Teaching Kids to Trust Their Own Food Intuition During Family Celebrations

As the holiday season rolls around, we're embraced by the warmth of family gatherings, yet often find ourselves confronting the frosty undercurrent of diet culture. In today's heartfelt episode of Lift the Shame, I, Crystal your intuitive eating dietitian, share my personal experiences and insights into arming our precious children against the ingrained food traditions and body image remarks that can sour our festive spirit. With a focus on creating a secure relationship built on trust and open communication, I offer a nurturing guide for parents to help their little ones affirm their food choices and body autonomy—because when we empower our kids to stand tall against generational pressures, we're also mending our own childhood stories and breaking free from the cycle of shame.

In our gathering today, we not only discuss strategies for fostering resilience in our children but also how we can prepare them to be their own champions in the face of societal norms. I delve into the nuances of family dynamics and how we can proactively support our kids to voice their insecurities and maintain a steadfast belief in themselves, even in our absence. The journey through proactive parenting is filled with practical tips and heartfelt scripts that you as a parent can adapt, all while ensuring our actions resonate with sincerity and genuine engagement. So come join me as we build a resilient foundation for our children, helping them to navigate not just this holiday season, but their entire futures, with a healthy, autonomous relationship with food and their bodies.

Questions about today's episode or do you have topic requests for future episodes? Please send your feedback via email to hello@crystalkarges.com or connect with Crystal on Instagram.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hey there, mama, you're listening to the Lift the Shame podcast. I'm your host, crystal, mama of Five and your family's intuitive eating dietitian, here to help you cut through the diet culture clutter so you can enjoy feeding with food as a family. I'm on a mission to help you end the generational legacy of diet culture in your home so you can experience motherhood free from food guilt and body shame. Listen in weekly for guidance on how you can ditch diet culture, heal your relationship with food in your body and confidently raise intuitive eaters. Let's dive in and lift the shame together. Hey Mama, welcome back to the show.

Speaker 1: 0:40

We are full swing in the holiday season here, and one question that comes up a lot around here at this time is how to protect our children from the various forms of diet culture that they may encounter as we engage in different holiday activities or visit family and friends and this is a big one and this is something that I'm hoping I can help you with today. Specifically when it comes to extended family members or our family of origin, that is, maybe recycling old patterns around food or bodies that we are actively trying to break and shift away from. This can be really tricky. It can be really hard to reconnect with our family of origin around the holiday season, particularly as this can be triggering of old wounds around food and body image that you may have grown up with. And now that your kids may be interacting with the same family members or friends or extended family, it can be difficult or challenging as you watch family members engage with your children in the same way around food or their bodies that they did with you growing up. So definitely a lot of layers here, and I want today to just share some ideas on not just how you can protect your child, but also how you can prepare your child as a cycle breaker. You may find yourself going into this mama bear mode where you want to do everything in your power to just shield your child and protect them from so many of the things that you may have experienced growing up, whether it is with family members or our dieting culture at large or anything in between. There's so many things that I know you want to shield your child from, and the holiday season is no exception of that. You want to protect them and again, this can be a time of year where a lot of those old things are coming back to the surface as we engage with our family of origin or are revisiting family and friends that were a significant part of old wounding or trauma around food and bodies growing up. And one thing I want you to be thinking about is how to prepare your child proactively for these types of situations, in order that you can essentially help them learn and be able to empower them to protect their own relationship with food and their bodies and to be able to advocate for themselves when we are not always there. Of course, right now, especially if you have younger children, it can be harder to impart that type of knowledge at this stage. However, there are things that we can do. There are messages that we can start seeding in our children to just help them remember that they are in charge of their bodies, that they have autonomy over their bodies, and that we can essentially help them build this narrative that will stay with them throughout their lives, especially when we cannot be there for them, and this is a great time to practice this during this holiday season.

