The only thing I knew when I had kids was that I didn't want to pass on diet culture and morality tied to food. Add two neurodivergent kids. Meals are pretty much the same now even though they are adults. I'm making dinner now, join me if you want or warm up and eat your dinner later when you want. I will make one thing on each of your safe foods lists. So it might look like: baked potato (child 1), pork chop (child 2), broccoli with cheese for me. You are responsible for the rest of your meal. Child 2 sits with me and eats the porkchop and some raw broccoli. Child 1 eats a cold potato an hour later and a slice of cheese. The goal is cooperation around each of our needs rather than control. It works. Honestly, I don't know why so many parents of autistic kids complain about samefood. (Samefood is the autistic preference to only eat a limited number of safe foods.) Samefood makes life much easier.
I find it so interesting how much we as a society panic when "a preschooler or elementary school-aged kid who wants to live on a snacks and snacks alone." I think DOR can absolutely work and is a wonderful thing!
But it's so interesting because...y'all I'm an ADULT and I totally want to live on snacks and snacks alone. I think we sometimes forget that...getting nutrition and eating veggies and all isn't always a joyful exploration even for ADULTS! Sometimes I eat a salad not because I want a salad but because I know I need to get fiber and vitamins. Which is to say, I have a LOT of snacking sympathy.
Yes, The Great Snack Despair ignores how useful snacks can be, for so many reasons (access, ability, time, interest), while also demonizing them for being...delicious. Nobody has a moral obligation to like vegetables. There are lots of valid ways to eat.
I mean let's be real, "girl dinner"? It's SNACKS. Just because adult snacks are fancy cheese and crackers and stuff doesn't mean they're not expensive Lunchables!
This reminds of a time a parent in a class I took was lamenting that his kids eat less dinner in anticipation of their movie night where they know they're going to get popcorn and cookies. I asked him "wouldn't you eat a smaller dinner if you knew you were going to the movies afterwards to have popcorn and candy??" that sounds so intuitive to me!
The "kitchen is closed". That's the one I'm still untangling from. At first, I clung to it to protect my time (I don't want to run out of food and have to go back to the grocery store) and my "finally" clean kitchen at 8pm. And, then, I realized the kitchen can stay open and my focus needed to be "clean up after yourself" and "go get your own food now that you have a driver's license" (I'm looking at my 16 and 18 year olds here).
Yes, I think that piece of advice is probably most useful (and maybe only useful) for toddlers and preschoolers — those are ages where, letting them get anything themselves in the kitchen equals a mess for you to clean up so I support parents having parameters around when that can happen. Plus the routine of predictable snack and meal times is often helpful with the chaos of those ages. (There are going to be exceptions ofc!)
But once kids reach elementary school age, and for sure into middle/high school, the value of them building independence around food prep and clean-up feels way bigger to me than the need to have total control over when meal and snack times happen. Because if I stay in charge of when eating happens in my house, then I also make a lot more domestic labor for myself. (I will say, I am still SO GRUMPY when a kid breezes in to grab a snack WHILE I AM COOKING THEIR DINNER. I haven't figured out a fix for this.)
And also, if they are not the grocery shoppers, *write it on the list when you open the last box/use the last one/etc*. Because that’s an issue that affects the whole family.
Thanks for this guide. We have a nearly 2.5 year old and have been trying to live by these principles for as long as he's been around. One question I have is around "the kid decides how much to eat."
My toddler will eat an entire container of blueberries in one sitting but that doesn't agree with his stomach later. Is it possible to "limit" the amount of blueberries without rolling into diet culture territory? Do I just let him (and me as the diaper-changer) suffer the consequences of his choices later?
We've been allowing him more when he asks but then at a point will just say "oh, we're out of blueberries - momma will have to get more at the store" (even when this isn't true) because it feels like the most neutral limit to set and also he seems to understand it so less tantrums. At that point, we offer a number of other foods which he sometimes takes and sometimes decides he's just done eating. Is that the right approach?
