August 19, 2025 • 40 mins
Dr. Reshma Shah is a board-certified pediatrician and expert on feeding families and plant-based nutrition. In today's episode, Sarah and Laura open by talking about how their families are doing dinner these days, and then Sarah interviews Reshma who provides insights on her Family Table approach, including her recommendations for selective eaters and cultivating a welcoming dinner atmosphere even with kids going off in every direction to different activities.
In the Q&A, Laura and Sarah share crowd-pleasing dinner ideas for a listener in a rut.
Find Reshma here: https://www.reshmashahmdparentcoaching.com
Her recent book is NOURISH: The Definitive Plant-Based Nutrition Guide for Families, available wherever books are sold.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
This is Laura. This episode is airing in mid August
of twenty twenty five. Today, Sarah is going to be
interviewing doctor Raishmashaw, who is a pediatrician, also a parent
coach and has expertise in nutrition. I guess plant based
nutrition in particular and feeding families.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Got They're going to.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Talk a lot about family meals and family rituals. Correct Sarah, Yes,
we are, and I get into some details. So since
you're not part of the interview, why don't you share
how your family meals are going lately? Well, we do
try to eat together. Whoever is in the house is
generally expected to be at the table at the time
(01:21):
that dinner is happening. That's different times, Like we don't
have a set dinner time. It's sort of based on
the schedule for the day, although I would say it's
generally sometime between six and seven is when it happens.
I am relaxed about some things related to family dinner.
Alex likes to sit at the counter rather than at
(01:43):
the table with the rest of us. I don't really
know why, but I pick my battles. He's in the room,
he's in the same room, so there's that. Henry will
sometimes sit for about three bites. I had a rule
at one point that he had to be on his bottom,
sitting down eating three bites of something healthy that was
on his plate before he could run up elsewhere in
(02:05):
the house. And so sometimes he would sort of literally
be sitting there like wait, because again it was when
everyone was sitting down, he had to have the three bites.
So he'd be like Michael's taking his leisurely time filling
his plate at the stuff, and Henry's sitting there like
when's daddy gonna sit down so I can eat my
three bites and go. But we're trying to enforce proper
(02:26):
behavior at the table here, and we're slowly training people
with that. We rotate. Another thing we do on the
other end of dinner is that each kid has a
night for dishes. That's really only the older four where
that happens. I don't think Henry's quite ready for doing
dishes himself yet, but I'm happy to report that the
(02:46):
older kids just do it. They don't argue about they
know that. Yeah, so far, this will obviously have to change.
But Monday is Jasper, Tuesday is Sam, Wednesday is Ruth,
Thursday is Alex. You do the dishes on that night.
Alex sometimes needs a little assistance, but it's good. It's
nice to not have to do it.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I love it. I'm like, I need some more kids.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
And so you guys do talk selective eating, correct I
hear that.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yes, we do have some discussions about selective eating, and
I think you will approve of her very gentle approach
and philosophy. How is that going. I know that that
has been something There's been multiple selective eaters in your household,
isn't that right?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean I'm pretty relaxed about this too.
I mean, it is one of my pet peeves of parenting,
writing that people seem to feel sometimes that they've done
something that makes their kids adventurous eaters versus more selective ones.
That is clearly the result of bad parenting. Because the
(03:48):
upside of having five children is you could know that
you didn't do anything different but from one to the other,
and yet their tastes are incredibly different in what they
are willing to eat what they enjoy.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
That you can have a child who.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Likes spicy mustards and basalmic vinaigrettes and ethnic food, and
you can have another child who will only eat fruit
in the form of apple sauce. And you know, I
don't believe that I was an awesome parent for one
and a crappy parent for the other, And so I'm
more inclined to believe that people are who they are,
(04:25):
and sometimes you just have to work with what they
are and try to make things happen as they can
within that it also can change over time. I'm pretty
sure I've told the story on here of my little
brother being a highly selective eater growing up and into
young adulthood, and then at some point he's got a
(04:47):
great tech job living in San Francisco and a young
man in possession of a good fortune must soon be
in want of a wife. Is that the start to
Jane Austen pride and prejudice, And it turns out that
young women do not always wish to go out for pizza,
so eventually you have to deal with that. And I'm
(05:08):
happy to report that he is both married now and
also eats a lot of different things.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
So there is hope.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
And I like to believe that my selective leader, the
highly selective leader in particular, will see that same success.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Someday. They should talk someday.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Someday, I don't know anyway it will happen. It will happen,
but kids are different. We work with what we've got
to So I'm excited to hear what doctor Rachma Shaw
has to say.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Well, I am so excited to welcome Rechma Shaw, doctor
Rachmashaw to the podcast. A fellow pediatrician. Chema is a pediatrician,
a parent coach, and has expertise in plant based nutrition
and feeding families. And we know at the start of
the school year that dinner is often on everyone's minds,
but we're going to even talk about dinner and beyond
(06:00):
Doctor Rachmshaw, So welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Thanks so much for having me. I'm really looking forward
to this conversation.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
So am I. And I did want to provide you
with the tiny bit of my own like disclaimer stuff
before we get into the discussion, just because I've talked
about my family's kind of dinner habits before, and hey,
maybe I'll end up with some advice from you as well.
But just for some background, my husband's a surgeon, I'm
(06:26):
a pediatric endocrinologist. We have three kids between the ages
of seven and thirteen, and we've talked on this podcast
a bunch about how family dinner can we think sometimes
be kind of like over emphasized, because in reality sometimes
it's harder to make that work for some families and
for others, and there can be other ways that you
(06:47):
might sub for that, and I am sure you have
a lot of insight there, and I would say, as
of now, we have a true family dinner once a week,
then often another time a week, usually on the weekends
we might all eat out, and then the rest of
the week nights it's usually like me and anywhere from
zero to two kids because somebody is out doing something else.
(07:08):
My husband usually comes home later, So that's like where
I am. So maybe you're like, oh my gosh, what
a disaster. I will say we are lucky, and that
my kids do enjoy a lot of different types of food,
so with like, the food battles aren't really a thing.
My kids will eat vegetables like they're pretty reasonably non picky.
So we're going to talk about that as well. But
I don't know, how does that strike you off the bat.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I actually think it's the perfect place to start, because
I think the goal of family dinner it's not to
just chuck something off of our list of things to do.
It's actually to really foster a sense of connection and
thoughtfulness around food and meal times. And so my definition
of family meals does not mean that all the members
of the family are sitting down precisely at six point
(07:51):
thirty eating the same thing with perfect manners. Nobody does
family dinner like that. My definition of family dinner, or
any family meal for that matter, is that whoever is
at home is sitting together at the table in conversation,
eating food together. And so if it's one child, that
counts as family dinner in my mind, and I think
(08:11):
that as parents. We really have to take the pressure
off of having to do everything perfectly because our kids
will pick up on that. And so if you actually
end up having family dinner where everyone, every single member
of the family is together and everyone is feeling stressed
about it, you've defeated the purpose of family dinner. So,
believe it or not, you are actually having family dinner
(08:34):
pretty much every night of the week.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I love this conversation already.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, so that's the first disclaimer. It's whoever is at home.
It's really to combat the idea that you're eating dinner
at the dinner table, your kids eating dinner in front
of their computer screen in their room. That doesn't work
as family dinner. But if you're pausing whoever's in the house.
And I've had teenagers in the house with multiple sports activities,
(09:00):
and sometimes family dinner means that we're not going to
wait for the kid that's getting home at eight thirty
or nine from practice. But when that kid does come home,
they're sitting down for dinner, and I'm going to sit
and have a conversation. That counts as family dinner too.
So it's really letting go of this idea of perfection
of having a home cooked meal at the same time,
everybody has to be there with great manners and say
(09:23):
thank you mom for making a delicious meal that happens
in zero percent of family. So you are doing family
meal really beautifully awesome.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Okay, well, now that we've dealt with my issues, and
I love that love. I love the more flexible approach,
the open mindedness, and I guess yeah, it does reflect
what's actually important about being together, the presence versus like
some specific imagery that probably came from like nineteen fifty. Anyway, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Remember one time when my kids were much younger, the
sports and other activities. I remember sometimes family dinner would
be me and my younger child having a little pit
make dinner while my older child was at practice. So
you just have to be creative. And the point really
is is are you present, are you sharing a meal?
