me of some of my own struggles with my oldest child, who is now in high school, back when she was a toddler. Dinners together as a family did not come so easy back then. During the week, the "family" was often just me and her. Sometimes I might eat with her, sometimes I would wait for my husband to come home. But we definitely did not have a consistent routine of the three of us sitting down together at the same table for dinner. It became much easier somehow with a second child two years later. Suddenly, it seemed more like a family meal to me.

How does the saying go, "if I only knew then what I know now." Well, I did not know about the division of responsibility back when my oldest was a toddler. Even without that knowledge, I think I did fairly well with providing the structure of when she ate and I was okay with making choices about what she ate. But I let the ball drop with the "where." She would often eat standing up at her little plastic desk in our living room. She was not then, and is not still, a child who can stay still for very long. Letting her stand and walk around the room and come back for her food didn't seem like such a bad idea at the time. But in retrospect, I know that I didn't provide her with much opportunity to learn how to sit at the table.

She would often watch videos while she was eating or snacking. She was adorable as she danced around in between bites. I'm happy to say that she can now sit for a meal at the table. So those early years did not do irreparable damage with setting up a bad pattern for where she ate. But I could have saved myself and my daughter from some of our battles around mealtimes if I had done it differently from the start.

The TV has not been on during mealtimes for a long time in our house. My husband and I are very comfortable in our authority to turn the TV off. And most of the time now, the kids are pretty accepting of that. Now that they're older, we seem to be past the stage of fearing a meltdown. Well, at least the meltdowns are different ~ and not likely to be brought on by turning off the TV. But I remember that fear. It's a powerful feeling. As TwinToddlersDad said, sometimes "you can't resist anymore and give in." What I've found with all aspects of parenting, an overall pattern of consistency is vitally important, but no one is perfect, and sometimes rules are bent and patterns are changed. If the overall pattern is well-established, with most children, occasional variants in the pattern will not "ruin" all that you've previously established.

Last month I was interviewed for the blog, yourfamilyviewer.com on the practice of watching TV during family meals. Studies have shown that the benefits of family meals can still take place even if the TV is on, but I don't recommend it as a regular practice. As I said in that interview, television can be a distraction and barrier to tuning into, connecting with, and talking to the people with whom you are eating.

What do you think? How do you manage TV with your children and with your mealtimes?

Are They Really Full?

In his guest post earlier this week, TwinToddlersDad wrote about his family's challenges in applying Ellyn Satter's division of responsibility model. One of TwinToddlersDad and Mom's struggles was knowing whether are not their children's food refusals were based on their truly being full or merely being dissatisfied with their food choices. I completely agree with TwinToddlersDad that it can be difficult, and sometimes even impossible, to truly know the motivation behind our children's every behavior. But I don't think that as parents we have to get it right every single time. We should be striving to get it right more times than not and to be open to making corrections when we realize we got it wrong.

I believe that our kids don't know their own motivations all the time either. It's our job as parents to help guide our children to uncover their motivations and understand their behaviors over time. One of the things I love about the division of responsibility is that it provides a model for allowing some of that learning to take place. Children need the opportunity to learn their bodies ~ to learn what it feels like to be full and hungry. They won't learn as well if they are frequently told how much to eat. Will they make mistakes sometimes? Absolutely. It's part of the learning process.

TwinToddlersDad points out accurately that parents fear leaving their children hungry. Parents also have fears that their children haven't eaten enough, that they won't grow adequately, that their health will be affected, that they make wake up in the middle of the night hungry, and many other food- and eating-related fears. I would guess that these fears are based on instinct and human survival. But in most cases, we can take a step back and make a realistic assessment. Most (but unfortunately not all) Americans have adequate access to food. Most children (but again, unfortunately not all) do not have significant nutritional deficits or growth disorders. So most parents realistically do not need to let these fears guide their parenting decisions. If our generally well-fed, typically growing, healthy child goes to bed hungry one night, what's the worst that can happen?

There is also a risk in not letting it happen. By not giving our children the opportunity to learn whether they are full or not without our interference, we can be putting them at risk for poor management of their eating and weight as they get older. Our nation's growing obesity epidemic is likely influenced by poor body awareness and food regulation skills.

I know from personal experience that it can be difficult to put aside those fears and worries about related to our children's eating. But I encourage you to try. Reframe those worries into opportunities for learning and growth and see what happens over time.

Two Hungry Monkeys and Challenges in Teaching them Division of Responsibility

Photo: Littlestomaks.com, all rights reserved

This past summer I had the pleasure of connecting with TwinToddlersDad on Twitter. He writes a science-driven, real-life toddler nutrition blog at Littlestomaks.com. In the guest post he asked me to write on his blog, I wrote about family meals and tips for feeding toddlers. One of my tips was to understand and apply Ellyn Satter's model of the division of responsibility in feeding. It has been a few months now and TwinToddlersDad and Mom have been attempting to apply the model to their adorable young twins. The article below is written by TwinToddlersDad about his experience. I really admire his honesty in writing about the challenges his family has faced, and I'm sure these challenges are shared by many other parents. In future Dinner Together blog posts, I will be sure to share some suggestions for strategies to consider to overcome some of the obstacles parents face in trying to apply the division of responsibility model.