Speaker 1: 3:29

I want to share a story with you, a little bit about my upbringing and just an example of how this all plays out, to help you, first of all, know that you're not alone, and to just give you a bigger picture context of what we're looking at when it comes to advocating for our children, but also just preparing them to encounter diet culture in its various forms or to be able to withstand generational wounding around food and bodies that is still very active in many of our family of origins. So I grew up as a child of two immigrants who came to America in search of a better life, one from the Middle East and one from Mexico, and this resulted in an interesting upbringing around food, especially as there was a lot of trauma around food for both of my parents. So both of my parents grew up in food scarcity and food insecurity, and also food was a big part of their culture, and so coming to the United States and experiencing more consistency and reliability with food access definitely played a role in how we were brought up as kids. And one thing that was very true for both my parents was this extension of feeding as love. Where I'm providing food for you, I am giving you what I didn't have growing up, and this is my way of showing you love, and this is the common theme that many of us grew up with where our parents may have demonstrated love or acceptance to us by how they fed us or what they fed us.

Speaker 1: 4:58

The difficulty around that is that many of us essentially can separate from our own autonomy, from our own body's needs, in order to find acceptance in this way with our caregivers. This was especially true I experienced with extended family on both sides, so when we would see our grandparents, for example, during holidays or just any occasion when we would get together as a family, there was this unspoken message of I have prepared this food for you or I have brought this food for you and I want to see you eat it, because this is my gift to you and making this for you or bringing this to you is my way of showing you how much I love you. And while there is good intention behind that, again many of us stopped listening to what our bodies need in order to appease our caregivers or the people in our life that we wanted to have their approval or that we wanted to be in their good graces. And this is really challenging, especially as a child, when you start to learn that when I listen to what other people want from me, that is more acceptable or that is more desirable, and so we start to push our own needs aside to be in the favor of our caregivers or extended family members, and while there is good intention behind our caregivers feeding and showing love in this way, there's an underlying narrative that can be very challenging for a child to understand, and typically how a child internalizes this approach to feeding is that I am only loved or I am only accepted if I fill in the blank, if I eat this food that's put in front of me, even at the expense of overriding your body's internal cues for regulating food, or I need to eat something that I don't like because if I don't, there's fear of being alienated or judgment or criticism. So all of this is things that we assimilate through our experiences with our family of origin and our caregivers or the family members in our life that we grew up around, and this is just an example. Everyone's story is going to be different. This is just something that I experienced growing up, especially from caregivers and extended family that predominantly experienced food insecurity in their growing up.

Speaker 1: 7:04

What's challenging about this is that those ingrained beliefs that our family of origin may have don't necessarily go away. Those are very ingrained, especially if they're connected to trauma around food and bodies growing up, and so we may see this being perpetuated even to our own children as our kids interact with our family of origin or extended family members. Even if we are doing the internal work around our relationship with food and being proactive and trying to shift away from that generational trauma around food and bodies, it can still permeate through extended family members that are interacting with our kids, and I know this can be a little bit despairing to hear, because so many of us are doing this hard work and yet these are still things that our children can pick up on as they engage with our family of origin. And this is a question that I get a lot is basically how do I deal with the grandparents or how do I deal with these caregivers that are taking care of my children in some way, or that we're interacting with them in some way, and yet they're still perpetuating these old school beliefs around food and body that could potentially be damaging to my child. And I hear that and I get that, because so many of our caregivers mean well, but they're still often stuck in old beliefs and old narratives around food and around their bodies that are surfacing in the way that they may interact with our children and I understand this is something that I definitely saw with my parents and something that I witnessed with extended family members as they engaged with my kids, and it definitely brought up a lot for me because I essentially saw extended family and my family of origin doing things with my children that were done with me as a kid and that definitely activated some of that old trauma for me around food, where there was messaging around you need to sit at the table and eat all of this, that clean your plate club that I never want my kids to be part of, or this idea of oh, we work so hard to prepare this meal for you, you really need to try it or take a bite, or eat this or eat that, or you need to eat some of this before you can have dessert. I mean, all of those old school beliefs around food were very strong and this was something that I saw being extended to my own kids. And while there is some level of advocacy work that we can and should do with these family members, especially if your child is going to be here engaging with them or interacting with them frequently, I also want you to see that there are things that we can directly do with our own children.

Speaker 1: 9:30

It's not always easy to engage family of origin, especially when we are trying to advocate for our kids or say, hey, I don't want you to talk about food in this way, or talk about bodies in this way, or I don't want you to force my child to eat anything. Those are things that are important to say and verbalize. However, it can be hard to do that. We may not always have the opportunity. Sometimes you might be healing from a difficult relationship with a family of origin, and it doesn't always feel safe to have those conversations with certain family members. I totally get that.