I'd be really curious to hear Laura Thomas's advice on this, or another responsive feeding expert. I think there is value in kids sometimes having the experience of eating "too much" of something and learning oh, that's more than makes me feel good. But at 2.5, I'm not sure they are developmentally ready for that? It's also not diet culture to say, let's save some blueberries for tomorrow (this is an expensive food item!), though again, a toddler may not grasp that.
So I think it's fine to gently limit so you aren't dealing with diaper blow-outs but pair it with "we'll have more tomorrow" or at X time, so he knows he can count on that food being available... there may be some meltdowns because he's still learning what time means, but you aren't restricting in a diet culture way and he will gradually understand the routine of it.
I would argue that adjusting the location of eating for neurodivergent kids (or all kids for that matter) can still fall under “DOR.” The philosophy states that parents decide, not that Ellyn Satter decides, where meals take place. So wouldn’t it still be under DOR if you’ve decided to allow your kid to eat at a separate small table or in front of a screen some (or all) of the time? I’m somewhat rigid about family dinners (to a fault sometimes) and this flexibility is something I’m working on as my oldest gets older and has more requests for changing things up but I’m curious others’ thoughts on whether the examples in your emails would necessarily be a diversion from the DOR philosophy. It seems like it might just be another way that social media has co-opted this idea.
Ellyn Satter definitely pushes the idea that meals should happen at tables/away from screens/etc. And yet, you're absolutely right that the way DOR is written, PARENTS choose where, which means we can choose a non-table location and not be in violation of it's principles (not that anyone is handing out DOR violation tickets anyway?).
It's a kind of funny wrinkle of Satter's work that she often violates her own principles in this way because she has a lot of pretty specific ideas about what meals should look like. And all of those ideas are grounded in the belief that kids should be in charge of how much, and serving meals in certain ways will support kids' ability to do that. But a lot of her guidance, like this one, can also go diet-y fast.
Back in my women's magazine days, I wrote SO MANY diet stories that included tips like "always eat a table, never have the TV on" and that was because we thought "distractions" equaled "mindlessly eating excess calories." I actually think most of us are perfectly capable of eating while reading a book or watching a show and still knowing when we're full. Or if we do eat a few extra bites...that is fine and normal (unless your goal is weight loss). Some kids might, at various ages/stages of development, do better with fewer distractions -- but some kids do better with a little "white noise" around the eating experience. Bottom line: Distracted meals are the norm for most people (me eating while trying to talk to my kids = definitely distracted!) and demonizing them is so unhelpful.
Oh man thank you for that last point. I feel like a hypocrite around meals sometimes because I want us to sit together and concentrate on each other for as long as we can (which is like 10 min bc they’re so little), but I’m often unable to model that to them because I’m up from the table for kids’ water/forks/napkins/letting the dog out every 10 seconds. Or trying hard not to shut down bc everyone’s talking at me at once at the end of my work day and couldn’t I just eat alone in a corner of the kitchen instead? It’s hard to let go of the inchoate fear that not modeling “table manners” is some kind of moral failing, and I think I’m making that into a diet of its own.
You COULD just eat alone in a corner of the kitchen instead! Especially if your kids aren't developmentally ready to get their own forks/napkins/let the dog out. I really believe that family meals should be a shared family effort and if that's not workable yet then this is just not a mountain to die on right now. (More on all of this to come in next month's guide!)
We do decide what we are serving our 4 year old daughter generally, but she also makes requests for snacks, and I don’t push the issue when she inevitably only eats snacks for lunch on Sundays after church (why only on Sunday? They have various bars available at church that we don’t normally have and she gets excited to eat nutrigrain bars and granola bars). School provides food for her (and me) Monday-Friday for breakfast, lunch, and snack, so we have a limited amount of meals we are feeding her anyway. She often eats at a little table we have in the kitchen for her, and we do not eat every meal together. My husband cooks dinners on weekdays, and there are times that she complains about what he made (not because she doesn’t like it but because for some reason she has decided that wasn’t what she was in the mood for), but since it’s what’s ready when we get home close to 7, I usually serve it to her anyway if she complains and add a yogurt or applesauce on the side as something I know she will eat and serve with milk.
