Hear the fear: a language tool for parents of anxious eaters

If your child finds eating hard, the chances are mealtimes are stressful and anxious… for both you AND them! Sometimes, your child will put that worry into words.

I like to do live Q & A sessions in my private Facebook group for parents in my online programme and last week, a member called Sarah asked me a really insightful question about how best to have conversations about food anxiety with her child. She is happy for me to share her question about her daughter here:

“…after receiving no help for the 4 years she’s been eating and told by professionals it’s normal, I’ve had to do my own research. It all just conflicts and I’ve ended up lost and not trusting my motherly instincts with food related topics. I’m scared to talk about food with her in case I make it worse.

So when she said ‘I’d like to eat a tomato one day’ I said…’Did you like it when we grew tomatoes last year?’ She chatted about that and how fun it was.

I would have liked to ask what about a tomato she doesn’t like. The smell? The colour? The shape? And if there is anything she does like about a tomato. Try and talk through her fears, but maybe she’s too young to understand.”

This question got me thinking. As a therapist, I am very conscious of how people respond to expressions of emotion in others and how – especially with children – we can shut conversations down or facilitate them, depending on our responses. I touched on this recently when I wrote about what happens when we ask children if they like a particular food.

When I chatted about this topic in the Q & A session, I was struck by the way in which our urge to reassure, educate and solve can get in the way of great communication. I decided to share the advice I gave Sarah here, because I think other people may find it useful.

 

Getting to the WHY

Asking a child why they dislike something is such an adult concept. And it’s based on a false assumption: the belief that they even consciously know why in the first place! As grown ups, we want to understand what is behind a child’s food rejection and why seems like a good place to start, but that speaks to our needs more than the child’s needs.

 

Trusting your intuition

I recognised Sarah’s experience of that muddying of maternal intuition due to too much conflicting advice,  and it made me sad – because actually, her instinct to talk through her daughter’s fears with her was bang on. I have written about learning to trust that inner voice before. Sarah just needed a little guidance on how to talk those fears through.

 

How to talk about food-fears

The best way to respond to an expression of food anxiety is to hear it. And in order to help a child feel heard, we need to let them know that we have understood what they are trying to tell us. Sounds simple, no? It is and it isn’t. Let’s imagine Sarah’s daughter had told her that she didn’t feel brave enough to try a tomato and that just thinking about it made her feel worried.

The urge to reassure might lead to: “you don’t need to try it, don’t worry!”

There is a place for making sure kids understand what is and isn’t expected of them, but a more valuable response would be to hear the fear.

The urge to educate might lead to: “well, it takes lots of tries to get used to a new food, you might need to lick or smell it first, or even just touch it”. Again, it can be useful – especially by teaching through example – to show children that there are many ways to become familiar with new foods that don’t entail biting into them, but hearing the fear will open more doors and will give your child an avenue for exploring their feelings.

The urge to solve is especially powerful – what parent doesn’t want to kiss it all better? This might lead to “okay honey, let’s move the tomato away”. Now, like in the other examples, I’m not telling you that this would be the wrong thing to say. Actually, a big part of working with food anxiety is getting a sense of what your child needs in order to feel comfortable at the table. But to hear the fear will help your child feel understood and this is really important.

 

How does this work?

We hear the fear through reflection: just by allowing it to exist – acknowledging it – refraining from dismissing it, fixing it or denying it. Sarah could say to her daughter: “you don’t feel ready to try a tomato yet” She could say: “when you imagine trying a tomato, you feel scared”.

When I’ve shared this tool with parents before, they have expressed a concern that, by validating the fear, they will somehow be making it more real for the child. Well, the fear IS real. And by reflecting it back we give the child an invitation to explore it further, along with the message that it’s okay to feel that way and we hear them.

Maybe your child has said quite a lot about their feelings. In this case, try to paraphrase – to sum up what they have said in your own words. You might get it a bit wrong; that’s fine, that gives them a chance to correct you and in so doing, to further process what is going on for them.

Think of yourself as a mirror – if your child tells you about something they are worried about – food or non-food related, a big part of listening to them actively, is reflecting and paraphrasing what they have to say. There will come a time to educate, to reassure and even to do your best to fix things, but if you start by hearing the fear, you’ll be paving the way for great quality communication that will benefit both you and your child.