Speaker 1: 10:06

What I want you to see, though, is that there are still things that you can proactively do with your own child to help protect them from some of that generational trauma around food and bodies or deep-seated beliefs in diet culture that are still circulating in your family. It's hard. It's so hard. We're doing all this hard work, and yet it's still all around us. I don't want you to be discouraged by that. I want you to be aware of that and then understand ways that you can proactively help your kids learn how to advocate for themselves and protect their own relationship with food and their bodies, because when they can understand what feels right or what feels wrong or not okay when it comes to how other people are engaging with them or approaching them around food or their bodies, and also have tools to know what do I do in these situations, this is what helps them build resiliency so that they don't succumb to the same type of narratives that many of us grew up with, and this is what I want to just briefly cover today. I know that was a long-winded introduction, but I just want to cover some things that you can do with your child, and also I will walk you through a script that I have used with my own kids and that you can customize with your own child in whatever way you need to.

Speaker 1: 11:20

But the idea here is that we are preparing our children in a proactive way for some of the things that they may encounter in the real world, be it with our family of origin, at holiday gatherings or at school or in any other occasions. When we can start embedding these things in our children, this is what will become the new norm for them. This will become their message, their narrative that they internalize, that they are in charge of their bodies, that they have autonomy over their bodies and what they get to eat, or what they decide they want to eat or what they decide they don't want to eat. These are things that we want them to carry with them throughout their lives because, again, we won't always be there for them, and I find that, in the process of doing this, that this can be super healing for us too. So you may find that by helping your child find their voice and helping your child learn how to advocate for themselves, you're imparting to them something that you may have not had or experienced as a child and that can be so healing for your inner child that needed someone to speak up for them when a caregiver was pushing food on you or making comments about your body. You have the opportunity to do that now with your own child, and by doing so, the extension of that is that you are also healing yourself. So all of this is really important.

Speaker 1: 12:38

But let's just talk through some things to think about when it comes to preparing your kids, how to have these conversations, things to look out for, and then I will walk you through a sample script of how you can actually talk to your child about these things. So first, we just want to be thinking about how to be in a proactive state with our children versus reactive, and I'm going to delve more into what I mean about this. Commonly, when we're in this space, a thing that I often hear is what should I say when so and so says X about my child, or is telling my child to do this, or is making a comment about their body, or is telling them they need to eat this before that? And those situations happen. They come up very frequently, and I think having a set of scripts can be really helpful in these situations, especially because so many of us are learning how to do this. The first time, we didn't have a caregiver speaking up for us, and so now we're learning how to do it for our children, and it can be really hard to know what to say. How do I navigate these types of situations? And so, yes, having scripts in those situations can be helpful.

Speaker 1: 13:47

However, what I find is that sometimes these situations can be so triggering that it can move you into a more reactive state. When you are hearing somebody comment about their body or your child's body, that can put you into a place where you feel unsafe in your own body, and oftentimes the reason for that is because your nervous system is being activated, and when that happens, we move into a stress response. Physiologically, when we're under a stress response or when our body is in distress, our logical thinking brain goes offline and we're more likely to be in a reactive state, and that is why you might find yourself maybe lashing out or maybe freezing and not knowing what to say in those situations, because often what's coming with these body comments or food comments, or being in a situation where we are with our family of origin and the environment itself may be super triggering our body is going into that stress response and so in those moments it can be even harder and more challenging to think about what do I say or how do I advocate for my child, especially when that logical part of your brain is literally offline, and that is because your body is just trying to survive something that feels very unsafe. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't or can't work through those situations in order to advocate for our child. I just want you to see that sometimes it can be harder to advocate for our child because of things that are coming up for us and we don't want to rely on those moments alone. This is where I think the proactive work can be so essential and helpful to preparing our children to learn how to advocate for themselves in the event that we are struggling to do so in those moments.