Maybe they aren't in her budget or available at her grocery store? It's fine for kids to know that X activity equals X fun snack -- that's not restriction, that's a ritual that probably helps make church more fun for a four-year-old.
Definitely the answer is that they are not in the budget- our grocery budget is tighter because my husband eats a lot, so we don’t have as much money to buy snacks just for the sake of it- it is a fun ritual for her to pick out her snacks at church and gets her excited!
Great point, didn't think of that. I've got a kid with a very restricted safe food list so any time she expresses an interest in anything new I excitedly immediately buy it in bulk, ha ha, hence my curiosity.
Oh I so get it! I often rush to do the same! (And then right when I buy the bulk container of whatever crackers or granola bars... they decide they are sick of them. SIGH.)
My older kid would happily eat anything and everything that we put in front of them. We could go out to a restaurant and they'd sit happily in a high chair for a luxurious two-hour meal with our extended family. I thought it was easy to raise "good eaters" just by having a lot of different food available and exposing them to it early... THEN I had Kid #2.
He has such a small collection of foods he will eat. And he was probably 4 or 5 before we ever made it through a meal out without my partner or I having to get up and walk around with him, taking shifts eating and patrolling the restaurant. At home, he almost never sits and eats with us. I just had to give that up as the norm. He eats on his own schedule, and he has total autonomy with snacks (although sometimes I'll say "We have a 12-pack of this, so you get three and once you've eaten those, the rest are for the other family members"). I'm hoping that over time he will branch out to a wider variety of foods, but at 9 years old, he's thriving. He also made his own New Year's resolution to try new foods and drinks.. so far, that has meant getting a vanilla steamed milk at Starbucks every Wednesday after a class. But it's an important baby step!
Ooh I feel like a vanilla steamed milk is such a sophisticated order for a 9 year old!! Love that you're supporting him exploring food on his own terms.
Similar 2 kid household here but reversed with kid 1 making sure we threw all of our eating expectations out the window. Mostly wanted to comment that I see you on the “this is your share” of a food purchase. All of our boundary setting around snacks comes down to portioning out things everyone wants more of before the next grocery trip! Well, other than the “where” because we do not allow food in bedrooms (it’s already hazardous enough in there most of the time).
I agree and I actually think it’s helpful to allocate coveted foods (which may be “healthy” food or snacks or whatever). Every family member in our house has a different way they want to eat the snacking cake or what have you. If they know that we each get three pieces it gives them the freedom to eat it in their own time instead of feeling like they need to eat it all the first day or it will be gone. There is also an innate fairness aspect that appeals to kids, as well. There are plenty of coveted foods around so it’s not as if it’s a rare thing.
Or we’ll be honest about the fact that a given main course needs to stretch to two dinners. That doesn’t mean they can’t eat until they are satisfied, but if we’ve eaten up the portion allocated for that meal, they may need to supplement with other foods and they are welcome to do so. I think they find it reassuring rather than restrictive overall. And as they’re getting older I’ve had to realize that maybe the amount I allocate for one dinner’s worth needs to shift!
Thank you so much for this, Virginia! I’ve been similarly modifying DOR as I see fit, but as with most things parenting, it is a big relief to see that validated and reflected back. It gives me the confidence I need to keep going in the way I see fit to encourage a nondiet, intuitive relationship to food for my child.
I don't have kids, but thank you and everyone else doing the hard work of making it be less traumatic for everyone. I'm 55 and am not an otherwise picky eater, but I still have a lot of resentment towards my mom for making me eat hamburger multiple times a week when it was the only thing that I disliked to the point that it made me gag.
“ You might decide that the kitchen doesn’t close between meals at your house, because you want a child in recovery from an eating disorder or other food-related trauma to know that eating is always okay.”
THIS. That’s a part of DOR that has always felt off to me. I don’t want to decide when my kids need to and should eat. Or course some kids need prompting to check for hunger cues and predictable snack times can be part of that, but I never want to tell them it’s not “meal or snack time right now” when they are listening to their bodies telling them they are hungry. Something about that feels SO wrong.