Are you having conversations? And is it a pleasant experience
(10:11):
for both you and your children?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Okay, well, then let's start there, because I think a
common challenge we get in this realm is that the
kids are really young, or maybe there's even just one
really young kid, because you know, you can have a
couple of school age kids but you throw an eighteen
month old in there, and like all of a sudden,
things are wildly different. Stuff is being thrones, there's crying, whatever.
(10:34):
So what would you say to families who are like,
we keep trying to make it work and every time
we end up disappointed because we just end up with
tantrums at the table and it's misery. What advice do
you have for that situation?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah, and I think it's really sort of being curious
about where you think the friction is. So and for
every family it's going to look a little bit different.
And that's why I think really like a personalized conversation.
There's no one size fits all model when it comes
to pailing nails. So if you notice that your eighteen
month old is starting out okay at the table, but
fifteen minutes in, twenty minutes in, they're just done and
(11:09):
ready to be out of there, it might be changing
your expectations of how long can an eighteen month old
reasonably sit at the table. The average American family spends
seventeen minutes at the dinner table, So wanting to have
your eighteen month old, two year old, or even four
year old sit at the table engaging in pleasant conversation
for half an hour might be an unrealistic expectation. So
the first thing is set reasonable expectations and they pick
(11:34):
up on our stress. So if you're really anxious and
you're always correcting them around the behavior at the table,
it's going to really create a tense environment. So come
to the table, have reasonable expectations, and then when you're
noticing if they keep throwing food off the table, maybe
you need to start with a really small portion size
and then kind of add in from there. So focusing
it in on where is the friction, having reasonable expectations,
(11:57):
and then getting really curious and creative about the problem
solving you can do. So, whether it's serving smaller portions
once they're done with their meal, maybe the eighteen month
old is allowed to play with some blocks at the table,
whether rest of the people finish it, or so really
coming up with some creative solutions to whatever point of
friction you're facing. But I think the number one thing
is really having realistic expectations of what your child can
(12:19):
reasonably do.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Totally makes sense. Yeah, all right, Well, the next common dilemma,
and I'm sure you saw this one coming, is very
selective eaters. My co host Laura has five children, and
some of them are not very selective, and some of
them are extremely selective, and she uses that, I think
to reassure people sometimes that people love to be like,
(12:41):
it's what you did, and she's like, I didn't do
anything different. They are their own people, So it can
still be a certainly a point of friction and a
lot of families, especially when you're trying to serve things
that are not going to cause a lot of drama. So, yeah,
are your go to strategies for those with selective eaters
in the family.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
So I think the first thing is it really depends
on how selective we're talking. So there's some kids that
are sort of garden variety I won't eat green things
or this week I like this, and that's what I
call garden riety picky eating, and there's a lot of
strategies for that. Some kids have highly selective eating, often
with underlying neurodevelopmental or medical issues. So if you're dealing
(13:21):
with a kid who perhaps has autism or significant food
allergies or swallowing dysfunction, these are kids that probably need
some specialized support, whether it's an intervention from a gastreenrologist,
a feeding therapist, behavioral therapist, neure developmental pediatricians. And it
represents about one to five percent of kids who have
(13:42):
that really highly selective eating. It's not a parenting issue,
and it's not a kid doing something wrong issue. It's
the families often need a lot more support the other
sort of garden variety picky eating. I think it comes
down to two things. One is individual pat child temperament.
Some kids are just more selective and some kids are
more adventurous, and that's not really anything that you can
(14:03):
necessarily change. It's kind of like a personality thing. Some
kids are more outgoing and some kids are a little
bit more introverted. And so knowing the temperament of your child,
are they really eager to try new things or are
they really that slow to warm, they need a lot
more exposure. So that's the first part, and then the
second part really is the parental response to that. So
what happens is you might have a garden variety picky
(14:23):
eater and they need a little bit more support, they
need a little bit more encouragement, and the parent can
kind of overreact and then you start this sort of
battle situation. Where the parents are either bribing, they're negotiating,
they're forcing, they're making dessert contingent upon how many mites
of broccoli you have. So you take sort of a
(14:43):
mild feeding difficulty and you just explode it by the
parents reaction. And parents are very well meaning. They're doing
these strategies because they're afraid their kids aren't eating a
variety of foods, they're not getting the new dreams. So
I've heard parents saying, I'll do anything. I'll stand upside
down for twenty minutes if that's what it it takes
to get my kid to eat more broccoli or fill
in the bank blank. So what I often recommend is
(15:06):
that parents sort of backtrack some of the pressure techniques.
And it feels really scary because oftentimes parents will say, well,
if I don't promise them this, or threaten this, or
negotiate this, they won't eat any vegetable for weeks on end.
And the truth is, I found time and time again,
is that if parents take the pressure off and they
go back to core feeding dynamics principles of the division
(15:28):
of responsibility which we learned in pediatrics, which is parents
decide the when, the what, and the where of eating,
and then it's up to the child to decide how
much and whether they're going to eat the foods. It
seems really scary at first, but the less pressure that
kids eat, the more capable they are to try new foods.
And if you've got the kid that has the more
selective temperament, just knowing that it's going to take a
(15:51):
lot more exposures, a lot more pleasant experiences before they're
going to try the food. And I often this is
not just for feeding, but this is for general parenting.
It's like parenting the child you have rather than the
child you wish you had or the traits that you wish.
We all want adventurous eaters, but sometimes if you have
a child that's really got selective eating, they just have
that temperament, you actually have to go slower and have
(16:12):
more patience, which is often not easy.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I know, which totally makes sense. I sometimes also feel
like sometimes people are looking for some badge that their
kid eats X, Y Z, you know, food, and the
truth is, if it's not interfering with their lives and
they're getting enough nutrition overall, like looking zooming out of
the big picture, maybe it's like less of a problem
which might take some of the pressure off, which would, paradoxically,
(16:35):
from what I hear you saying, maybe even improve things.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, And I think it's like parents, like we grade
ourselves very harshly on all the things many how much wealthly,
how much sleep, how much screen time, and we can
just sort of pat ourselves on the back and say
we're doing the best that we can and be open
to the possibility that your child is actually going to
have a normal diet as they are adults, because I
(16:58):
know a lot of parents are thinking, like, I'm going
to have a kid that never eats a vegetable in
their entire life, and that's not the case. I think
that oftentimes, really the number one thing that parents can
do is to make the eating environment, the dinner table,
a pleasant environment, and it gives kids the permission to
relax and be able to try new foods because they're
not feeling so much pressure around it.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
I love that. Well, we're going to take a quick
break and be back with a few more dilemmas, maybe
for some older kids. All right, well, are back, and
I already hinted at one of these fairly common dilemmas
(17:43):
that can get in the way of the family table
or the family meal. But many kids these days have
a lot of activities, and I do feel like there
is this very common arc where people say, I am
not going to do that. I value my evenings, I
want to be home, so I'm not going to put
my kid in x y Z. But then their kids
friends end up at X y Z and their kid
(18:03):
wants to be an x y Z and you're like, okay, yeah,
And I'm absolutely one of those people. I think I said, oh,
we're not going to do that much, and I ended
up with like a competitive gymnast and a travel soccer
player at one point. So okay, knowing that, how can
we still cultivate some of the family dinner feel in
a context where everyone might be going in different directions.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, And I think this is really going to depend
on the age of your children. So when you have
kids that are younger and they need to have, like
especially if you have spanning younger and older kids, and
the younger kids really need their bedtime and you want
to make sure you get all the things in, it
might mean that you're doing sort of different dinner times
for different people. But as their kids get older, you
can sort of if your family can tolerate a little
(18:47):
bit later of a dinner, that might be a way
to sort of include everybody. And that's certainly what we did.
We would push dinner back and so we could get
all the kids at the and for our family, that
was a real priority, So I was willing to push
dinner back. For some families, it doesn't working. You just
do the best that you can. I think limiting sports
can definitely be one approach, and many families have found
success in that. Our family, i think is more like
(19:09):
your family. If our kids were committed to an activity,
they showed an aptitude or a real desire to participate.
As long as it wasn't interfering with their other important
things like sleep and friendships and things like that, we
tended to let them have the experiences. And for one
of my kids, for both my kids, actually their sports
(19:30):
activities ended up being a really great source of community
and friendship and leadership skills and commitment and all these
things that we really want our children to have. So
every family's going to have to find their balance with that.
