Ep 116: Nourished, Connection, Food and Caring for our kids, w/ Dr Deborah MacNamara

On this episode of Ask Dr Jessica, Deborah MacNamara discusses her new book 'Nourished' Connection Food and Caring for our Kids.  She explores the challenges of picky eating and the evolutionary perspective on food preferences. She provides practical tips for parents of picky eaters and highlights the significance of creating a positive mealtime environment. MacNamara also addresses nutritional concerns and the importance of trusting the process. She discusses the connection between food and relationship dynamics and the impact of external factors on food challenges. Macnamara emphasizes the the importance of small steps and progress in eating. She explores the role of food as an expression of love and connection and discusses the decline of family meals and its impact on attachment.  She concludes by highlighting the power of simple acts of care and nourishment and the ultimate goal of parenting: attachment and legacy.   To learn more about Dr MacNamara and her new book, check out her website. 

Takeaways

• The relationship between food and attachment is crucial in shaping children's eating habits and preferences.
• Creating a positive mealtime environment and focusing on connection and relationship can help address picky eating challenges.
• Parents should provide a variety of healthy foods and allow children to decide the quantity they eat.
• Family meals and rituals around food are important for fostering attachment and togetherness.
• Trusting the process and focusing on the bigger picture can alleviate stress and guilt around food and eating.

To learn more about Dr MacNamara:  https://macnamara.ca/nourished/
In addition to being the author of "Nourished", she has also written a book called "Rest, Play Grow" discussing attachment and development of children.

Your Child is Normal is the trusted podcast for parents, pediatricians, and child health experts who want smart, nuanced conversations about raising healthy, resilient kids. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Hochman — a board-certified practicing pediatrician — the show combines evidence-based medicine, expert interviews, and real-world parenting advice to help listeners navigate everything from sleep struggles to mental health, nutrition, screen time, and more.

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Transcript

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Hi everybody, I'm Dr. Jessica Hochman, paediatrician, and mom of three. On this podcast I like to talk about various paediatric health topics, sharing my knowledge not only as a doctor, but also as a parent. Ultimately, my hope is that when it comes to your children's health, you feel more confident, worry less, and enjoy your parenting experience as much as possible. I'm so excited to introduce to today's guest, Dr. Deborah McNamara. Deborah is a developmentalist. She's a gifted storyteller, and she's the author of the best selling book called rest playgro. Today, we're going to talk about her new book recently released in September of 2023. nourished, nourished is a book that I think many of you will be able to relate to. It talks all about the relationship between food connection and caring for our loved ones. To quote Deborah, we have become so focused on what food to serve that we have lost sight on how food was meant to serve relationships. Thank you to Deborah for coming on, ask Dr. Jessica. I truly enjoyed our conversation. Deborah McNamara I'm so happy to have you on my podcast. I'm such a big fan. I listen to you on podcasts, I read your books. And I love the message that you're spreading. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for all the good work that you do. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here. So the third book that you just wrote, which by the way, congratulations on writing a third book, nourished I have it right here nourished connection, food and caring for our kids and everyone else we love. Such an important topic. And I'm just curious, how how are you inspired to write a third book? Well, I never thought I'd be writing about food and attachment together that came about because my daughter was a picky eater, one of my daughters my younger one. And that was due Actually, I didn't realise at the time, just really huge sensitivity in her chemical sensing system. So you know, smell, touch, taste everything. And my elder daughter was not a picky eater. And so I went to my supervisor, I was working with families around attachment issues and learning about this, my postdoc supervisor, Gordon Neufeld, and said, What am I supposed to do about this? And he didn't answer the question for a reason. And I didn't need to say to you something about adding wine. She only wanted to eat cheese and bread. And he said, Well, if you just throw in some wine, you have the perfect meal. And I thought, you know, you'd like a world leading attachment developmental expert, and this is the best you can give me. So I was really frustrated that I knew he was trying to help me understand something that I had missed. And so the book actually is a journey into understanding what it was I don't think he ever anticipated I would write a book to solve this question. And I did find some really helpful things along the way, like Elon, Saturn's division