Welcome to Season 2 of The Family Dinner Project Podcast! In each of our episodes, Content Manager Bri DeRosa and Executive Director Dr. Anne Fishel will talk through tough topics related to family meals. Pull up a chair and grab a plate — we’re serving up real talk about family dinner! You can get caught up on older episodes here. 

This mini-episode is a special edition! We’re answering a tough question submitted to us by a Family Dinner Project follower on Instagram:

“I have a partner who feels dinnertime is time to eat and not talk. I do my best to see his perspective. Our littles have trauma related to foster care, so they tend to talk so much that it takes them over an hour to eat. One has sensory processing and has been through feeding therapy. She has a limited diet to begin with, and we want to maximize her intake. Both have ADHD. Any suggestions?”

Key Takeaways:

• Go to 2:43 for the beginning of a discussion on how to untangle family dinner dynamics from nutritional intake
• Go to 6:58 for a conversation about handling sensory processing challenges at dinnertime
• Go to 10:28 for strategies to help with time management without adding pressure to the table
• Go to 12:30 for a discussion of the relationship dynamics involved in this question, and how to handle the difference of opinion between the two parenting partners

Related Episodes and Links:

• Episode 6: Table Trauma
• Episode 4: Picky or Problematic?
• Episode 9: Just the Two of Us
• The Welcoming Table Resources

Episode Transcript:

Bri DeRosa: Hello friends. Welcome to a very special episode of the Family Dinner Project podcast. Today we are doing a little bit of a mini episode tackling an important reader question. And this question came in to us via Instagram, which by the way, if you’re not following us, please do. 

This question says: “I have a partner who feels dinnertime is time to eat and not talk. I do my best to see his perspective. Our littles have trauma related to foster care, so they tend to talk so much that it takes them over an hour to eat. One has sensory processing and has been through feeding therapy. She has a limited diet to begin with, and we want to maximize her intake. Both have ADHD. Any suggestions?”

And Annie, I don’t know about you, but I read this and I thought, oh, oh, oh. There’s a lot here. 

Anne Fishel: There is, and you can just tell what a thoughtful person this is, that she’s trying to balance her relationship with her partner and her littles, as she refers to them, who come with some extra challenges into foster care with them.

You can tell that she’s really trying so hard to do right by everybody. And my first reaction is there’s so much that seems to be going right, that to be spending an hour, yes, maybe the time hangs heavy on the adults, but to me that is time so well spent for these small children, and this is such great bonding time, connecting time. So I’m kind of reluctant to throw any monkey wrenches into it. 

I get that it’s a lot of time to devote to one meal, but so valuable, too, for the kids, that the kids feel that comfortable. If they want to hang out for an hour and talk, I don’t want to mess with that, but I think we could suggest some things maybe around the edges.

I mean, for example, maybe partly uncoupling the nutritional concerns with the bonding that’s happening around the table. You’re thinking the same thing? So that maybe there’s some very hearty snacks that take place over the course of the day so that if the kids don’t have a full meal at dinner, the parents, the parents don’t have to be that worried about it ’cause they know the kids have had a smoothie or they’ve had a peanut butter sandwich. 

Bri DeRosa: Yeah. I mean, you’re so, obviously so right, Annie, as always. I read this and I thought, oh my gosh, there’s so much here. We have, we have a marital challenge or a relationship challenge here, which may not be a huge challenge, but we have two differing points of view, right, between one parent who says, dinner is, they just need to eat. We’re not talking at dinner. They just need to eat. And the other parent who’s like, I don’t know about that. I’m trying to balance the perspective here, but I, I don’t know if that’s right. So that’s issue one. 

Then we have issue two, which is trauma related to foster care. We have feeding therapy, sensory processing issues, ADHD, all these brands of, of medical and neurodivergence challenges. And then we have the simple fact of, as you say, nutrition and intake. This is a lot, but the more I looked at it, the more I thought, you know, it may be actually more simple than we’re making it. Dinner is about having food available and using that as a medium to connect and bond.

And with any family, we would tell people, this is never about how much or what someone eats. So we never want parents in any situation to be looking at the children at the table and commenting on what they’re eating or how much they’re eating, trying to pressure – even positive pressure, right? Trying to pressure kids to eat more, trying to pressure kids to try new things. It’s not about that. And in this family in particular, I think it needs to not be about that. 

And I hear the anxiety about needing to make sure that they get enough calories, but I think you’re spot on that that can happen in different ways. And so maybe, you know, if the kids have a special, you know, very nutritious smoothie that they like, there can be smoothie time before bed, right? Bedtime snack or something, or after dinner or away from the table. Or if, you know, if these kids eat well in certain contexts and not in others, we can lean into that. So, you know, one thought that I had is the dinner table might be a place where they’re talking a lot and processing a lot, and it doesn’t feel like a format where they want to eat as much, but that’s a routine and a ritual and a very grounding thing that this family should continue, to your point.

