The Parenting Issue
Feeding kids and when "misbehaving" is the best news
A lot of us are parents. And cooking as a parent is a different beast than cooking for ourselves or adult partners and friends. In this week’s newsletter I want to talk about some issues specific to parenting. Let me know if you want me to do this more regularly—I have plenty to share!
There is a widely held belief that cooking becomes utilitarian and difficult when we have kids. I do not believe this is destiny, but kids definitely change things and we have to work to reframe and get support in new ways that are counter to what our culture tells us to focus on. I am going to address that a bit in the Open Kitchen section below and then I also share a short piece about reframing how we feel about our kids “misbehaving” around us. And finally I share a link to my July mini retreat and an amazing free online cooking class series: Building Confidence in the Kitchen I am presenting in collaboration with the Sacramento Public Library. Scroll to the bottom to sign up.
Fundamentally I think we have to reframe our approach to cooking for kids, to vanquish the black and white success/failure model that our culture takes as given; where it is a success if our kids eat the food and a failure if we don’t. Just like if we make a meal for ourselves or anyone and it doesn’t turn out exactly how we want, we cannot let that be the only measure of worth or even a measure at all. We must look instead at our intentions, our effort, gratitude for what we have AND the simple joys that we can experience when we cook. With this attitude we can create an inviting space for our children to join us in the kitchen and enjoy eating. We move toward healing when we shed the expectations and pressure of our culture and focus on pleasure and connection.
The blissful cooking method that I teach in the weekly classes will help you to reframe cooking, find pleasure and embrace simplicity so you can meet your goal to feed yourself and your children with ease and also focus on the longer term goals of teaching them healthy habits and a good relationship with food.
Here is an example class from a few weeks ago where I made a beautiful noodle salad, but the rice noodles stuck together and I talked through how to make the best of it. These are not manicured classes, they are cooking in real life. I model how to find pleasure in the real-life, beautiful, messy process of cooking that is our birthright to enjoy! How do we solve the problems that inevitably come up, how to we accept them and see mistakes as a way to learn and grow?
Please join me by becoming a paid substack subscriber.
The ONE THING I want to tell every single parent
So often I hear parents talking about how their kids are well behaved at school or with caregivers, but when they are with them they are more of a handful. There is acceptance, but also frustration and sort of confusion about why they behave this way?
And it’s simple. It’s because your kids trust you. They feel safe with you. They feel they will be loved no matter how they show up and they can let all their big feelings hang out with you. This is the GOLD in parenting. It is good beyond good. It is divine!
And of course it’s okay to be frustrated with your kids behavior, it can be inconvenient to our grownup lives, or embarrassing, or hard to regulate our emotions and nervous systems when our kids make sounds and express themselves in ways we may have been shamed or hurt for as children. It can be so triggering and challenging. But I want you to take a moment to separate that sense of challenge from the actual situation. Because in reality, the fact that they are expressing this way means you are doing an amazing job as a parent and you can be so proud. Let that truth fill you and fuel you to manage those internal reactions for the sake of your amazing kid.
And when we allow our children to express and hold space for their big emotions we are also reaching back into our past to hold our younger selves who may not have had a caregiver like you who could hold it. And you are healing yourself as well.
Your kids love and trust you: their behavior is proof that you are their safe haven in this world. Let that align you. You are doing holy work. BE PROUD.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Open Kitchen #6: How Do I Approach Cooking for a 1 year old and not go nuts with competing priorities?
Here is our question of the week for Open Kitchen, the feature where I answer your kitchen/yoga/meditation and anything else in my wheelhouse questions! Please submit your questions for Open Kitchen through this form. The questions will be anonymous so no need to think twice about anything embarrassing. Remember, chances are if you are wondering something or having an experience there are many others who are as well and when you have the courage to ask the question you help all those other people too.
“I was wondering if you have advice and/or recipes for cooking for babies/young toddlers, especially on a budget and with time constraints. As the mom of a one-year old, I find it can be challenging to make three unique baby-friendly meals a day and there’s a lot of pressure to give constant variety and use expensive ingredients. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!”
I so understand and feel you.
Other people’s expectations and advice about how to feed children can be so overwhelming even as they are well meaning. The pressure to get it right is intense. We feel this pressure because we care so much for our children and we want the absolute best for them. And it can be so hard to balance all the competing priorities and find the way that works for you and your family.
I think it is key to make sure that what you are doing works for you. Because you being well and not overburdened is what is best for your child and your family. The advice in the first year when introducing food is to have as much variety as possible, but at the same time, we can create variety over time. There is no hurry and no particular way this has to look.
I would suggest that rather than creating “baby-friendly meals” you feed your child a little bit of whatever you are eating yourself. You can be baby-friendly by presenting the food either finely mashed or in a large enough size (the baby lead weaning approach) so that they don’t choke.