of responsibility, which was wonderful. But I wanted to delve a little bit deeper into what is this connection that has been lost? That somehow we're focusing on just the picky eating and that we've lost somehow an understanding of how we become eaters? How relationship is part of that how this natural development unfolds? And what is our job as a parent? And what do we do when we get stuck, and oh, my goodness, that kind of relationship problems we can create when we get stuck, which is what I was doing with my daughter. So that's how the book came about. A lot of us paediatricians use the line, some kids live to eat, and some kids eat to live. So it sounds like you had one of each, I do have one of each. And they taught me something completely different and was baffling. And I think that's true for a lot of families, I think, How is it, that I can be the same parent and yet have such different responses in my kids, than we realise it's not all about us? This is true. And I think about eating a lot, because obviously, it's something that we have to do. And why not make it fun? Why not make it enjoyable, but it ends up being, quite frankly, such a stressful experience for so many parents and caregivers? Yeah, it really is. And there's so many reasons for that. But yes, the number of challenges and especially as a paediatrician I mean, the issues around food and picky eating and sensitivities, certainly where I see it in my counselling practices where food problems have created relational ones. And where relational problems are creating food ones, they're so intertwined. And some of the problems have nothing to do what's happening in the home. Sometimes it's what's happening outside the home for a child as well. So yeah, there's so many different ways that challengers can show up. Yes, I will tell you, you know, we see families for their yearly physicals. And when I see two year olds, I almost anticipate when I ask parents how things are going at home, I expect that they're going to tell me that they're frustrated because their child is such a picky eater. And what I loved about your book is that you delve into the psychology about about why that happens. And one thing that you made me think about that I hadn't really thought about before was that why evolutionarily would this happen? I mean, it must happen for a reason. Right? And maybe it's not such a bad thing? No, it's not at all. I mean, I was really, Paul Rosen coined the term Omnivore's Dilemma, basically noting that we could you know, eat anything, essentially almost anything and and Michael Pollan picked up on that. So the it's a curious question, you know, why are he Humans are able to eat such a broad variety of foods. And that what you see is as a child gets older, it comes more narrow and more narrow. Well, how does it narrow? It narrows around relationship we want to eat, like, talk, like walk, like adopt the same values as the people that we're attached to. Why? Because that serves survival. And so of course, our palate and being an omnivore would shape around the influences in our life. And that's how we have cuisine. That's how we have food culture. That's how we know our people. That's how we know the smells of home, what is home, what isn't home, is that this attachment brain, these emotional, this emotional system says, steer in this direction, this is your home. The other interesting thing, so so it creates a sense of home and a place and people and so we know that's where we go for care. The other curious thing about a two year old or the most beautiful thing about a two year old, who's unfolding well, is you're oftentimes here I do it myself, me do I do? How did you know that that's what we say. I always say a two year old mantra is helped me I do it myself. I love it, they need both parts to it, they need the help, they need the independence. And you just see the shift where they go from being simply just fed to becoming an eater, not just think about that shift, like suddenly they want their toast cut in a certain ways. Somehow they like this taste and not this taste. Somehow they want more autonomy to explore. Somehow they want to be you know, the in control of what goes in their mouth and comes out of their body. And so it's an age of autonomy. So of course, they start to have preferences, wants and wishes. And the other thing is, is that what facilitates that is this incredible instinct called counter will. So when they feel pushed, they push back. So when we say you must eat everything green, they hate everything read when we say you can't eat anything green. They're like I only want green things is because this is the age of autonomy and the instincts and emotions that drive this developmentally. Make them less receptive to pushing, cajoling, coercing, bribing threats, punishment, any behavioural forms of management backfire tremendously this age? And of course, how do we try to feed our kids through behavioural measures, you know, the jaw. And so of course, this backfires at this age. The one piece of interesting research that I just love that I found was from Paul Rosen, where he studied why kids in Mexico at the age of two wouldn't eat any of the hot chilies like they were just so avoidant to it. And then by five, suddenly, they adopted eating all of these hot chilies, and they loved it and said, What happened between