One of the things actually from a preparation maybe we'll
touch on this is I think making it as easy
as possible for about six to seven to eight windows,
(19:53):
So if that means prepping some ingredients ahead of time,
having some quick, easy go to meals that don't require
my was when the kids were ready to eat, to
have dinner ready, so there wasn't that extra time of
like we just got home from soccer, Now we have
to think about what's going to happen for dinner. So
I think some amount of just probably feeds really into
your sphere of excellence and influences some planning and some
(20:15):
preparations so that you're not planning to decide what's for
dinner at six thirty when everybody's already hungry.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
And there's definitely certain type even getting into the weeds,
like certain types of meals that are easier to like
maybe serve over two shifts, or like you know, you
have younger ones, you can give it to them at six,
but it's very easy to like keep the crock put
on and it's still hot at eight thirty when everyone
gets back from soccer or whatever. So even the logistics
of what it is can make a difference.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
I'm a big fan of having a meal that can
be like reheated or can be put together really quickly.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Totally. Okay, Well, I love that, and I like the idea.
I have to toy with the idea of trying to
go later. Some of my kids are just like too
hungry and then they'll eat fifteen snacks and then there
is no dinner. But maybe maybe they can eat their
dinner but then sit there with like a cup of
tea later and you know, everyone can still hang out
around the table for a little bit.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So yeah, and I think sometimes what we used to
do is we used to do like a staggered dessert.
So if you're a family that does dessert, then the
older kiddo that just got home from practice is having
dinner and the rest of your having dessert or playing
a card game or something.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
No. I love that. Well, how about in terms of
selecting meals and even preparing meals, how do you recommend
kids get involved with that at what age? Any tips
for doing so? Because I can imagine that engaging in
the process itself might make it more fun for certain families,
might feel more like a burden in other families. So
(21:40):
I don't know that there's like a one size fits
all here, But how have you seen this play out the.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Way that I what's worked for our family and I
think is probably useful for a lot of families. Is
I like to think about it is an invitation because
for some families, getting the kids involved with cooking and
meal planning and prepping is a nightmare because it adds
actually more work to their plates. My bottom line is,
if it's useful, if it's going to make your life
easier and it makes your kids feel more engaged, go
(22:08):
for it. But if it feels like another tour or
another thing on your to do list, kind of rethink it.
So the way that it looked in our families, when
my kids were younger, they actually really liked to be
in the kitchen, especially when it came to baking or
other things. And sometimes it was like they'd help chop
some vegetables and then they'd go off and do whatever
it was that they were doing. And as they were
older and they had homework and sports and all the things,
(22:29):
they had very little to do with meal preparation. Now
they always had a job at the end, because I
don't believe that parents should be doing all the work.
So my kids always, even if it was a small
thing like setting the table or clearing the table, or
helping with dishes. They always had a job or responsibility,
but I think the involvement is really going to depend
on if it's making things easier for you, what phase
(22:50):
you are. One last tip that I'll give that was
really helpful to me is oftentimes you'll have kids complaining about,
like that's for dinner. So when I'm doing my planning
in my grocery shopping when they were younger, I would
always say, give me your wishes for the week. So
they might say, could you make surfy this week? Could
you make a pasta this week? And we had a
(23:10):
few things that were always on constant rotation, and the
deal was I would try to honor their wishes as
much as possible, but they weren't allowed to complain about
dinner once it was served, So that was kind of
I never intentionally tried to serve foods that they weren't
going to enjoy, but like I would ask for their
wishes for the week, and I think eventually it kind
of faded out, and the beginning it was a I
think it just makes kids feel heard and like they
(23:32):
have some say and they have some contribution. So I
think find what works for you, and if giving your
kids more jobs or responsibilities works in their schedule and
it makes life facier for you, go for it. But
if it feels like torture trying to get them to
help in the kitchen, then maybe let it go for
a while.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
In our house, this definitely depends on the kid because
we have certain kids that seem to have more interest
than other kids. Although it seems like everyone's gravitated towards
having more and I agree, it is definitely more work.
My husband's like, why don't you get them to help?
You know, I'm like, ye, in the zone, I'm like
listening to a podcast. I'm so happily making dinner. Maybe
not this time, but then other times it is really nice.
Or to watch them like learn a technique like oh,
(24:09):
you can make an omelet? Now, like how did that happen?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah? And like maybe don't do that on the night
when you have like two different practices and half an
hour apart, and that sort of thing. The one caveat
I will add to that is as kids get older,
you do want to give them some skills around food
preparation and things like that so that they are able
to actually cook for themselves, or if they're in college
and at a dorm, that they can actually put together
a reasonable meal. And both of my kids, I will say,
(24:35):
are fairly good at being able to cook for themselves,
and I don't have a lot of concerns about them
being able to put together a nutritious, delicious meal for themselves,
even if it's something really simple.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Oh that's awesome. Well, we're going to take another break
and then get into some specifics beyond the table. All right,
we're back, and we've been talking about dinner in general
(25:09):
and dinner time kind of like routines and just some tips.
But doctor Staw is also an expert on plant based
nutrition and also on parenting in general from all of
her years working as a pediatrician. So we're going to
move into some of these topics. And my next question
is for those who are more plant curious, Like maybe
they're not looking to make a change to say we're
(25:32):
a vegan family now or anything like that, but if
you are somebody who is just interested in incorporating more
plant centered foods, and maybe there's resistance from different members
of the family, I don't know, where would you tell
people to start.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, I love working with families that are fully plant
based or even just plant curious, And I would say
the best place to start is to really use an
ad in approach. And what I mean by that is
is that instead of thinking about removing things in the
I think the first place, especially f you of resistance
from kids or even partners in the household, is to
(26:06):
just simply add more plant based foods to your diet.
So if you're having eggs for breakfast, maybe you're adding
greensmovie or you're adding some fresh fruit or some blueberries
to your oatmeals. So just adding in more plant foods.
So it could be really simple. It could be like
some cut up vegetables and dip at lunch. It could
be a cup of lentil soup at dinner, having a
(26:26):
green salad. So just really thinking about where are the
places that I could add some more plant based foods in.
And I think the more that you do that you're
going to necessarily kind of crowd out some of those
more animal heavy foods. Another thing that I found is
to sort of treat the meat or the animal foods
as a flavoring. So if you're making a chili instead
(26:49):
of doing an entirely ground beef chili, maybe half of
that could be beans. So you're sort of just adding
more plant based foods into the meals that you already
love and enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I love that. I also think I'm going to add
money in myself, which is that if you have a
meal where everyone can choose the components, you can have
like maybe one meat option, but then other options as well,
and then people can kind of adjust the ratio how
they see fit. And if you make the non meat
ones enticing and colorful, then probably there's a good chance
that they'll be taken.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
And in general, I love this idea of a build
your own bowl or a build your own thing for
because kids love doing that, and again, it can take
some of the pressure and give them If it's not
a whole plate of tofu, they might give themselves permission
to like, hm, that looks kind of good. Maybe I'll
try a piece of that. So I love this sort
of build your own plate or bowl approach.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yeah, it's like low pressure. I'll just put a little
of that in the corner and we'll see how that
goes with everything else exactly. Now, one thing that you
mentioned in your kind of kind of pivoting away from
eating specifically, although of course if there are links there,
feel free to share them. But you help parents deal
with overwhelm. Now that is a very vague and broad topic,
but I imagine people come to you with all types
(28:00):
of overwhelm, and I'm curious as to kind of where
your starting point is.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Honestly, I think the most important thing that parents need
when I work with them in the beginning, I think
they just need to be heard and to have some validation,
because parenting is probably one of the hardest things that
we ever do, and oftentimes we're kind of doing it
alone and we see other people with the perfect Bento
box or the family meal or the manners are great,
(28:25):
and we feel like we're doing something wrong, and so
just having the space to be able to talk about
your experience, having some validation, and I think the problem
solving comes like way later. I think in the beginning,
it's just not feeling so alone in the experience that
you're having, And it could be something as small as
like dinner time feels really chaotic. To managing a new
(28:48):
diagnosis in a kid, something like Celiac disease or type
one diabetes, which I'm sure you have a lot of
patients like that. It's a really overwhelming thing and their
world has just been turned completely upside down. And oftentimes
in the office as a pediatrician, you just didn't have
the time to offer parents that kind of support and
understanding and acknowledging what you're dealing with is really really
(29:10):
tough and challenging, and you're doing a great job and
then going in with the specific resources and tools that
might help to make things a little bit easier, whether
it's at the dinner table or at bedtime or whatever
the situation may be.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
And I think you're right that the common theme is
probably taking the pressure off more than any you know,
secreator tip there. And you mentioned families with Nuancet type
one diabetes and they talk about like usually when we're
still in the hospital, they're like, Okay, that first dinner
at home is always kind of like a big deal.