I am honored to write a guest post for Dr. Kathleen Cuneo’s Dinner Together blog. I first learned about the concept of division of responsibility for feeding children through her post The Power of Family Meals: Tips for Feeding Toddlers which she wrote for my own toddler nutrition blog. It is a very intriguing idea. Pioneered by Registered Dietitian Ellyn Satter, it has found strong support among nutrition experts because of its simplicity, elegance and effectiveness in shaping the child’s eating habits.

Simply put, division of responsibility means parents are responsible for what, when and where and the child is responsible for how much and whether. Satter advises parents to trust their child’s natural instinct to eat when needed and stop eating when full. If done right and consistently, she confidently suggests that children will learn to eat the food their parents eat, they will grow predictably and they will learn to behave well at the table.

Sounds good, you say as you make a resolution to give it a try. We did the same but we had no idea how challenging it would turn out to be in real life! Especially if you have to deal with two little monkeys at the same age with very different personalities! We are not giving up though, but I should tell you that progress so far is slow.

In this post, I want to share with you some of our challenges in implementing this idea. I would love to hear about your experiences and tips for what has worked for you.

Can’t be sure if they are really full

A parent’s worst fear is to leave her child hungry after dinner. Since young toddler children are not very good at expressing their feelings, it is not easy to read their cues. One moment they can refuse to eat but the very next they may come back to the table asking for more! If they continue to refuse whatever you offer them, you can’t be sure if it is because they are full or because they don’t like their options.

We try to offer whatever we have prepared for ourselves at dinner. But we also keep some of their favorites handy to make sure they will at least eat something. We do not offer dessert as a reward to finish their meal and we do not force them to wipe their plate clean before they can leave the table.

They are not ready to eat at your dinner time

Maybe it is because you gave them a light snack on the way home from Daycare. Or maybe they are just not in the mood to eat and want to continue playing. As busy parents, we are constantly watching the clock. It’s time for dinner, it’s time to go up to get clean, it’s story time and then it’s time for bed. We want to establish a routine to make things predictable and simplify our life.
But guess what! Toddlers don’t operate by the clock. They don’t have a sense of space and time. They live in the moment and naturally resist your attempt to make them do the next thing on the schedule. It is a delicate balance between imposing a structure and waiting for them to make a choice to eat.

We set the table at our regular time and ask them if they want to join us. If they do, that’s fine but we try not to force them if they don’t appear to be hungry. We simply finish our dinner and let them come to the table later if that is what they want.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t!

They are distracted by TV

Before we had our twins, we never had the TV on during dinner. It was our time to catch up with each other since we were both gone the whole day. But now, the TV is constantly on when we bring them from Daycare because they like to watch their favorite shows like Dora, Diego, Little Einsteins, Wonder Pets, Barney and High 5. My son loves to watch his train DVD’s while my daughter prefers these On Demand shows or her Princess DVD’s.

On one hand it is nice to have them go to separate rooms to watch their shows and leave the two of us alone. But then, it is also a problem to have them come to the dinner table when we are ready to eat. Worse still, they try to bring the food in front of the TV so they can continue watching.

We have tried to make them turn the TV off before dinner. Again, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t!

They are too tired at the end of the day

One reason toddlers may not want to eat is because they are too tired and they simply don’t realize they are hungry. Maybe they didn’t take a nap or maybe they played too hard with daddy when they got home! Their mood can change suddenly because of exhaustion. In that case, you will likely have a huge tantrum on your hands if you try to force them to eat with you.

We try to get them to nibble on something, maybe their favorite snack before trying to bring them to the table. Or we offer the snack side by side with the regular dinner foods.

You can’t resist anymore and give in

You have had a long, stressful day. You are tired and just want to get it over with! You don’t have enough patience to go into a cat-and-mouse game with your child at dinner time. In those moments, it is easy to give in and let them nibble on anything they want. In our case, it is usually sweet stuff and chocolate for our son and cheesy snacks for our daughter. If they fill themselves with these snacks, there is no way they will sit with you at the dinner table.

It has happened to us many times and I am sure you too have found yourself in a similar situation. We try not to let it make us feel guilty. We are not trying to raise perfect children, if there is such a thing! We simply move on and try another day.

I think it is hard for parents to accept Satter’s division of responsibility as a simple black-and-white contract with their child. You do this as a parent, and they will do that as a child and magically they will turn into well-behaved children at the dinner table. It doesn’t happen overnight.

Feed with love and respect, have courage to face your emotions, and don’t feel guilty if it doesn’t work. Just keep trying and don’t give up. On good days, it is a lot of fun playing with them and enjoying our dinner as a family. Here are a couple of posts I have written on how to make dinner time a fun experience for them:
My favorite food is (blank)
Play is the secret ingredient of success at mealtime
What has worked for you? What has been your challenge? I would love to hear your comments!

New Website Launch

I'm very excited to announce that I have launched a new website. In addition to my work with Dinner Together, I have developed some new programs and services. At Dinner Together, I have always believed that how we approach feeding our children is a huge part of parenting. But we all know that there is much more to parenting than feeding.

My new programs will empower parents to feel more confident in their ability to raise compassionate, resilient, and successful children. Visit www.drcuneo.com to learn more about these new programs and to get my free report, "30 Things You Can Do To Raise Self-Confident, Compassionate Children."

I'm really excited about this and look forward to connecting with you - and helping you to connect with your children. So please help me spread the word to other parents (and grandparents) with young children.