two and five, that they go from hating it, loving it. And he said, We don't know why. But it happens around the table where they watch other people eating it and enjoying it. And in these homes, there is no coercion, there's just a love for food. And so you see this age of two, and this picky eating, we're in such a hurry, we're focusing on outcomes. If we focused on relationship and creating a context that is emotionally safe for eating, you actually see that developmentally kids want to be like us. And yet we're so busy pushing. So that in a nutshell, are some of the key reasons anyway, for picky eating. No. And I think you it's beautifully put because it's true. I have families that are from different backgrounds, different cultural backgrounds, and I'm always impressed when certain kids are eating spices, and they're eating spicy foods. And I think How did this parent make this happen? What a beautiful thing to have a child that can eat such a variety of delicious foods. And I love how you point out that we're obviously doing something wrong when we're so focused on the outcomes in this country. And so many people end up having disordered eating of some of some kind. So it seems like what we're doing in our focus on getting our kids to eat and really pushing them, we're not getting the outcomes we want. No, it's you know, we seem to have more intuition around trying to get them to school in the morning or putting them to bed. The more you push a child to go to sleep, you must sleep I can't be near you, the more backfires the more alarm they can get. The more you push them to hurry up, get to school, you know, you'll be late, the more they slow down they go boneless with food. The more you have to eat, the more it has to be this the more focused and alarmed and coercive we are oh my goodness, two or three year olds can smell it a mile away and they just back up. You know, we see it in toddlers the counter well, but I actually think it's true for human nature when you feel pushed to do something. A lot of times the spidey senses go up, you don't like how it feels. And you do the opposite. You resist? Yeah, absolutely. We all have this instinct. And of course what gets pushed what buttons get pushed on us when our kids don't eat. They don't obey they don't follow our agenda. They don't want to eat the meals that we put on the table. If you're working parent you're like, oh my gosh, I just bought cooked this lettuce is $7 You like everything's going through your head and we're like this kid isn't eating and so what gets pushed in us? Our counter will are resistance and opposition which is what was happening to me I kept pushing my daughter to eat, she kept resisting. And we kept going round and round around. And before I knew it, we were starting to have a relationship problem, not a food problem anymore, a food problem and a relationship problem. So I lost the, the relational aspect that would help me steer her towards better eating. Which one, it makes sense because eating food is not a once a week or once a month activity. It's all the time. So if you're constantly battling, it makes sense that it could eventually seep into your relationship. Yeah, exactly. So I'm curious. Okay, so let's say a family is listening. And they have a picky eater. They're having some they're experiencing challenges with their toddler, what advice would you give them to start off on a better foot? Yeah, so there's three things to focus is number one, focus on your relationship? So how are you gathering your child? How are you collecting them to bring them to the table, they might be lost in play, they might be doing something else, preschoolers or young kids, even anybody really can have one single mind focus, getting them off the screen. So how do you get in their face in a friendly way, get the connection, first, engage them in helping the dinner if that's possible, if not, it's okay. Just engage with them have a hello before there's a meal. And and use relationship to bring them to the table make really make the context. The second thing is make the the place that you eat whatever that looks like for you make it a place of connection, it's not a time to bring up challenges. It's a time to focus on Play, if you can play in games, people taking turns, good thing bad thing about the day, not everybody has to talk, focus on the enjoyment of the food, you know, like, I would just often say to my husband, so what do you think of this? I tried a new recipe, what do you think, and we would just have a conversation and natural conversation, not like, Okay, everybody has to do this. It wasn't forced, it wasn't contrived. It was just the focus was on being together. That's the second thing. So make it emotionally safe to be there, focus on relationship, make it emotionally safe. And number three is that to remember that we will eat like the people we are attached to, we will try the food that we are of the people who we are attached to. So to remember that we're introducing foods that it's not just simply putting new food on the table, it's about seeing that the other people like it. So we're having repeated exposure to food room to explore room to play. But you could have lots of exposure. But if you're not connected to the people who are exposing you, it likely could backfire. So it's it's the exposure to new things is not to