Speaker 1: 15:33

So, just thinking about the proactive work versus being in a reactive state because sometimes at least, is what I have found for myself when I have been in those reactive situations I often think about things later on like, oh man, I wish I would have said that or I wish I would have been able to do this. And I just want you to give yourself some compassion and knowing that when we have this history with food that many of us do, when there's any sense of trauma in our past that can quickly come to the surface in many different situations, especially when we're interacting with our family of origin. And so please be compassionate with yourself and knowing that you're doing the best you can for yourself and for your child. And this is where spending some intentional time in this proactive work with our kids, where we can talk to them, where we can share potential scenarios that may come up, where we can give them affirmations and just affirm their body, their autonomy, their appetites. All of these things happen more effectively when we're not in a stressed state, when we are able to be in our bodies and our bodies don't feel distressed, and when we can be aligned with the logical thinking part of our brain. So, basically, what I'm saying is that a lot of this work happens outside of these moments, these heated moments where things can come up or comments may happen, and so it takes time.

Speaker 1: 16:53

This is not just an overnight solution. This takes a lot of intentionality, a lot of conversations that are happening over time with our kids, and that leads me to my next point here, which is this crucial piece of building trust and connection with our children. Many of us grew up in a situation where we didn't have a secure attachment with our primary caregivers, where we grew up in fear of our caregivers or abandoning our needs and our emotions in order to appease the people in our life who were supposed to take care of us. Many of us not grow up with the benefit of having a trusted person in our life that we could connect with or that was reliably there for us, and so if you are learning to do this with your child for the first time again, please just give yourself so much compassion.

Speaker 1: 17:40

It's hard to do this work. It's hard to be the first one in your family to make these intentional efforts to build this trust and connection with your child. That is unconditional, especially if you haven't experienced that or didn't grow up with that, and what I want you to see is that when we have this secure foundation with our children and they know that we are their safe base, that we are able to hold space for them, for all of their challenges or hard feelings or difficulties, the more they will be able to come to us when things are coming up that are challenging for them, whether it's a comment that somebody said or an insecurity that they feel in their bodies. When that Trust and connection is there, it makes it so much easier for our kids to find safety in our relationship. And that is a bigger picture of the feeding relationship that we have with our kids. It's not just about food. It's so much bigger than that, and feeding our kids doesn't happen in a vacuum, and this is why having these long-term goals in mind can be helpful, as it sears the direction of our actions in the way that we engage with our kids, not just around food, but in all things and the goal here is not perfection and if you've been tuning into this podcast, I hope you know that that is a common theme the goal here is not to be this perfect parent. The goal is to just be a good enough parent where we are able to be there for our kids as best as we can, and we're also human and our kids can see that and learn from us and know that they are still safe to come to us. And when our children know that there is trust and connection in our relationship with them, they will know that we are that safety anchor for them when things come up that feel distressing or overwhelming in any way. And sometimes I think that is what's missing with many of the scripts that are circulating out there that so many of us are eager to pick up. We want to know what to say and how to say the right things. However, we don't want to forget that behind that, behind what we say, needs to be trust and connection. And when we can lead from that place, our kids will know and trust that what we're saying to them is sincere and genuine. And that leads me to this last point here.

Speaker 1: 19:46

Just to consider is learning how to attune to your child. Again, this can be much easier said than done, especially if you grew up learning that your needs don't matter and essentially dissociating from yourself and everything that you needed. It can be hard to learn how to attune to our own children, especially if you're just learning how to do this for yourself. But when we can see and recognize when our child is in distress or something is coming up that where they might need more support, this can be helpful for us to know if we need to intervene, advocate, support or help our child. Every child is going to be different and so we want to learn the child in front of us, the child that we have, and understand.

Speaker 1: 20:29

What does it look like when my child is in distress? What does it look like when my child is starting to become overwhelmed or maybe sensory overloaded, and how can I step in and help them? We will be better able to do that and more equipped to do that when we can be attuned to them, and this is especially true in holiday situations or gatherings when there's a lot of people, highly stimulating environment, a lot of conversation. Sometimes our kids can get lost in the mix and it can be helpful, especially if you know that you have a child who does get overstimulated or maybe who does shut down or maybe who kind of falls to the wayside when other demands are surfacing. It can be helpful just to remember. Do I need to check in with them? Does my kiddo need a break? Do I need to remove them from the situation for a few minutes?