I guess technically this could still be allowed under DOR because as the parent you are deciding the kid can eat whenever they want?
I agree that it feels too restrictive to tell a kid when she can eat or not. I pretty much let my 3 year old eat whenever she wants, other than like, in bed or in the bath.
I love the DOR and Ellyn Satter's beautiful work. Many parents do pretty well with it through school-age, but then once their child becomes an adolescent, they get in their lane with eating. It causes so much harm for their teens I work with. Parents need to be reminded to get back to the DOR, but many get into power and control and get obsessed with their teen's food. Some parents I can easily get them out of it. Others aren't interested. It's like they can't help themselves.
Thank you for writing this!!! I love the idea of DOR but what happened was, I would put food in front of them, and my son wouldn't eat at all. So, now we have some different ways of eating, and really, it's kind of hands off. He doesn't like veggies so I don't even try. The funny thing is, now that I have stopped pressuring him to eat anything, he will try a lot of things.
As an RD who helps families with feeding, I appreciate that you are one of the best advocates for sDOR out there. However, I take serious issue with your characterization of the model as intending in any way to get kids to eat certain foods. You write, "It’s also marketed (by the folks who pioneered it and by many other dietitians and influencers) as a “fix” for picky eating and a way to “get kids to eat their veggies.” This is true of so many IG accounts that have distorted the model and turned it into diet culture, but it's absolutely not the case that Ellyn Satter or anyone actually trained in her models is doing this. Satter is so clear that the model is build on trust, and she uses this sort of vegetable-pushing as a clear example of what trust does NOT look like.
So, I'm genuinely curious how you came to this conclusion, because I know that you've read her books, and you've even talked with Satter herself about this. How can you be hearing something so different from what I do?
The only thing I knew when I had kids was that I didn't want to pass on diet culture and morality tied to food. Add two neurodivergent kids. Meals are pretty much the same now even though they are adults. I'm making dinner now, join me if you want or warm up and eat your dinner later when you want. I will make one thing on each of your safe foods lists. So it might look like: baked potato (child 1), pork chop (child 2), broccoli with cheese for me. You are responsible for the rest of your meal. Child 2 sits with me and eats the porkchop and some raw broccoli. Child 1 eats a cold potato an hour later and a slice of cheese. The goal is cooperation around each of our needs rather than control. It works. Honestly, I don't know why so many parents of autistic kids complain about samefood. (Samefood is the autistic preference to only eat a limited number of safe foods.) Samefood makes life much easier.
I find it so interesting how much we as a society panic when "a preschooler or elementary school-aged kid who wants to live on a snacks and snacks alone." I think DOR can absolutely work and is a wonderful thing!
But it's so interesting because...y'all I'm an ADULT and I totally want to live on snacks and snacks alone. I think we sometimes forget that...getting nutrition and eating veggies and all isn't always a joyful exploration even for ADULTS! Sometimes I eat a salad not because I want a salad but because I know I need to get fiber and vitamins. Which is to say, I have a LOT of snacking sympathy.
Yes, The Great Snack Despair ignores how useful snacks can be, for so many reasons (access, ability, time, interest), while also demonizing them for being...delicious. Nobody has a moral obligation to like vegetables. There are lots of valid ways to eat.
I mean let's be real, "girl dinner"? It's SNACKS. Just because adult snacks are fancy cheese and crackers and stuff doesn't mean they're not expensive Lunchables!
This reminds of a time a parent in a class I took was lamenting that his kids eat less dinner in anticipation of their movie night where they know they're going to get popcorn and cookies. I asked him "wouldn't you eat a smaller dinner if you knew you were going to the movies afterwards to have popcorn and candy??" that sounds so intuitive to me!
The "kitchen is closed". That's the one I'm still untangling from. At first, I clung to it to protect my time (I don't want to run out of food and have to go back to the grocery store) and my "finally" clean kitchen at 8pm. And, then, I realized the kitchen can stay open and my focus needed to be "clean up after yourself" and "go get your own food now that you have a driver's license" (I'm looking at my 16 and 18 year olds here).