stop trying to have some patience to set the table as you see fit. You know, to make room for people's different preferences. One study I read so that everybody in the household can see the same food, but everybody will have a different preference, right. So some people are one way or the other. So we just make room for that in the in the context of exposing without pushing and enjoying the food. And if there's really big problems, and you can't collect your child and you can't engage them, then then try to find ways to get to their side outside of food, like play, go for an outing, do some hobbies together, try to figure out what's getting in the way of relationship before you try to bring them to the table. Like, so much of what we do in terms of attachment happens outside of the table, outside of the place that we eat. And so, you know, work on it that way as well. What you're saying makes so much sense because I'm thinking, if a child learns that every time they sit at the table, there's an argument or a disagreement or criticism. Who would want to sit there? If children get accustomed to the table being safe and a place of love and telling stories? Inevitably, they'll look forward to it? Yeah, exactly. And toddlers, you know, they jump around a little bit, a little bit of energy, and they like to play and so of course play will hold their attention. But you know, it's okay to tell a story. It's okay to have them on your lap. I just, I think if we're a lot less rigid. And yes, so enjoyed this time and that the family meal wasn't a prescription but a celebration of whoever's there and whatever togetherness looks like for you. I think that that would be a lot healthier. I think parents feel a lot of guilt. Well, I'm not having dinners every night. Well, actually, that's not necessarily in the best interest if you can't all get there and there's arguments, you know, and the research only shows three times a week is really the key. I mean, not that we shouldn't shoot for more, but at least get to three you know and and find ways to do that. But it could be a breakfast, it could be a lunch, it could be a picnic, it could be picking your kid up for a soccer, you know after school to go to soccer at this is about an invitation for dependents, I will take care of you with food being the symbolic gesture in many ways. It has very practical implications of course, too. But it's also a symbolic gesture of I will take care of you so it doesn't just have to happen around a table. And you don't necessarily have to make the food obviously it's ideal and lovely when you can. But the idea that everything has to be homemade from scratch. Ensuring that we wouldn't lean on other people to help us feed our kids in the context of today's life is, oh, it's a burden. And it's unrealistic. So you're making me feel better? Yeah, well, it's my life didn't make me feel better. Yeah, and one thing I want to touch upon is, a lot of parents come to me and they're stressed that their child will somehow be nutritionally deficient, maybe they won't grow, as you know, up to their genetic potential, maybe something will be wrong with them and their bodies, they won't be as healthy. And I really try to reassure parents to think about the big picture, because it's very, very, very rare that I'll meet a child that's nutritionally deficient in some way, even as picky as they may seem to the parent as little as they may eat as it appears to the parent. kids end up thriving in the United States, that's the truth. Yeah, that's wonderful. That's a beautiful message too. And it's so important to hear, especially from our medical professionals, right, that we're really alarmed about things that we should have more pause for thought right and check things out. But have more pause there. I think was beautiful. What you're saying is that nature has a way to help us thrive. And nature really wired us up this way. And so if we are worried about it, and I've worked with lots of families where there's been eating challenges, or allergies, or whatever, what still is the answer The answer through is having a connection, because you have to lead, the more challenges there are in food, the more you have to lead and the more connection you need, the more receptivity you need in the child. So you have to have you have to really work at relationship so that the child follows you wants to be like you is receptive to what you have to offer, to the directions that you might give around an allergy or want to be with you and feel safe with you around eating food if eating food is a scary thing. So relationship is always going to help us out here to to help our children eat healthy to get the food that we want to get into them, perhaps if you know they have some autonomy here too. So. But when relationship isn't there, it makes everything worse. And we can absolutely dig in some big food problems. Yes, I'm just thinking there's so much complexity here. Because when I think about families in my practice, where the parents complain about their most difficult eaters, or they have a lot of stress around their child's pickiness, a lot of times there's strife in the parents life as well, just in general. And you have to wonder if their pickiness or their stubbornness around food relates to that? Well, it can all be connected. I mean, I lose my appetite at a table when