Eating at 1 is more for fun and exploration than calories since they still get so much from milk. It is a time of play and exploration so you can kind of take the pressure off yourself there as well. They will eat what they need. Indeed you have to balance your own budget and time. And it’s so important that you not work so hard you don’t take care of your own needs because the most important thing for your child is that you be well. If you are well they will be well.
As a culture we tend to fixate so much on “picky eating” as this huge problem—it is part of what drives pressure to have big variety in early years. But most supposedly picky eating only lasts a few years. This is the big worry we have that drives us to perfectionism in early years trying to make sure our kids become “good eaters.” But what if we let go of the idea we can control this?
From an evolutionary perspective, young kids are built to restrict their foods for a while. When we used to live in small social groups hunting and gathering, children would be with us until they were 2 or so and we would feed them directly from our hands. Once they could move around on their own and explore the environment, they needed something internal to protect them from eating something that could hurt them. So kids 2 and beyond begin to only eat super familiar foods and have a strong disgust response to new foods. This is deep and ancient wiring to protect them and it is a real experience they are having in their bodies. We don’t want to squash that and tell kids that what their bodies are telling them is wrong. We do not want to push or force our kids to eat something when their body tells them no. Getting cut off from our bodies cues and guidance is a much greater danger to us than not eating a wide variety for a few years.
So how do we manage the reality? That we must balance the children’s natural disgust response to new foods and our desire to feed them a variety of healthy foods to nourish their bodies?
Patience first. Knowing it will pass. They will not be so limited in their foods forever.
Have compassion for yourself that it is frustrating. Don’t spend a lot of time on trying to cajole or entice your kids. It’s too much pressure for you and them and creates disconnection. Just do what works for you, knowing your kid may just eat toast for dinner and reject anything else. In years to come as you model your own eating and cooking they will join you. Keep the kitchen as a place of connection and they will meet you there.
Offer a variety of foods and accept that your child may not eat them. So don’t burn yourself out making “kid friendly” food. Most nights I feed my daughter mac and cheese, pasta, toast, rice, egg sandwiches or other foods she will eat and then offer other bits that I happen to be eating or have around, but I don’t go to a lot of trouble to make something new just for her. It is bound to cause frustration and disconnection (and I have learned this by doing!).
Allow yourself to have a routine that works for you. Don’t have a standard of creating 3 new baby-friendly meals a day. If you are an organized type you could make a weekly meal plan. My friend Casey Barber is amazing at this and can give you a ton of guidance. Or you can embrace making the same breakfast and/or lunch every day for a week and then just a different dinner. Or cycle through a few simple meals one week like beans and rice and sweet potatoes. Then switch the bean to chickpeas and the sweet potatoes to tomatoes the next week. Don’t overburden yourself. Trust that variety comes naturally with time. This approach is also more economical which will also put less strain on you.
The picky eating that lasts into later years usually occurs from too much power struggle around food, not from not offering enough variety. Food in a family needs to be a place for connection and shared pleasure and nourishment, not a power struggle. You can trust that as your child listens to their bodies and goes out into the world at their own pace that their bodies will lead them to the healthy variety they need to thrive. And if you are taking care of yourself and they see that every day they will follow your lead.
In short, you are doing amazing. Take care of yourself first, follow your instincts and all will be well.
I am doing 1 mini retreats this summer, on July 22, and will not be offering one in August. Sign up as soon as you can to secure your spot!
Every Mini-retreat has a similar agenda but different food, theme and sequence. They are all magical, but each one feels special and changes to meet the needs and vibe of those who attend. It is a co-created experience of healing and community.
Agenda
9:30-10: settling in with tea 🍵
10-11:30 meditation and restorative yoga 🧘🏼
11:30-12 Leanne cooks and shares embodied cooking practice 🍳
12-12:30 Eat lunch and chat/share 🥗
12:30-1 final breath-work and meditation 💨
Float away into the rest of the dreamy weekend feeling released and connected.
Building Confidence in the Kitchen - Free Class Series with me and the Sacramento Public Library
The Sacramento Public Library is running an amazing program over the summer to provide lunches to kids who might miss out on school lunch during the summer. Additionally they are providing boxes of produce, some cooking lessons, and copies of my book, Good and Cheap to families visiting the library during the summer!
Then for 3 weeks in July, the 12th, 19th and 26th I will be doing a free online cooking series. It is going to be all about building confidence in the kitchen and beyond and will feature recipes from my book Good and Cheap and tons of useful information.
Thank you so much for this compassionate advice on cooking for children, and especially the beautiful insight that kiddos act out with those they trust the most. This was definitely my dynamic with my mother growing up and I will try to remind myself that it’s a good thing that my daughter does this with me (easier said than done sometimes!)