Speaker 1: 21:15

Attuning to our kids can help us understand when they need more support. This is especially true with family meals and gatherings. If you're all sitting at the table and you can see that your child may be overwhelmed by the amount of food that's put in front of them or people are starting to make comments. We just want to be aware and attuned to our child and what's happening so that we know when and how to support them. So, with these things in mind, I would love to share just a sample script or conversation starter that you can have with your child before holiday gatherings or meals or any type of situation that you think could potentially bring up some things for yourself or your child around food and their bodies, particularly when you're going back to family of origin who may still be rooted in diet, culture or just old school ways of approaching food the grandma that you love who pushes food on your child, or the aunt or uncle who's telling your child they need to eat more, or eat a bite of this before they can have dessert, or hey, you're eating too much dessert.

Speaker 1: 22:14

We want our children to have this narrative in mind. Ultimately, we want our children to know and believe to the core of their body that they are unconditionally loved and accepted by us, no matter how they eat, no matter what their appetite is or the size of their bodies. We want them to know that none of those things change how we feel about them or how we care about them, and that they have that love and acceptance no matter what. Because the minute that our children start to question that, they start to believe that their worth is dependent on how they eat or what they eat or the size of their body, that can be such a breeding ground for disordered eating, and the best protective factor against that is just reminding them of the unconditional love that they have and that they are safe in their bodies. Of course, you can customize this to the needs of your child or your family or the age of your child. Always feel free to adjust anything as needed To give you something to start with and some things to think about as you have some of these conversations with your kids.

Speaker 1: 23:15

First, you want to start with connection. Let your child know that you are so glad to spend time with them. That can sound like you know what, honey, I'm so glad I get to spend some time with you today. How are you feeling? And this just sets the tone before any event or holiday gathering or meal that you might be going to. The next thing you want to do is just reinforce your child's bodily autonomy Again, because so many caregivers or people in general that you might be interacting with will tend to override that by making comments about what your child should or shouldn't eat. So this can sound like saying to your child remember that you are the boss of your own body. That means when we sit down to eat, you get to choose what you want to eat from whatever foods are available. We really want to stress that with them.

Speaker 1: 23:59

Next, we want to be intentional about prioritizing our child's safety, and this can look like telling them you know what? I want you to remember that you don't have to eat or try anything that you don't want to. You can pick what looks good to you. There might be a lot more foods than we're used to seeing or different things that we're not used to having, but I just want you to remember that you don't have to eat or try anything unless you want to. We also want to be intentional about reiterating our trust in them. This is so essential to helping them learn to build trust in themselves, and that can sound like I trust you to listen to your body and what it needs. You can trust your body and what it's telling you, and this piggybacks really nicely on that phrase of helping our kids know that you are the boss of your own body and you know what you can trust, what your body is telling you.

Speaker 1: 24:47

The last thing we want to do, to round this out, is just to provide support, and that can look like saying I'm here for you. Whatever you might feel about today is okay. If you ever feel uncomfortable, we can go outside. We can take a break together, you can tap mommy's hand. You can come up with a secret word or a secret signal, whatever it is. Whatever I need to do to help you, I just want you to know that I'm here for you, and that can be so soothing and such a helpful reminder to our kids that if they're ever feeling alone, that they don't have to sit in those feelings alone, or if they're feeling scared or overwhelmed that we are with them, they don't have to sit in themselves and in their inner world by themselves, that we will be there with them to co-regulate and help them through this. So I know this is short and brief and sometimes that's just what our kids need. Sometimes they can't handle a whole lecture, but we just want to hit those key points of prioritizing safety, reiterating trust and reminding them that they are in charge of their bodies and ultimately helping them know that we are there to support them. So I hope this gives you some things to think about, some conversation starters, and I hope you know that every brave step you are taking matters for you and your family.

Speaker 1: 25:55

I know holiday meals can be a lot to navigate for both parents and kids, and just remember to focus on the relationship that you're building with your children and that is one that prioritizes and centers safety and connection and that can help ride through some of these challenging or turbulent moments that often surface during holiday meals. Thank you so much for taking some time and spending some time with me today. I so appreciate you being here. I hope you'll come back next week. We'll be talking more about ways to prioritize and care for your relationship with food during the holidays, which can also be challenging as well, so I hope to see you next week. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Lift the Shame podcast. For more tips and guidance on your motherhood journey, come connect with me on Instagram at CrystalCarGaze. Until next week, mama, I'll be cheering you on. Bye for now.