there's tension or if there's tension in my life. And, you know, kids want to eat at the same as people they're attached to. And if we're not in a great place when we're at the table to I mean, it's a context, it's an environment, we feel the emotions and other people and it gets attached to food because foods, what's visible emotion and connection and attachment. They're all invisible. And so they all get connected into the context, we're in some contexts, some places you feel really good in you put up, you know, you feel really happy in a playground, if a playground is happy to you, you know, your favourite places that favourite smells, bring back beautiful, comforting memories and emotions. But if that context is intertwined with negative memories, and everybody's stirred up, like your body doesn't even work properly, I lose my appetite. It's just like, oh, how do we get through this quickly? Yes, I think you've given some good, good tips for a lot of parents listening on how to make eating a more pleasant positive experience for kids. And then I would just say, you know, in your experience, if we provide all of that, like when you did that for your daughter, did things turn around and help your daughter? Well, yes, slowly. I mean, I fumbled a lot in the beginning, because I didn't really know. I was trying to put these pieces together. So I wish I could tell you it was a smooth trajectory. The thing that I struggled the most with was my insight alarm and my desire to push and have a strong agenda around food. That was the biggest problem that I wrestled with. And when I could have a better relationship with that when I could understand that that was backfiring on me. I actually found a way to make more headway. And that was just basically more comfort around the table. I accepted that this is the way it was going to be I provided other healthy foods. We focused on enjoyment we ate, I continued to serve. What like there was just more augmentation to the meal, you know, so if we had butter chicken, she didn't eat chicken. So I'd have soybeans. So now we eat butter chicken with soybeans. There's just like fusion meal. Yes. Better chicken because she saw us all eating better chicken. We loved it. And she had her her different meal. But now we all eat the soybeans that she was eating as a substitute. So it just became our family culture became our food culture because I just took care of her. I didn't ask her what she needed. I accepted her palette was the way it was. Am I kept? I was patient. One thing I want to emphasise to people listening is that I think something that is very healthy. Full is just looking for small steps in progress. You know, if your child just licks a vegetable, all right, we'll take it. Because I hear from so many parents will say my child won't even touch a vegetable, or they're going to be okay. And I think if you just go for those small, small bits of progress that adds up over time, you know, if they, if they start off where they're okay, I'll lick broccoli. All right, well, maybe then I'll try the little piece of the broccoli. Alright, maybe two weeks later, we'll take a bite of broccoli. And over time, you'll see that a child will evolve into being a better more mature eater. Yeah, absolutely. One quote that I'm so glad you mentioned in your book, because I say this all the time to parents, that our job as parents is to provide the quality of food, make sure we have plentiful quality rich foods in our home that kids are able to choose from. And then their end of the bargain is simply just to decide the quantity. So we provide the quality, they decide the quantity. And if we do that for our kids, I feel like it takes the pressure off of them to finish their plates. And then on our end, we don't have to feel stressed as parents that they're eating poor quality foods. Yeah, no, it was it's a beautiful script. And of course, what's underneath this is this beautiful dance of relationship. There's different types of relationship dances we can have. Sometimes, it's a very satiating one as in the Ellen Sattar model, where you know, one takes a lead, the other follows. However, sometimes we get into challenging attachment styles with our kids. And sometimes they're fraught with frustration. Sometimes we're competing with competing agendas. And so when that happens, then food problems will often be present as well. And so it's about how do we get back to this beautiful dance of satiation where one takes the lead the other follows? To the degree that it makes sense for that child? Yes, I'll say myself, what I feel frustrated most as a parent, is that I'll try to make a meal for my kids. And very often, they won't touch it or they're not hungry. And so I, you know, I try to uphold my end where I make a meal, and I provide it, but I have to admit, when they don't want to taste it, or they're not interested, it's easy to lose my motivation to keep being a family cook. But I'm trying I'm gonna keep trying. Yeah, no, I hear you on that one, too. I don't think anyone, I think that would be a very natural response. We've got a lot of generosity we're trying to provide for children anytime they don't take us up on our offer, especially when it's a good offer. Right. You know, it's, it's, it is frustrating. And so what do we do? Oh, there's no magic cure for this. What I did oftentimes do those I