And our party line is like, you can't mess this up, Like,
(29:42):
you know, as long as you don't we like, don't
mix up the two insulins, but beyond that, like you're
gonna be fine if you have a problem, let us know.
But like you don't have to be perfect, like you
can do this just like everyone else can. Oh my gosh.
But yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah, and I think just not feeling alone in that journey,
you know. It's just like it can be really isolating,
especially in childhood getting a diagnosis like this and feeling
like one of the families I was working with their
child who just gotten diagnosed with Celiac disease and they're
imagining like never ever going out to ice cream with
their friends. So it's just it's a lot to take in.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Yeah, or foodologies too, Oh my gosh. Yeah, all right, well,
nourish yourself too is also something that was mentioned on
your site, and I think definitely. You know, one of
the things we talk about on this podcast a lot
is how we love being parents. We love our kids,
but our lives count as well, and sometimes in the
like Mama sphere, people just kind of forget that, and
(30:39):
even the things that people do for themselves it's couched
as so that I can be a better mom, And
it's like wait, wait, wait, like that's great. And also
these years of our lives are going by and we
deserve to be happy even without you know, a benefit
for our kids. So I would love your take on
nourishing yourself or how you advise people to start give
(31:01):
them permission to do so, anything about in this category.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, and this is a topic that's near and dear
to my heart, especially as like in the last couple
of years we've become empty nesters. And I think that
if yes, you want to nourish yourself so that your
kids can sort of learn to prioritize their own well
being and also learn some patients. If we're one hundred
percent always there for our kids in every moment, they
don't learn sometimes that patience is required. I may not
(31:28):
be able to like drop everything and come deliver the
thing that you've forgotten. But I think also if we
aren't paying attention to nourishing ourselves along the way, when
the kids are out of the house, you're going to
be left wondering how do I take care of myself?
So I think it's really important to find that place
of figuring out the ways that you're going to get
(31:51):
a little bit of a break, a little bit of nourishment.
And it can come from getting to yoga every now
and then, it could come from actually making a meal
for yourself instead of just eating the kids leftovers. It
can come from like finding even ten or fifteen minutes
to read. I realized during the pandemic and since the pandemic,
my practice of just reading a book, whether it's for
(32:13):
pleasure or for work, My capacity to sort of just
sit and read a book was diminishing, like my attention span.
And so I've started a simple practice of every morning
making myself a cup of coffee and I just read
for ten or fifteen minutes. And it doesn't have to
be expensive spin classes or things that require a great
amount of time or money. It can be just a
(32:35):
really simple thing. And I think building in those places
that are intentional for yourself. It seems small, but I
can tell you it were so far in twenty twenty five,
I've already read more books than I did in twenty
twenty four. So those small things do end up batting up.
Oh my gosh, I love that.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Well. I forgot to warn you about our love of
the Week segment, but this will give you time to
reflect on it as I'll share mine, and if you
want to share one of those books that you have
loved this year, that's always a fun one. But really, guests,
can share anything from the sunset to something they're partnered,
to anything anything in the world that's making you happy.
So my love of the week, I'm going to go
(33:12):
on theme today just because sometimes it's fun to do that.
And my sister in law is vegan and she got
me a lovely cookbook called Life Changing Salads by Danielle Brown,
and it is just so beautiful and it's a little
bit aspirational, but I am absolutely making some of these salads.
And if you want a cookbook that is very beautiful
to flip through, but actually I say aspirational, the ingredients
(33:35):
are not like crazy or weird or hard. So if
you just want a starting point to put some more
plant heavy items in your rotation, then I would check
out that book.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Well, that sounds like an amazing book, I would say.
My love of the week is our weekly farmer's market.
The summer produce is in full bloom and everything is
just so delicious, from the summer corn to the nectarms
and the strawberries and the berries. So I have just
been loving our weekly farmer's Market. I'm they're pretty much
every Sunday.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
So and you were in California, so I bet your
weekly farmer's market is an absolute bounty.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yes, I think it's one of the best parts of
living in California is the farmer's market. It's year round.
When we used to live in the Midwest, I think
we have a farmer's market for like two or three
months out of the year, but we haven't year round.
And I will say that because of it, my kids
have really learned about seasonal eating. And I know we're
very fortunate that way. But right now we're not eating
any apples, but in the next couple months apples will
(34:34):
be in heavy rotation.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
I love it. Well, tell our listeners where they can
find you and your work.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah, so you can find me on my website it's
rachmashawandparentcoaching dot com. And actually on my website, I have
a list of I have several free resources, including a
guide to making family meals more manageable, as well as
a guide for parents that are wanting to explore more
plant based eating. It's a plant They started a guy
(35:00):
that has some easy recipes as well as some new
traits that you might want to pay attention to. And
the place that I tend to be most active is
on Instagram. And it's just my name Raschma Shaw so
it's r e Shma Shah and I try to post
parenting tips and lots and lots of recipes.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. This
was so much fun. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I really enjoyed chatting with you.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Well we are back, Sarah doing an excellent interview with
doctor Rashmasha about family meals, about eating.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
With kids in particular.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
So this question is from a listener who says, I
am in a rut list your top three crowd pleasing dinners.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
So, Sarah, what do you have? I'm going to go
with some bowls. I've been into bowls lately because sometimes
I don't even feel like using a recipe. And they're
just so customizable because you can have the kids pick
which components they want. So here's three balls for you,
bowl number one, and my kids like all of these
are various, at least some components of each of these
(36:03):
would be like a Asian sushi type bowl, So you
could do salmon just easy, Like it's one of my
favorite proteins to cook, just because it's so easy to
just throw in the oven and do it for like, but.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
This isn't sushi salmon.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
This is cooked salmon, regular cooked salmon. You get rice,
maybe some of those like seaweed packages at amami, which
comes frozen avocado, some kind of Asian dressing, maybe shred
some carrots in there. People can choose what they want
and then make your kind of sushi themed salmon bowl.
You could do a Mediterranean bowl. I did this recently.
You could throw and actually I did it recently with
(36:35):
all Trader Joe's components. So we had couscouse grilled chicken.
I think I made it myself, but of course you
could also get got routisserie chicken. You could do pre
cooked chicken, breast, whatever you want, cucumbers, tomatoes, feta, cheese,
they're premds hat siki, sauce, olives, and then I toasted
some peda and then just choose the components you like,
(36:56):
put it in a bowl, delicious, healthy dinner. And then
finally one that we very commonly at our house is
like a rice and bean like bowl. They kind of
like a make your own Chipotle style thing. So we'll
have like rice, available beans, maybe some frozen corn that
was heated up, salsa, cheese, avocado, sour cream and then
whatever protein you want, maybe some leftover chicken or sliced
up cooked sausages. My kids love this. We could probably
(37:18):
serve this like every night for a year, and I
don't even know if there would be complaints, so maybe
for me. But yeah, those are three bowls, none of
which require recipes, none of which are fussy, and depending
on how selective your kids are, are going to please
most palettes, maybe not all.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah, well the plain rice could always get eaten, Yes.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Plain rice, and maybe a little bit of plane beans
or chicken like done.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Yeah, well, I'm gonna actually sing the praises of a rut.
I gotta say there's nothing wrong with serving the same
crowd pleasing meals over and over again.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
So don't call it a rut.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Call it it like doing best of right routine, routine,
it's greatest hits. Like, it's not a rut, especially if
people can customize them, like taco night. Right, if you
have people who want nothing on a taco, who just
want a tortilla and some cut up cheese on the side,
they could eat that. But there's also people who could
(38:16):
put everything on their tacos and be happy with it,
Like make your own pizza is another one that allows
people at all different flavor levels of comfort to doctor
it up as they might wish. We do a pasta
night every week. Some people have sauce that is jazzed
up with like a pre made sauce that's jazzed up
(38:38):
with our own ingredients to our veggies and Italian sausage
and things like that.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Other people prefer.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Plain marinara sauce, which can also be pulled out of
the same jar before you put the rest in with
the sausage. Some people like just butter or just cheese
on their pasta or whatever. That is an option too,
But you can sort of introduce variety by having a
strategically takeout night in your week, so you can decide
(39:04):
like Monday's pasta, Tuesday is tacos, Thursday is breakfast for
dinner or pizza night, and then Wednesday is when you
order in something different to make it feel a little
bit less like a rut. And I think that could
help make those crowd pleasing dinners feel like it's not
just you're eating the exact same thing in the same
order over and over again. It's like you are a
(39:25):
couple nights a week to make it easy on yourself,
and then you introduce variety when it makes sense to
do so.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Awesome. Well, now I have even more ideas.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Excellent. Well, this has been best of both worlds. Sarah's
interviewing doctor Rishma Shaw on family meals and family eating
in general. We will be back next week with more
on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
join us next time for more on making work and
life work together.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
This is Laura. This episode is airing in mid August
of twenty twenty five. Today, Sarah is going to be
interviewing doctor Raishmashaw, who is a pediatrician, also a parent
coach and has expertise in nutrition. I guess plant based
nutrition in particular and feeding families.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Got They're going to.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Talk a lot about family meals and family rituals. Correct Sarah, Yes,
we are, and I get into some details. So since
you're not part of the interview, why don't you share
how your family meals are going lately? Well, we do
try to eat together. Whoever is in the house is
generally expected to be at the table at the time
(01:21):
that dinner is happening. That's different times, Like we don't
have a set dinner time. It's sort of based on
the schedule for the day, although I would say it's
generally sometime between six and seven is when it happens.