Yes, I think that piece of advice is probably most useful (and maybe only useful) for toddlers and preschoolers — those are ages where, letting them get anything themselves in the kitchen equals a mess for you to clean up so I support parents having parameters around when that can happen. Plus the routine of predictable snack and meal times is often helpful with the chaos of those ages. (There are going to be exceptions ofc!)
But once kids reach elementary school age, and for sure into middle/high school, the value of them building independence around food prep and clean-up feels way bigger to me than the need to have total control over when meal and snack times happen. Because if I stay in charge of when eating happens in my house, then I also make a lot more domestic labor for myself. (I will say, I am still SO GRUMPY when a kid breezes in to grab a snack WHILE I AM COOKING THEIR DINNER. I haven't figured out a fix for this.)
And also, if they are not the grocery shoppers, *write it on the list when you open the last box/use the last one/etc*. Because that’s an issue that affects the whole family.
Thanks for this guide. We have a nearly 2.5 year old and have been trying to live by these principles for as long as he's been around. One question I have is around "the kid decides how much to eat."
My toddler will eat an entire container of blueberries in one sitting but that doesn't agree with his stomach later. Is it possible to "limit" the amount of blueberries without rolling into diet culture territory? Do I just let him (and me as the diaper-changer) suffer the consequences of his choices later?
We've been allowing him more when he asks but then at a point will just say "oh, we're out of blueberries - momma will have to get more at the store" (even when this isn't true) because it feels like the most neutral limit to set and also he seems to understand it so less tantrums. At that point, we offer a number of other foods which he sometimes takes and sometimes decides he's just done eating. Is that the right approach?
I'd be really curious to hear Laura Thomas's advice on this, or another responsive feeding expert. I think there is value in kids sometimes having the experience of eating "too much" of something and learning oh, that's more than makes me feel good. But at 2.5, I'm not sure they are developmentally ready for that? It's also not diet culture to say, let's save some blueberries for tomorrow (this is an expensive food item!), though again, a toddler may not grasp that.
So I think it's fine to gently limit so you aren't dealing with diaper blow-outs but pair it with "we'll have more tomorrow" or at X time, so he knows he can count on that food being available... there may be some meltdowns because he's still learning what time means, but you aren't restricting in a diet culture way and he will gradually understand the routine of it.
Just wanted to say Hi! My kid was into blue berries too! After the diaper stage- I would cut him off if we were going to be out and about
I would argue that adjusting the location of eating for neurodivergent kids (or all kids for that matter) can still fall under “DOR.” The philosophy states that parents decide, not that Ellyn Satter decides, where meals take place. So wouldn’t it still be under DOR if you’ve decided to allow your kid to eat at a separate small table or in front of a screen some (or all) of the time? I’m somewhat rigid about family dinners (to a fault sometimes) and this flexibility is something I’m working on as my oldest gets older and has more requests for changing things up but I’m curious others’ thoughts on whether the examples in your emails would necessarily be a diversion from the DOR philosophy. It seems like it might just be another way that social media has co-opted this idea.
Ellyn Satter definitely pushes the idea that meals should happen at tables/away from screens/etc. And yet, you're absolutely right that the way DOR is written, PARENTS choose where, which means we can choose a non-table location and not be in violation of it's principles (not that anyone is handing out DOR violation tickets anyway?).
It's a kind of funny wrinkle of Satter's work that she often violates her own principles in this way because she has a lot of pretty specific ideas about what meals should look like. And all of those ideas are grounded in the belief that kids should be in charge of how much, and serving meals in certain ways will support kids' ability to do that. But a lot of her guidance, like this one, can also go diet-y fast.