thought if my kids are not receptive, but is there something that I need to change on my end? is am I got the timing right? Have I got to provide more diversity here? Is there something I need to do? Or should I just never make that meal again, like when I made fish in the slow cooker? Not a good idea? No one liked it. Like, there's some things I need to change. And then sometimes it's just it just doesn't work? And, and that's okay. Yeah, it is what it is. I'm thinking I made Taco Tuesdays for a long time. And then recently, I tried to sneak in some vegetables into the taco meat, and that failed miserably. They were onto me. So, you know, you try things out. And sometimes there sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But that's that's all the fun of it. Yeah. You know, one thing that just strikes me though, is that what I take refuge in, or what I take some comfort in is the fact that every time we show up to try to provide that says something about us that we are generous, that we are keeping them on our radar, they might not always be receptive to our offers. But my goodness, how wonderful it is to have a caretaker who does show up so generously. And so if we don't get ourselves caught up in well, you know, a behavioural stance again, which is if they only eat so much, then I will have been successful. That kind of sets us up, doesn't it because we don't really control how much they eat. That's really their job. But if we show up to say, I'm going to do my best to take care of my kids in the best way I know possible with generosity, then I can feel okay with that, when I do, and, to me that is much more fulfilling is to put my benchmark on that rather than, you know, do they always take me up on my offer? Because we're not really in control of that we can only do the best we can. Yes. And as you mentioned in the book, that food can often be our expression of love. And that definitely resonates with me, I one of my favourite things to do to show my love is to either feed somebody or bring them, you know, bring them a latte or bring them a drink or bring them something that they'll enjoy. I love the feeling of providing nourishment for other people. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah, I'm sure we all it's must be a natural maternal instinct. I don't know. Yeah, no, I think so. The beautiful beautiful instincts, caretaking instincts, and these instincts need expression so that the best way they can be expressed his through food To, like you can't feel cared for unless it's expressed. We can have lots of caring in us, right? We can have lots of love for someone. But unless it's actually expressed that caring can't be felt, it's in the expression that it's felt. So someone may or may not eat or take what you've offered. But it doesn't mean that the caring isn't felt in the offer. That's nice. Yeah, that's a nice way to think about it. All right. So even if I make my Taco Tuesdays with mixed vegetables, and it gets rejected, maybe the sentiment was still felt. My mom showed up to care for me, yes. Although, you know, I'm not sure they're gonna say that. But at some level, the fact that someone showed up to care for you, the more mature you get, I think the more let's just say this, when they move out to university, they will come to appreciate these acts a lot more. When they come home and realise what it's like to be cared for. I always noticed that with my kids when they come home, oh, home cooked meal, oh, this is just it's like elevated to a new status. So you get that that's happening for you. I love that. Yes, I love that. You know, it's true for me, I know, I loved coming home on the weekends, from college, to my parents house to get a home cooked meal. So why not? No. And I love I have to say love. The last line in your book really resonated with me, I'm going to read it for everybody. But you wrote, our job is to keep the invitation in our heart warm, and to remember that food serves us best. When it serves togetherness, feeding someone has always been the universal language of love. And I think that's so beautiful. Because it's true that we should let food serve our togetherness, let it be an expression of our caretaking abilities, let it show our love for one another. Rather than being a source of stress. Yes, which you can easily do, you know, food can serve togetherness or it serves stress, like it just turns on a dime. But we can do our best here to try to keep it in the context of connection to be an expression of attachment to fortify attachment to make our caretaking, you know visible and to nourish body, heart, mind soul. I really feel like attachment is at the root of everything. And I know that you feel similarly as someone who studied attachment and written about attachment. And I'm curious, how did you do you know how you were drawn into this field? Do you know what called you into studying attachment? I think I don't know, I think so much of what we do is, the closer it is to us. The more that it moves us, the more invisible it oftentimes is. I do know that I've always been a developmentalist meaning that I've always been fascinated how things grow. And I think that probably started with my grandfather who was an English gardener, and he would tour me around his garden and show me like I was fascinated by tomatoes and bean seeds and you know, jars of