But maybe once or twice a week we have a floor picnic and we turn on a movie and the food is just available, spread out, and maybe the kids will eat a little bit more on those nights. And that doesn’t mean you do that all the time, but you can build that in as you know, a once a week or twice a week ritual that they can rely on and where you know, hey, they’re gonna get more food on this night than others. I can be a little bit less worried. 

Anne Fishel: Yeah, I love that idea. And I think really emphasizing the importance of creating a ritual for this family, which they’re doing. That’s something that they can, the kids can grow into. Maybe they’re not eating with gusto right now, but this family is really setting the stage for them to be able to do that as the kids grow more comfortable, more secure, more anchored, more relaxed, and the eating may flow from that. 

I love the ideas of, you know, all these sort of uncoupling ways, the snack at night or the, the snack when they get home from school or having a mealtime that doesn’t, that looks a little bit different like a, a picnic or whatever. Then, you know, I was also thinking about some of the strategies that families have found useful for kids with sensory challenges that might help this family, like kids helping with the cooking, getting their hands into oil that they smear on vegetables, and they might be more likely to eat those crispy vegetables when they come out of the oven if they’ve had their hands on them.

Or they might wanna play food detective where they pick a vegetable that maybe they don’t love right now, or they haven’t tried and they do some experiments away from the table. You know, how far can you throw it? How, what does it smell like if you lick it? What are three words that come to mind? So that they’re getting some exposure to food, but without the expectation that they have to eat it, so that that may be something variations of, that they’ve done with the feeding therapy that they’ve had.

Bri DeRosa: Yeah, and I, I, I think that’s such a great point. You know, there’s, there’s also this kind of almost gamification thing that you can do that might encourage eating both away from and at the table. That might make it more friendly and more interactive. And then you’re coupling that talking and sitting and playing and eating.

We have a lot of these types of activities and ideas on our Welcoming Table page. And I did, I did send that resource to this reader when she first commented. I said, you know, we’re gonna talk about this, but you might find some things here. And the point being, you know, I think when you and I originally kind of talked about this, you had said, oh, maybe depending on the age of the kids, maybe they’re sitting at the table, you know, you might say, you know, I see a yellow food. I wonder what the yellow food tastes like. Right? And so maybe, maybe the child might decide to also wonder what the yellow food tastes like, and you might get a couple of bites in that way. 

Any way that you can engage and model I think is great. Anything that smacks of, no, we’re not talking right now, we’re eating right now, might be a little bit more pressure internalized to these kids to, quote unquote, do the right thing or perform to expectation, than is actually maybe good for them given their trauma context. 

Anne Fishel: Yeah, I think, I mean, food and intake is one area that we, you know, young children, older children, adults, have control over.

And for children who have not had much control over their lives, perhaps because they’ve been exposed to trauma, food becomes ever the more salient an area. And so we don’t want to mess with that. We don’t want to get into a control battle with these kids, with any kids really. So being playful about the food, being creative about it, I think these are the ways to go to encourage eating.

Bri DeRosa: Yeah, I agree. And I, I definitely understand, by the way, there may be some anxiety related to growth and physical health around this nutrition piece and intake piece. And we, we will never, ever, ever tell a family to ignore the wisdom or advice of their medical professionals. So I just wanna throw that in there, that if your pediatrician or your feeding therapist are like, they’re not getting enough calories, yeah, that’s a real thing and we do need to deal with that.

But actually, if the dinner table doesn’t feel like a place where they want to eat, it might not be the best place. Right? You might need to be a little bit more creative. And I also wanna give permission to this family, and to all families, to say if they don’t eat very much of their plate at dinner, if they don’t eat well at dinner, it is really fine to just say, okay, you know what? Right now it’s time for us to clean up the kitchen. Right? Because you can’t sit there forever. I get it. You know, your partner’s probably going, literally, it’s 8:00 PM. We have to do bath and bed, right? Or whatever. 

It’s okay to say, now is the time where we need to start cleaning up.We need to do whatever the next thing on the family agenda is. But I’m gonna set your plate aside. We’re gonna put it on the counter here. And if you start to feel hungry, it’s okay to come back and have a few bites where your plate is at the counter. That’s fine. 

And one thing that I think we don’t honor enough sometimes with kids is family dinner is a set of skills. It’s not just eating. They are trying to manage so many things. 

Anne Fishel: Yeah. 