Back in my women's magazine days, I wrote SO MANY diet stories that included tips like "always eat a table, never have the TV on" and that was because we thought "distractions" equaled "mindlessly eating excess calories." I actually think most of us are perfectly capable of eating while reading a book or watching a show and still knowing when we're full. Or if we do eat a few extra bites...that is fine and normal (unless your goal is weight loss). Some kids might, at various ages/stages of development, do better with fewer distractions -- but some kids do better with a little "white noise" around the eating experience. Bottom line: Distracted meals are the norm for most people (me eating while trying to talk to my kids = definitely distracted!) and demonizing them is so unhelpful.
Oh man thank you for that last point. I feel like a hypocrite around meals sometimes because I want us to sit together and concentrate on each other for as long as we can (which is like 10 min bc they’re so little), but I’m often unable to model that to them because I’m up from the table for kids’ water/forks/napkins/letting the dog out every 10 seconds. Or trying hard not to shut down bc everyone’s talking at me at once at the end of my work day and couldn’t I just eat alone in a corner of the kitchen instead? It’s hard to let go of the inchoate fear that not modeling “table manners” is some kind of moral failing, and I think I’m making that into a diet of its own.
You COULD just eat alone in a corner of the kitchen instead! Especially if your kids aren't developmentally ready to get their own forks/napkins/let the dog out. I really believe that family meals should be a shared family effort and if that's not workable yet then this is just not a mountain to die on right now. (More on all of this to come in next month's guide!)
We do decide what we are serving our 4 year old daughter generally, but she also makes requests for snacks, and I don’t push the issue when she inevitably only eats snacks for lunch on Sundays after church (why only on Sunday? They have various bars available at church that we don’t normally have and she gets excited to eat nutrigrain bars and granola bars). School provides food for her (and me) Monday-Friday for breakfast, lunch, and snack, so we have a limited amount of meals we are feeding her anyway. She often eats at a little table we have in the kitchen for her, and we do not eat every meal together. My husband cooks dinners on weekdays, and there are times that she complains about what he made (not because she doesn’t like it but because for some reason she has decided that wasn’t what she was in the mood for), but since it’s what’s ready when we get home close to 7, I usually serve it to her anyway if she complains and add a yogurt or applesauce on the side as something I know she will eat and serve with milk.
Just out of curiosity, if she loves the church granola bars, why not have those available at home for snacks?
Maybe they aren't in her budget or available at her grocery store? It's fine for kids to know that X activity equals X fun snack -- that's not restriction, that's a ritual that probably helps make church more fun for a four-year-old.
Definitely the answer is that they are not in the budget- our grocery budget is tighter because my husband eats a lot, so we don’t have as much money to buy snacks just for the sake of it- it is a fun ritual for her to pick out her snacks at church and gets her excited!
Makes total sense!
Great point, didn't think of that. I've got a kid with a very restricted safe food list so any time she expresses an interest in anything new I excitedly immediately buy it in bulk, ha ha, hence my curiosity.
Oh I so get it! I often rush to do the same! (And then right when I buy the bulk container of whatever crackers or granola bars... they decide they are sick of them. SIGH.)
This is true both for my daughter and for our cat.
My older kid would happily eat anything and everything that we put in front of them. We could go out to a restaurant and they'd sit happily in a high chair for a luxurious two-hour meal with our extended family. I thought it was easy to raise "good eaters" just by having a lot of different food available and exposing them to it early... THEN I had Kid #2.
He has such a small collection of foods he will eat. And he was probably 4 or 5 before we ever made it through a meal out without my partner or I having to get up and walk around with him, taking shifts eating and patrolling the restaurant. At home, he almost never sits and eats with us. I just had to give that up as the norm. He eats on his own schedule, and he has total autonomy with snacks (although sometimes I'll say "We have a 12-pack of this, so you get three and once you've eaten those, the rest are for the other family members"). I'm hoping that over time he will branch out to a wider variety of foods, but at 9 years old, he's thriving. He also made his own New Year's resolution to try new foods and drinks.. so far, that has meant getting a vanilla steamed milk at Starbucks every Wednesday after a class. But it's an important baby step!
Ooh I feel like a vanilla steamed milk is such a sophisticated order for a 9 year old!! Love that you're supporting him exploring food on his own terms.