with paper towels and how to just everything explode out of a seed it's like, it's like this developmental miracle that a seed has its own instructions for growth, I still find that absolutely exquisite. When I look around in nature, and so of course, as soon as you have that perspective, you realise that things need to be routed to grow. And so of course, roots are all about attachment. It's all about you can't be a developmentalist without being interested in attachment and understanding how attachment is the vehicle for growth. So for me attachment is the context in which we raise our children so that development can unfold. Attachment in itself is not the pursuit, it is the answer to growth. And so what does healthy growth and development look like? How does how do we take care of our children in the context of attachment? So I think it really goes along with the fact they've always just been a developmentalist and you can't answer the question of how do we grow and develop and become our you know, and realise our full potential, your lead right to attachment. And so I think that's that's how I got there with through the developmental perspective. By the way, I'm so impressed. You got to gather monta wrote a quote on the cover of your book. Congratulations. That's, I'm such a big fan of his that's amazing. Oh, thank you. Well, he's another fellow Canadian. Of course, I work with Gordon Neufeld who wrote the book hold on to your kids with Gabbard. And so, yeah, Gavin is a wonderful, a wonderful human being and there's so much important work in the area of trauma and understanding human relationships and emotion. So yeah, no, I was honoured and delighted to receive his endorsement. Congratulations, I, the book really gave me good tips and good guidance on what I can do to bring more nourishment and connection into my own home. So thank you so much. Wonderful, thank you. Let's go. And do you have any any, any other any final tips you'd like families to hear before we before we close? I think the one that I come back to the has stayed with me actually that changed me. As part of writing. It was the opening quote that I give by Tim or more on the quiet storm. And just that, you know, as a parent, sometimes we don't, we can't always make sense of our kids, we might feel a lot of stress in our own lives, we might wonder how to show up for our kids and take care of them. But there's something in the simplicity. And as she writes in this poem, to just take ourselves to not worry about making a perfect life, says her poem, not worry about, you know, making a perfect life, but just to take ourselves to that place where we're chopping vegetables and make a calm lake in us where our loved ones can come. And then we have something to give them. That's a paraphrase of her beautiful, her beautiful poem. And I come back to that over and over again, because I think when all else feels too big, too much too difficult. The simple act of coming back to chop something for my loved ones, just anchors me in such a profound way, and this is who I am, this is what I can do. And this will be enough. And I just love that place that anchor that I can find. And I think that all parents can find in the busyness of our life as parents to anchor us in the mass. And it can be just, you know, very something simple, doesn't have to be elaborate, can be a veggie plate, you're chopping up, but just it just anchors you It anchors you in your role and brings your emotions to the surface, you know where you're carrying can be felt and your your intentions can be felt hopefully by the loved ones around you. Yes, I one line that you use that really struck with me, as you talked about how what is the ultimate goal of parenting? And we love our kids to feel so attached, you know, feel an attachment to us that they think about as long after we're gone. That things that they notice, or they see remind us of us that they may hear our advice, even if we're not here. And that's really that's really beautiful and really true. Yeah, it is, I pray to it is it's it to me, it's the epitome of parenting that death is not a barrier to our love. Yeah, I mean, it's this is it's true. I feel like it helps parenting when you don't worry about all the little details that you have faith in the bigger picture. It just helps hold on a hold on over the rough patches. And it also helps to bring into light, the simplicity of the repeated acts of just showing up to keep to take care of somebody I mean, you know, that is that invitation is the one that extends beyond us the memory of that the intentions that were there. The simple act of just showing up to care for somebody and caring can be felt when when you see it when you feel it when you're on the receiving end of it. So well. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. I highly recommend this book on nourished connection, food and caring for our kids, as well as your other books and I'll make sure to link them in the show notes below. Thank you so much. I've enjoyed a conversation and meeting you today. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Ask Dr. Jessica. Also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review wherever it is you listen to podcasts. I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow. You can also follow me on Instagram at ask Dr. Jessica See you next Monday.