I am relaxed about some things related to family dinner.
Alex likes to sit at the counter rather than at
(01:43):
the table with the rest of us. I don't really
know why, but I pick my battles. He's in the room,
he's in the same room, so there's that. Henry will
sometimes sit for about three bites. I had a rule
at one point that he had to be on his bottom,
sitting down eating three bites of something healthy that was
on his plate before he could run up elsewhere in
(02:05):
the house. And so sometimes he would sort of literally
be sitting there like wait, because again it was when
everyone was sitting down, he had to have the three bites.
So he'd be like Michael's taking his leisurely time filling
his plate at the stuff, and Henry's sitting there like
when's daddy gonna sit down so I can eat my
three bites and go. But we're trying to enforce proper
(02:26):
behavior at the table here, and we're slowly training people
with that. We rotate. Another thing we do on the
other end of dinner is that each kid has a
night for dishes. That's really only the older four where
that happens. I don't think Henry's quite ready for doing
dishes himself yet, but I'm happy to report that the
(02:46):
older kids just do it. They don't argue about they
know that. Yeah, so far, this will obviously have to change.
But Monday is Jasper, Tuesday is Sam, Wednesday is Ruth,
Thursday is Alex. You do the dishes on that night.
Alex sometimes needs a little assistance, but it's good. It's
nice to not have to do it.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I love it. I'm like, I need some more kids.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
And so you guys do talk selective eating, correct I
hear that.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yes, we do have some discussions about selective eating, and
I think you will approve of her very gentle approach
and philosophy. How is that going. I know that that
has been something There's been multiple selective eaters in your household,
isn't that right?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean I'm pretty relaxed about this too.
I mean, it is one of my pet peeves of parenting,
writing that people seem to feel sometimes that they've done
something that makes their kids adventurous eaters versus more selective ones.
That is clearly the result of bad parenting. Because the
(03:48):
upside of having five children is you could know that
you didn't do anything different but from one to the other,
and yet their tastes are incredibly different in what they
are willing to eat what they enjoy.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
That you can have a child who.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Likes spicy mustards and basalmic vinaigrettes and ethnic food, and
you can have another child who will only eat fruit
in the form of apple sauce. And you know, I
don't believe that I was an awesome parent for one
and a crappy parent for the other, And so I'm
more inclined to believe that people are who they are,
(04:25):
and sometimes you just have to work with what they
are and try to make things happen as they can
within that it also can change over time. I'm pretty
sure I've told the story on here of my little
brother being a highly selective eater growing up and into
young adulthood, and then at some point he's got a
(04:47):
great tech job living in San Francisco and a young
man in possession of a good fortune must soon be
in want of a wife. Is that the start to
Jane Austen pride and prejudice, And it turns out that
young women do not always wish to go out for pizza,
so eventually you have to deal with that. And I'm
(05:08):
happy to report that he is both married now and
also eats a lot of different things.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
So there is hope.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
And I like to believe that my selective leader, the
highly selective leader in particular, will see that same success.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Someday. They should talk someday.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Someday, I don't know anyway it will happen. It will happen,
but kids are different. We work with what we've got
to So I'm excited to hear what doctor Rachma Shaw
has to say.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Well, I am so excited to welcome Rechma Shaw, doctor
Rachmashaw to the podcast. A fellow pediatrician. Chema is a pediatrician,
a parent coach, and has expertise in plant based nutrition
and feeding families. And we know at the start of
the school year that dinner is often on everyone's minds,
but we're going to even talk about dinner and beyond
(06:00):
Doctor Rachmshaw, So welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Thanks so much for having me. I'm really looking forward
to this conversation.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
So am I. And I did want to provide you
with the tiny bit of my own like disclaimer stuff
before we get into the discussion, just because I've talked
about my family's kind of dinner habits before, and hey,
maybe I'll end up with some advice from you as well.
But just for some background, my husband's a surgeon, I'm
(06:26):
a pediatric endocrinologist. We have three kids between the ages
of seven and thirteen, and we've talked on this podcast
a bunch about how family dinner can we think sometimes
be kind of like over emphasized, because in reality sometimes
it's harder to make that work for some families and
for others, and there can be other ways that you
(06:47):
might sub for that, and I am sure you have
a lot of insight there, and I would say, as
of now, we have a true family dinner once a week,
then often another time a week, usually on the weekends
we might all eat out, and then the rest of
the week nights it's usually like me and anywhere from
zero to two kids because somebody is out doing something else.
(07:08):
My husband usually comes home later, So that's like where
I am. So maybe you're like, oh my gosh, what
a disaster. I will say we are lucky, and that
my kids do enjoy a lot of different types of food,
so with like, the food battles aren't really a thing.
My kids will eat vegetables like they're pretty reasonably non picky.
So we're going to talk about that as well. But
I don't know, how does that strike you off the bat.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I actually think it's the perfect place to start, because
I think the goal of family dinner it's not to
just chuck something off of our list of things to do.
It's actually to really foster a sense of connection and
thoughtfulness around food and meal times. And so my definition
of family meals does not mean that all the members
of the family are sitting down precisely at six point
(07:51):
thirty eating the same thing with perfect manners. Nobody does
family dinner like that. My definition of family dinner, or
any family meal for that matter, is that whoever is
at home is sitting together at the table in conversation,
eating food together. And so if it's one child, that
counts as family dinner in my mind, and I think
(08:11):
that as parents. We really have to take the pressure
off of having to do everything perfectly because our kids
will pick up on that. And so if you actually
end up having family dinner where everyone, every single member
of the family is together and everyone is feeling stressed
about it, you've defeated the purpose of family dinner. So,
believe it or not, you are actually having family dinner
(08:34):
pretty much every night of the week.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I love this conversation already.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, so that's the first disclaimer. It's whoever is at home.
It's really to combat the idea that you're eating dinner
at the dinner table, your kids eating dinner in front
of their computer screen in their room. That doesn't work
as family dinner. But if you're pausing whoever's in the house.
And I've had teenagers in the house with multiple sports activities,
(09:00):
and sometimes family dinner means that we're not going to
wait for the kid that's getting home at eight thirty
or nine from practice. But when that kid does come home,
they're sitting down for dinner, and I'm going to sit
and have a conversation. That counts as family dinner too.
So it's really letting go of this idea of perfection
of having a home cooked meal at the same time,
everybody has to be there with great manners and say
(09:23):
thank you mom for making a delicious meal that happens
in zero percent of family. So you are doing family
meal really beautifully awesome.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Okay, well, now that we've dealt with my issues, and
I love that love. I love the more flexible approach,
the open mindedness, and I guess yeah, it does reflect
what's actually important about being together, the presence versus like
some specific imagery that probably came from like nineteen fifty. Anyway, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Remember one time when my kids were much younger, the
sports and other activities. I remember sometimes family dinner would
be me and my younger child having a little pit
make dinner while my older child was at practice. So
you just have to be creative. And the point really
is is are you present, are you sharing a meal?
Are you having conversations? And is it a pleasant experience
(10:11):
for both you and your children?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Okay, well, then let's start there, because I think a
common challenge we get in this realm is that the
kids are really young, or maybe there's even just one
really young kid, because you know, you can have a
couple of school age kids but you throw an eighteen
month old in there, and like all of a sudden,
things are wildly different. Stuff is being thrones, there's crying, whatever.
(10:34):
So what would you say to families who are like,
we keep trying to make it work and every time
we end up disappointed because we just end up with
tantrums at the table and it's misery. What advice do
you have for that situation?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah, and I think it's really sort of being curious
about where you think the friction is. So and for
every family it's going to look a little bit different.