Similar 2 kid household here but reversed with kid 1 making sure we threw all of our eating expectations out the window. Mostly wanted to comment that I see you on the “this is your share” of a food purchase. All of our boundary setting around snacks comes down to portioning out things everyone wants more of before the next grocery trip! Well, other than the “where” because we do not allow food in bedrooms (it’s already hazardous enough in there most of the time).
I agree and I actually think it’s helpful to allocate coveted foods (which may be “healthy” food or snacks or whatever). Every family member in our house has a different way they want to eat the snacking cake or what have you. If they know that we each get three pieces it gives them the freedom to eat it in their own time instead of feeling like they need to eat it all the first day or it will be gone. There is also an innate fairness aspect that appeals to kids, as well. There are plenty of coveted foods around so it’s not as if it’s a rare thing.
Or we’ll be honest about the fact that a given main course needs to stretch to two dinners. That doesn’t mean they can’t eat until they are satisfied, but if we’ve eaten up the portion allocated for that meal, they may need to supplement with other foods and they are welcome to do so. I think they find it reassuring rather than restrictive overall. And as they’re getting older I’ve had to realize that maybe the amount I allocate for one dinner’s worth needs to shift!
“I don’t short order cook. Except when I do.” Love that line. Feeling seen.
Thank you so much for this, Virginia! I’ve been similarly modifying DOR as I see fit, but as with most things parenting, it is a big relief to see that validated and reflected back. It gives me the confidence I need to keep going in the way I see fit to encourage a nondiet, intuitive relationship to food for my child.
So glad!!
I don't have kids, but thank you and everyone else doing the hard work of making it be less traumatic for everyone. I'm 55 and am not an otherwise picky eater, but I still have a lot of resentment towards my mom for making me eat hamburger multiple times a week when it was the only thing that I disliked to the point that it made me gag.
“ You might decide that the kitchen doesn’t close between meals at your house, because you want a child in recovery from an eating disorder or other food-related trauma to know that eating is always okay.”
THIS. That’s a part of DOR that has always felt off to me. I don’t want to decide when my kids need to and should eat. Or course some kids need prompting to check for hunger cues and predictable snack times can be part of that, but I never want to tell them it’s not “meal or snack time right now” when they are listening to their bodies telling them they are hungry. Something about that feels SO wrong.
I guess technically this could still be allowed under DOR because as the parent you are deciding the kid can eat whenever they want?
I agree that it feels too restrictive to tell a kid when she can eat or not. I pretty much let my 3 year old eat whenever she wants, other than like, in bed or in the bath.
I love the DOR and Ellyn Satter's beautiful work. Many parents do pretty well with it through school-age, but then once their child becomes an adolescent, they get in their lane with eating. It causes so much harm for their teens I work with. Parents need to be reminded to get back to the DOR, but many get into power and control and get obsessed with their teen's food. Some parents I can easily get them out of it. Others aren't interested. It's like they can't help themselves.
Thank you for writing this!!! I love the idea of DOR but what happened was, I would put food in front of them, and my son wouldn't eat at all. So, now we have some different ways of eating, and really, it's kind of hands off. He doesn't like veggies so I don't even try. The funny thing is, now that I have stopped pressuring him to eat anything, he will try a lot of things.
As an RD who helps families with feeding, I appreciate that you are one of the best advocates for sDOR out there. However, I take serious issue with your characterization of the model as intending in any way to get kids to eat certain foods. You write, "It’s also marketed (by the folks who pioneered it and by many other dietitians and influencers) as a “fix” for picky eating and a way to “get kids to eat their veggies.” This is true of so many IG accounts that have distorted the model and turned it into diet culture, but it's absolutely not the case that Ellyn Satter or anyone actually trained in her models is doing this. Satter is so clear that the model is build on trust, and she uses this sort of vegetable-pushing as a clear example of what trust does NOT look like.
So, I'm genuinely curious how you came to this conclusion, because I know that you've read her books, and you've even talked with Satter herself about this. How can you be hearing something so different from what I do?