How can I help my child eat better?

It seems like everyone has a view on how we should feed our kids: get them to eat their vegetables, eat fewer sweets, have no dessert unless they've eaten their dinner, use a reward chart, be stricter, or be gentler.

Managing feeding problems in kids, from 'typical toddler fussy eating' to severe selective eating, is not easy for parents or caregivers. Friends, family and even well-meaning professionals can give conflicting and out-of-date advice. And even the true experts - feeding therapists and psychologists - have differing approaches.

Key tips

These, though, are some things experts agree on:

1) Don't force-feed your child

2) Don't put pressure on your child to eat (read more here)

3) Encourage them to have lots of positive experiences with food if possible - cooking, growing, eating with others

4) Get help from your medical professionals if you are particularly worried about your child's eating (read more here)

Where can I find out more?

Here at Feeding With Love, we have professional and lived experience of feeding problems and hope to bring out some resources for both parents and professionals in 2025/6.

In the meantime, here are some of our favourite resources:

• This one-page handout from Responsive Feeding Pro: You Don't Have To Work So Hard To Get Your Child To Eat

• Top tips for fussy eating from the UK charity Henry

• This free course from yourfeedingteam.com (an international collaboration by a US dietitian, UK psychologist and Australian OT) Parenting Picky Eaters

• The 40-page free Family Guide to Paediatric Feeding Disorder from the US charity Feeding Matters

• The same US charity offers free international parent-to-parent peer support with feeding problems https://www.feedingmatters.org/resources-support/family-support/request-family-support/

• The Autistic Teen's Avoidant Eating Workbook by UK clinical psychologist Liz Shea, 2023 https://amzn.eu/d/054GFCKf - this is useful not only for autistic teens but all teens and adults with feeding problems

• A free workbook and self-help guide to ARFID (avoidant restrictive food intake disorder) from the charity SYEDA (South Yorkshire Eating Disorders Association)

• Martha Dunn Klein is a feeding therapy 'god'. She is an OT in the US with 50+ years of experience as a leader in this field and is inclusive and neurodivergent-affirming in her work. I can't recommend her work more! Here are some things to check out:

  • How to eat a grasshopper - a story used by Martha Dunn Klein to help parents understand how hard it is to eat something you're anxious about

  • Martha's Get Permission Institute website has lots of useful articles, links to her 2022 book Anxious Eaters, Anxious Mealtimes, and a free 1.75-hour course for parents, Dear Parent: Navigating Challenging Mealtimes with Anxious Eaters

Are there any you would add? If so, leave me a comment to let me know, or feel free to email me :)

Updated by Zoe 1/8/24