And that's why I think really like a personalized conversation.
There's no one size fits all model when it comes
to pailing nails. So if you notice that your eighteen
month old is starting out okay at the table, but
fifteen minutes in, twenty minutes in, they're just done and
(11:09):
ready to be out of there, it might be changing
your expectations of how long can an eighteen month old
reasonably sit at the table. The average American family spends
seventeen minutes at the dinner table, So wanting to have
your eighteen month old, two year old, or even four
year old sit at the table engaging in pleasant conversation
for half an hour might be an unrealistic expectation. So
the first thing is set reasonable expectations and they pick
(11:34):
up on our stress. So if you're really anxious and
you're always correcting them around the behavior at the table,
it's going to really create a tense environment. So come
to the table, have reasonable expectations, and then when you're
noticing if they keep throwing food off the table, maybe
you need to start with a really small portion size
and then kind of add in from there. So focusing
it in on where is the friction, having reasonable expectations,
(11:57):
and then getting really curious and creative about the problem
solving you can do. So, whether it's serving smaller portions
once they're done with their meal, maybe the eighteen month
old is allowed to play with some blocks at the table,
whether rest of the people finish it, or so really
coming up with some creative solutions to whatever point of
friction you're facing. But I think the number one thing
is really having realistic expectations of what your child can
(12:19):
reasonably do.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Totally makes sense. Yeah, all right, Well, the next common dilemma,
and I'm sure you saw this one coming, is very
selective eaters. My co host Laura has five children, and
some of them are not very selective, and some of
them are extremely selective, and she uses that, I think
to reassure people sometimes that people love to be like,
(12:41):
it's what you did, and she's like, I didn't do
anything different. They are their own people, So it can
still be a certainly a point of friction and a
lot of families, especially when you're trying to serve things
that are not going to cause a lot of drama. So, yeah,
are your go to strategies for those with selective eaters
in the family.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
So I think the first thing is it really depends
on how selective we're talking. So there's some kids that
are sort of garden variety I won't eat green things
or this week I like this, and that's what I
call garden riety picky eating, and there's a lot of
strategies for that. Some kids have highly selective eating, often
with underlying neurodevelopmental or medical issues. So if you're dealing
(13:21):
with a kid who perhaps has autism or significant food
allergies or swallowing dysfunction, these are kids that probably need
some specialized support, whether it's an intervention from a gastreenrologist,
a feeding therapist, behavioral therapist, neure developmental pediatricians. And it
represents about one to five percent of kids who have
(13:42):
that really highly selective eating. It's not a parenting issue,
and it's not a kid doing something wrong issue. It's
the families often need a lot more support the other
sort of garden variety picky eating. I think it comes
down to two things. One is individual pat child temperament.
Some kids are just more selective and some kids are
more adventurous, and that's not really anything that you can
(14:03):
necessarily change. It's kind of like a personality thing. Some
kids are more outgoing and some kids are a little
bit more introverted. And so knowing the temperament of your child,
are they really eager to try new things or are
they really that slow to warm, they need a lot
more exposure. So that's the first part, and then the
second part really is the parental response to that. So
what happens is you might have a garden variety picky
(14:23):
eater and they need a little bit more support, they
need a little bit more encouragement, and the parent can
kind of overreact and then you start this sort of
battle situation. Where the parents are either bribing, they're negotiating,
they're forcing, they're making dessert contingent upon how many mites
of broccoli you have. So you take sort of a
(14:43):
mild feeding difficulty and you just explode it by the
parents reaction. And parents are very well meaning. They're doing
these strategies because they're afraid their kids aren't eating a
variety of foods, they're not getting the new dreams. So
I've heard parents saying, I'll do anything. I'll stand upside
down for twenty minutes if that's what it it takes
to get my kid to eat more broccoli or fill
in the bank blank. So what I often recommend is
(15:06):
that parents sort of backtrack some of the pressure techniques.
And it feels really scary because oftentimes parents will say, well,
if I don't promise them this, or threaten this, or
negotiate this, they won't eat any vegetable for weeks on end.
And the truth is, I found time and time again,
is that if parents take the pressure off and they
go back to core feeding dynamics principles of the division
(15:28):
of responsibility which we learned in pediatrics, which is parents
decide the when, the what, and the where of eating,
and then it's up to the child to decide how
much and whether they're going to eat the foods. It
seems really scary at first, but the less pressure that
kids eat, the more capable they are to try new foods.
And if you've got the kid that has the more
selective temperament, just knowing that it's going to take a
(15:51):
lot more exposures, a lot more pleasant experiences before they're
going to try the food. And I often this is
not just for feeding, but this is for general parenting.
It's like parenting the child you have rather than the
child you wish you had or the traits that you wish.
We all want adventurous eaters, but sometimes if you have
a child that's really got selective eating, they just have
that temperament, you actually have to go slower and have
(16:12):
more patience, which is often not easy.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I know, which totally makes sense. I sometimes also feel
like sometimes people are looking for some badge that their
kid eats X, Y Z, you know, food, and the
truth is, if it's not interfering with their lives and
they're getting enough nutrition overall, like looking zooming out of
the big picture, maybe it's like less of a problem
which might take some of the pressure off, which would, paradoxically,
(16:35):
from what I hear you saying, maybe even improve things.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, And I think it's like parents, like we grade
ourselves very harshly on all the things many how much wealthly,
how much sleep, how much screen time, and we can
just sort of pat ourselves on the back and say
we're doing the best that we can and be open
to the possibility that your child is actually going to
have a normal diet as they are adults, because I
(16:58):
know a lot of parents are thinking, like, I'm going
to have a kid that never eats a vegetable in
their entire life, and that's not the case. I think
that oftentimes, really the number one thing that parents can
do is to make the eating environment, the dinner table,
a pleasant environment, and it gives kids the permission to
relax and be able to try new foods because they're
not feeling so much pressure around it.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
I love that. Well, we're going to take a quick
break and be back with a few more dilemmas, maybe
for some older kids. All right, well, are back, and
I already hinted at one of these fairly common dilemmas
(17:43):
that can get in the way of the family table
or the family meal. But many kids these days have
a lot of activities, and I do feel like there
is this very common arc where people say, I am
not going to do that. I value my evenings, I
want to be home, so I'm not going to put
my kid in x y Z. But then their kids
friends end up at X y Z and their kid
(18:03):
wants to be an x y Z and you're like, okay, yeah,
And I'm absolutely one of those people. I think I said, oh,
we're not going to do that much, and I ended
up with like a competitive gymnast and a travel soccer
player at one point. So okay, knowing that, how can
we still cultivate some of the family dinner feel in
a context where everyone might be going in different directions.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, And I think this is really going to depend
on the age of your children. So when you have
kids that are younger and they need to have, like
especially if you have spanning younger and older kids, and
the younger kids really need their bedtime and you want
to make sure you get all the things in, it
might mean that you're doing sort of different dinner times
for different people. But as their kids get older, you
can sort of if your family can tolerate a little
(18:47):
bit later of a dinner, that might be a way
to sort of include everybody. And that's certainly what we did.
We would push dinner back and so we could get
all the kids at the and for our family, that
was a real priority, So I was willing to push
dinner back. For some families, it doesn't working. You just
do the best that you can. I think limiting sports
can definitely be one approach, and many families have found
success in that. Our family, i think is more like
(19:09):
your family. If our kids were committed to an activity,
they showed an aptitude or a real desire to participate.
As long as it wasn't interfering with their other important
things like sleep and friendships and things like that, we
tended to let them have the experiences. And for one
of my kids, for both my kids, actually their sports
(19:30):
activities ended up being a really great source of community
and friendship and leadership skills and commitment and all these
things that we really want our children to have. So
every family's going to have to find their balance with that.
One of the things actually from a preparation maybe we'll
touch on this is I think making it as easy
as possible for about six to seven to eight windows,
(19:53):
So if that means prepping some ingredients ahead of time,
having some quick, easy go to meals that don't require
my was when the kids were ready to eat, to
have dinner ready, so there wasn't that extra time of
like we just got home from soccer, Now we have
to think about what's going to happen for dinner. So
I think some amount of just probably feeds really into
your sphere of excellence and influences some planning and some
(20:15):
preparations so that you're not planning to decide what's for
dinner at six thirty when everybody's already hungry.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
And there's definitely certain type even getting into the weeds,
like certain types of meals that are easier to like
maybe serve over two shifts, or like you know, you
have younger ones, you can give it to them at six,
but it's very easy to like keep the crock put
on and it's still hot at eight thirty when everyone
gets back from soccer or whatever. So even the logistics
of what it is can make a difference.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
I'm a big fan of having a meal that can
be like reheated or can be put together really quickly.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Totally. Okay, Well, I love that, and I like the idea.
