Raising adventurous eaters Practical ways to overcome picky eating & food sensory sensitivities

Recalling how parents used to traumatize their picky-eater kids by forcing them to stay at the table until they cleaned their plates, pediatric "feeding therapist" Dato offers better alternatives. Her guide is organized by sense--touch, hearing, sight, smell and taste--since, Dato notes, that's how children explore food. She offers common-sense strategies, such as giving kids small servings and setting expectations, including asking kids to put at least one spoonful of each dish on their plate. Other suggestions: parents should be good role models, sampling everything they want their kids to test; avoid serving the same meal two or three days in a row; and before heading to a restaurant, go to a park so kids can "run off some extra steam," "work up an appetite" and perhaps be more willing to sit still and eat. Tips also cover food challenges associated with school and holidays. Real families' stories and more recent studies would have deepened her coverage, but Dato does provide a useful resource for families eager to reduce fights about food and ensure that children are eating healthily and with pleasure.

Mealtime is often a battleground in which parents may feel they are losing ground. Limited food choices, picky eaters, nutrition, and sensory processing issues create a complicated landscape. A mental health professional with a sensory processing disorder specialty, Dato advocates using a sensory-based approach to exploring food. For example, allowing children to become sous chefs involved in the process of preparing meals, utilizing plating effectively, minimizing distractions, and most of all, making mealtime fun, the parent can create an environment designed to expose the child to new foods. Kids with auditory sensitivities and digestive issues are also given space in this work. This book is exhaustive in length and breadth, but its many practical suggestions are worth it. Dining out, holidays, and school sections are incorporated, and the author supplies links to online worksheets to increase the resources available to parents. VERDICT A must for families who struggle with mealtime.