I have to toy with the idea of trying to
go later. Some of my kids are just like too
hungry and then they'll eat fifteen snacks and then there
is no dinner. But maybe maybe they can eat their
dinner but then sit there with like a cup of
tea later and you know, everyone can still hang out
around the table for a little bit.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So yeah, and I think sometimes what we used to
do is we used to do like a staggered dessert.
So if you're a family that does dessert, then the
older kiddo that just got home from practice is having
dinner and the rest of your having dessert or playing
a card game or something.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
No. I love that. Well, how about in terms of
selecting meals and even preparing meals, how do you recommend
kids get involved with that at what age? Any tips
for doing so? Because I can imagine that engaging in
the process itself might make it more fun for certain families,
might feel more like a burden in other families. So
(21:40):
I don't know that there's like a one size fits
all here, But how have you seen this play out the.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Way that I what's worked for our family and I
think is probably useful for a lot of families. Is
I like to think about it is an invitation because
for some families, getting the kids involved with cooking and
meal planning and prepping is a nightmare because it adds
actually more work to their plates. My bottom line is,
if it's useful, if it's going to make your life
easier and it makes your kids feel more engaged, go
(22:08):
for it. But if it feels like another tour or
another thing on your to do list, kind of rethink it.
So the way that it looked in our families, when
my kids were younger, they actually really liked to be
in the kitchen, especially when it came to baking or
other things. And sometimes it was like they'd help chop
some vegetables and then they'd go off and do whatever
it was that they were doing. And as they were
older and they had homework and sports and all the things,
(22:29):
they had very little to do with meal preparation. Now
they always had a job at the end, because I
don't believe that parents should be doing all the work.
So my kids always, even if it was a small
thing like setting the table or clearing the table, or
helping with dishes. They always had a job or responsibility,
but I think the involvement is really going to depend
on if it's making things easier for you, what phase
(22:50):
you are. One last tip that I'll give that was
really helpful to me is oftentimes you'll have kids complaining about,
like that's for dinner. So when I'm doing my planning
in my grocery shopping when they were younger, I would
always say, give me your wishes for the week. So
they might say, could you make surfy this week? Could
you make a pasta this week? And we had a
(23:10):
few things that were always on constant rotation, and the
deal was I would try to honor their wishes as
much as possible, but they weren't allowed to complain about
dinner once it was served, So that was kind of
I never intentionally tried to serve foods that they weren't
going to enjoy, but like I would ask for their
wishes for the week, and I think eventually it kind
of faded out, and the beginning it was a I
think it just makes kids feel heard and like they
(23:32):
have some say and they have some contribution. So I
think find what works for you, and if giving your
kids more jobs or responsibilities works in their schedule and
it makes life facier for you, go for it. But
if it feels like torture trying to get them to
help in the kitchen, then maybe let it go for
a while.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
In our house, this definitely depends on the kid because
we have certain kids that seem to have more interest
than other kids. Although it seems like everyone's gravitated towards
having more and I agree, it is definitely more work.
My husband's like, why don't you get them to help?
You know, I'm like, ye, in the zone, I'm like
listening to a podcast. I'm so happily making dinner. Maybe
not this time, but then other times it is really nice.
Or to watch them like learn a technique like oh,
(24:09):
you can make an omelet? Now, like how did that happen?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah? And like maybe don't do that on the night
when you have like two different practices and half an
hour apart, and that sort of thing. The one caveat
I will add to that is as kids get older,
you do want to give them some skills around food
preparation and things like that so that they are able
to actually cook for themselves, or if they're in college
and at a dorm, that they can actually put together
a reasonable meal. And both of my kids, I will say,
(24:35):
are fairly good at being able to cook for themselves,
and I don't have a lot of concerns about them
being able to put together a nutritious, delicious meal for themselves,
even if it's something really simple.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Oh that's awesome. Well, we're going to take another break
and then get into some specifics beyond the table. All right,
we're back, and we've been talking about dinner in general
(25:09):
and dinner time kind of like routines and just some tips.
But doctor Staw is also an expert on plant based
nutrition and also on parenting in general from all of
her years working as a pediatrician. So we're going to
move into some of these topics. And my next question
is for those who are more plant curious, Like maybe
they're not looking to make a change to say we're
(25:32):
a vegan family now or anything like that, but if
you are somebody who is just interested in incorporating more
plant centered foods, and maybe there's resistance from different members
of the family, I don't know, where would you tell
people to start.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, I love working with families that are fully plant
based or even just plant curious, And I would say
the best place to start is to really use an
ad in approach. And what I mean by that is
is that instead of thinking about removing things in the
I think the first place, especially f you of resistance
from kids or even partners in the household, is to
(26:06):
just simply add more plant based foods to your diet.
So if you're having eggs for breakfast, maybe you're adding
greensmovie or you're adding some fresh fruit or some blueberries
to your oatmeals. So just adding in more plant foods.
So it could be really simple. It could be like
some cut up vegetables and dip at lunch. It could
be a cup of lentil soup at dinner, having a
(26:26):
green salad. So just really thinking about where are the
places that I could add some more plant based foods in.
And I think the more that you do that you're
going to necessarily kind of crowd out some of those
more animal heavy foods. Another thing that I found is
to sort of treat the meat or the animal foods
as a flavoring. So if you're making a chili instead
(26:49):
of doing an entirely ground beef chili, maybe half of
that could be beans. So you're sort of just adding
more plant based foods into the meals that you already
love and enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I love that. I also think I'm going to add
money in myself, which is that if you have a
meal where everyone can choose the components, you can have
like maybe one meat option, but then other options as well,
and then people can kind of adjust the ratio how
they see fit. And if you make the non meat
ones enticing and colorful, then probably there's a good chance
that they'll be taken.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
And in general, I love this idea of a build
your own bowl or a build your own thing for
because kids love doing that, and again, it can take
some of the pressure and give them If it's not
a whole plate of tofu, they might give themselves permission
to like, hm, that looks kind of good. Maybe I'll
try a piece of that. So I love this sort
of build your own plate or bowl approach.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yeah, it's like low pressure. I'll just put a little
of that in the corner and we'll see how that
goes with everything else exactly. Now, one thing that you
mentioned in your kind of kind of pivoting away from
eating specifically, although of course if there are links there,
feel free to share them. But you help parents deal
with overwhelm. Now that is a very vague and broad topic,
but I imagine people come to you with all types
(28:00):
of overwhelm, and I'm curious as to kind of where
your starting point is.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Honestly, I think the most important thing that parents need
when I work with them in the beginning, I think
they just need to be heard and to have some validation,
because parenting is probably one of the hardest things that
we ever do, and oftentimes we're kind of doing it
alone and we see other people with the perfect Bento
box or the family meal or the manners are great,
(28:25):
and we feel like we're doing something wrong, and so
just having the space to be able to talk about
your experience, having some validation, and I think the problem
solving comes like way later. I think in the beginning,
it's just not feeling so alone in the experience that
you're having, And it could be something as small as
like dinner time feels really chaotic. To managing a new
(28:48):
diagnosis in a kid, something like Celiac disease or type
one diabetes, which I'm sure you have a lot of
patients like that. It's a really overwhelming thing and their
world has just been turned completely upside down. And oftentimes
in the office as a pediatrician, you just didn't have
the time to offer parents that kind of support and
understanding and acknowledging what you're dealing with is really really
(29:10):
tough and challenging, and you're doing a great job and
then going in with the specific resources and tools that
might help to make things a little bit easier, whether
it's at the dinner table or at bedtime or whatever
the situation may be.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
And I think you're right that the common theme is
probably taking the pressure off more than any you know,
secreator tip there. And you mentioned families with Nuancet type
one diabetes and they talk about like usually when we're
still in the hospital, they're like, Okay, that first dinner
at home is always kind of like a big deal.
And our party line is like, you can't mess this up, Like,
(29:42):
you know, as long as you don't we like, don't
mix up the two insulins, but beyond that, like you're
gonna be fine if you have a problem, let us know.
But like you don't have to be perfect, like you
can do this just like everyone else can. Oh my gosh.
But yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah, and I think just not feeling alone in that journey,
you know. It's just like it can be really isolating,
especially in childhood getting a diagnosis like this and feeling
like one of the families I was working with their
child who just gotten diagnosed with Celiac disease and they're
imagining like never ever going out to ice cream with
their friends. So it's just it's a lot to take in.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Yeah, or foodologies too, Oh my gosh. Yeah, all right, well,
nourish yourself too is also something that was mentioned on
your site, and I think definitely. You know, one of
the things we talk about on this podcast a lot
is how we love being parents. We love our kids,
but our lives count as well, and sometimes in the
like Mama sphere, people just kind of forget that, and
(30:39):
even the things that people do for themselves it's couched
as so that I can be a better mom, And
it's like wait, wait, wait, like that's great. And also
these years of our lives are going by and we
deserve to be happy even without you know, a benefit
for our kids. So I would love your take on
nourishing yourself or how you advise people to start give
(31:01):
them permission to do so, anything about in this category.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, and this is a topic that's near and dear
to my heart, especially as like in the last couple
of years we've become empty nesters. And I think that
if yes, you want to nourish yourself so that your
kids can sort of learn to prioritize their own well
being and also learn some patients. If we're one hundred
percent always there for our kids in every moment, they
don't learn sometimes that patience is required. I may not
(31:28):
be able to like drop everything and come deliver the
thing that you've forgotten. But I think also if we
aren't paying attention to nourishing ourselves along the way, when
the kids are out of the house, you're going to
be left wondering how do I take care of myself?
So I think it's really important to find that place
of figuring out the ways that you're going to get
(31:51):
a little bit of a break, a little bit of nourishment.
And it can come from getting to yoga every now
and then, it could come from actually making a meal
for yourself instead of just eating the kids leftovers. It
can come from like finding even ten or fifteen minutes
to read. I realized during the pandemic and since the pandemic,
my practice of just reading a book, whether it's for
(32:13):
pleasure or for work, My capacity to sort of just
sit and read a book was diminishing, like my attention span.
And so I've started a simple practice of every morning
making myself a cup of coffee and I just read
for ten or fifteen minutes. And it doesn't have to
be expensive spin classes or things that require a great
amount of time or money. It can be just a
(32:35):
really simple thing. And I think building in those places
that are intentional for yourself. It seems small, but I
can tell you it were so far in twenty twenty five,
I've already read more books than I did in twenty
twenty four. So those small things do end up batting up.
Oh my gosh, I love that.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Well. I forgot to warn you about our love of
the Week segment, but this will give you time to
reflect on it as I'll share mine, and if you
want to share one of those books that you have
loved this year, that's always a fun one. But really, guests,
can share anything from the sunset to something they're partnered,
to anything anything in the world that's making you happy.
So my love of the week, I'm going to go
(33:12):
on theme today just because sometimes it's fun to do that.
And my sister in law is vegan and she got
me a lovely cookbook called Life Changing Salads by Danielle Brown,
and it is just so beautiful and it's a little
bit aspirational, but I am absolutely making some of these salads.
And if you want a cookbook that is very beautiful
to flip through, but actually I say aspirational, the ingredients
(33:35):
are not like crazy or weird or hard. So if
you just want a starting point to put some more
plant heavy items in your rotation, then I would check
out that book.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Well, that sounds like an amazing book, I would say.
My love of the week is our weekly farmer's market.
The summer produce is in full bloom and everything is
just so delicious, from the summer corn to the nectarms
and the strawberries and the berries. So I have just
been loving our weekly farmer's Market. I'm they're pretty much
every Sunday.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
So and you were in California, so I bet your
weekly farmer's market is an absolute bounty.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yes, I think it's one of the best parts of
living in California is the farmer's market. It's year round.
When we used to live in the Midwest, I think
we have a farmer's market for like two or three
months out of the year, but we haven't year round.
And I will say that because of it, my kids
have really learned about seasonal eating. And I know we're
very fortunate that way. But right now we're not eating
any apples, but in the next couple months apples will
(34:34):
be in heavy rotation.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
I love it. Well, tell our listeners where they can
find you and your work.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah, so you can find me on my website it's
rachmashawandparentcoaching dot com. And actually on my website, I have
a list of I have several free resources, including a
guide to making family meals more manageable, as well as
a guide for parents that are wanting to explore more
plant based eating. It's a plant They started a guy
(35:00):
that has some easy recipes as well as some new
traits that you might want to pay attention to. And
the place that I tend to be most active is
on Instagram. And it's just my name Raschma Shaw so
it's r e Shma Shah and I try to post
parenting tips and lots and lots of recipes.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. This
was so much fun. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I really enjoyed chatting with you.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Well we are back, Sarah doing an excellent interview with
doctor Rashmasha about family meals, about eating.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
With kids in particular.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
So this question is from a listener who says, I
am in a rut list your top three crowd pleasing dinners.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
So, Sarah, what do you have? I'm going to go
with some bowls. I've been into bowls lately because sometimes
I don't even feel like using a recipe. And they're
just so customizable because you can have the kids pick
which components they want. So here's three balls for you,
bowl number one, and my kids like all of these
are various, at least some components of each of these
(36:03):
would be like a Asian sushi type bowl, So you
could do salmon just easy, Like it's one of my
favorite proteins to cook, just because it's so easy to
just throw in the oven and do it for like, but.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
This isn't sushi salmon.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
This is cooked salmon, regular cooked salmon. You get rice,
maybe some of those like seaweed packages at amami, which
comes frozen avocado, some kind of Asian dressing, maybe shred
some carrots in there. People can choose what they want
and then make your kind of sushi themed salmon bowl.
You could do a Mediterranean bowl. I did this recently.
You could throw and actually I did it recently with
(36:35):
all Trader Joe's components. So we had couscouse grilled chicken.
I think I made it myself, but of course you
could also get got routisserie chicken. You could do pre
cooked chicken, breast, whatever you want, cucumbers, tomatoes, feta, cheese,
they're premds hat siki, sauce, olives, and then I toasted
some peda and then just choose the components you like,
(36:56):
put it in a bowl, delicious, healthy dinner. And then
finally one that we very commonly at our house is
like a rice and bean like bowl. They kind of
like a make your own Chipotle style thing. So we'll
have like rice, available beans, maybe some frozen corn that
was heated up, salsa, cheese, avocado, sour cream and then
whatever protein you want, maybe some leftover chicken or sliced
up cooked sausages. My kids love this. We could probably
(37:18):
serve this like every night for a year, and I
don't even know if there would be complaints, so maybe
for me. But yeah, those are three bowls, none of
which require recipes, none of which are fussy, and depending
on how selective your kids are, are going to please
most palettes, maybe not all.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah, well the plain rice could always get eaten, Yes.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Plain rice, and maybe a little bit of plane beans
or chicken like done.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Yeah, well, I'm gonna actually sing the praises of a rut.
I gotta say there's nothing wrong with serving the same
crowd pleasing meals over and over again.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
So don't call it a rut.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Call it it like doing best of right routine, routine,
it's greatest hits. Like, it's not a rut, especially if
people can customize them, like taco night. Right, if you
have people who want nothing on a taco, who just
want a tortilla and some cut up cheese on the side,
they could eat that. But there's also people who could
(38:16):
put everything on their tacos and be happy with it,
Like make your own pizza is another one that allows
people at all different flavor levels of comfort to doctor
it up as they might wish. We do a pasta
night every week. Some people have sauce that is jazzed
up with like a pre made sauce that's jazzed up
(38:38):
with our own ingredients to our veggies and Italian sausage
and things like that.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Other people prefer.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Plain marinara sauce, which can also be pulled out of
the same jar before you put the rest in with
the sausage. Some people like just butter or just cheese
on their pasta or whatever. That is an option too,
But you can sort of introduce variety by having a
strategically takeout night in your week, so you can decide
(39:04):
like Monday's pasta, Tuesday is tacos, Thursday is breakfast for
dinner or pizza night, and then Wednesday is when you
order in something different to make it feel a little
bit less like a rut. And I think that could
help make those crowd pleasing dinners feel like it's not
just you're eating the exact same thing in the same
order over and over again. It's like you are a
(39:25):
couple nights a week to make it easy on yourself,
and then you introduce variety when it makes sense to
do so.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Awesome. Well, now I have even more ideas.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Excellent. Well, this has been best of both worlds. Sarah's
interviewing doctor Rishma Shaw on family meals and family eating
in general. We will be back next week with more
on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
join us next time for more on making work and
life work together.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2
Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com