Bri DeRosa: Social conversation, interaction, turn taking, how do you sit still at the table? How do you interact? These are lots of things, and the fine and gross motor skills, and the sensory input, and the chewing and swallowing and the trying new things and…it’s a lot.

Anne Fishel: Am I hungry or not? I mean, even. Many children really have not learned to tune into their own bodily cues of, yeah, I should eat now because I’m hungry. 

Bri DeRosa: Right, right. And with a child with sensory processing challenges, that may actually even be enhanced for some of those kids where they aren’t getting that interoceptive kind of cue, or they’re not reading it as well for hunger or fullness. And so we also need to be watching that. 

And sometimes decoupling that eating from all of the social input helps just smooth that out for them in a way that, yeah, they might take four bites of the pork chop at the counter, but they weren’t gonna do it at the table. ’cause the table is stimulating in a different way. And we wanna honor that. 

Annie, I, I do wanna just ask really quickly, so this now becomes a relationship issue, right?

Anne Fishel: I was just thinking that. Just thinking, have we really addressed that? And, and I think we’re, we’re in danger of siding very much with the person who wrote in the question and maybe not being quite as sympathetic to the partner’s point of view.

And one thing I would say about that is I think it would be perfectly fine sometimes to have one partner at the table while the other partner goes and reads his mail or takes a quick shower or whatever it might be, that family dinners don’t have to be two parents at the table the whole time. There might be a kind of divide and conquer strategy that could help with time management for this family.

Bri DeRosa: Yes. We tend to agree that dinner is more about the connection, so that does make us take a side here, if there is a side to be taken. But I 100% feel the frustration or concern that may be coming from this other partner where he’s thinking, They’re not eating enough. We need to make sure that they’re growing, that they’re fed, and to your point, like the patience of sitting at that table for an hour when they’re thinking, we need to clean up. We need to, I need to go – Maybe I’ve still got work to do tonight, or whatever the thing is, or I just just want an evening. That’s okay too! That’s valid!

So yes, I love that idea that you can take turns at the table, you can take breaks, you can break dinner into mini meals. Maybe everybody goes away from the table, you know, maybe you do like 15 or 20 minutes and then everybody needs a little bit of a shakeout, a dance party, whatever.

But we’re gonna leave our food, you know, and we’ll come back in 15 minutes or something and try again. There are lots of ways to manage this and if your partner needs to put on their oxygen mask, it’s, let’s let them do that. 

Anne Fishel: Sure. Right. Yeah. I like the idea of taking breaks. I think it’s a long time, even if the kids are enjoying the conversation, it’s a long time to be sitting, particularly if a child has ADHD, it may be welcome for the kids to get up and run around and then come back. So that may also help. 

Bri DeRosa: Yeah, absolutely. Even to take that break and have the family work together on starting to clean up the kitchen. Like it’s okay to like, start soaking the pots and pans, or put away some of the ingredients that are still out on the counter while your food is still on the table.

There’s no, there’s no law, right? So you could do this any number of ways. You could go have playtime, or if playtime feels too unstructured and it spins them out, then we’re gonna have a kitchen dance party while we do a little cleanup together and then we’re gonna come back. Right. Build in different ways that you’re all kind of on the same page, but that they get that movement break, that they get some, you know, some way to come away from the table.

‘Cause you’re right, an hour is a really long time to sit. And we’re assuming that the kids are happily sitting for an hour. But if it’s actually an hour of kind of nagging and you know, redirecting, you might be able to get that time down really quickly by not trying to nag and redirect, right? You know?

It might be problem solved if you just kind of go, you know what? They’re gonna eat what they eat and we’re gonna make sure that they don’t go to bed hungry by offering a boring but nutritious bedtime snack. My grandmother would’ve given me bananas and milk. 

Anne Fishel: Mm-hmm. 

Bri DeRosa: Boring, but it gets the job done.

And then you’re not worrying about like, oh, they’re going to bed hungry. That’s gonna make bedtime hard. Oh, they’re not growing. Oh, right. All those things that you might be worrying about. 

Anne Fishel: Alright. Well I hope that there was a helpful idea or two in there. 

Bri DeRosa:I hope so too. 

Anne Fishel: And maybe she’ll write back and let us know, or… 

Bri DeRosa: I would love to know how this family gets along with just considering some of these perspectives. ‘Cause I, you know, I’m rooting for them. I think you said right off the bat there’s so much good stuff happening here. 

Anne Fishel: Yeah. 

Bri DeRosa: This amount of care and concern and thought is just, A-plus. Good job, parents. You’re doing the work, so yeah, so let us know. 

Thanks so much, Annie, for hopping on to talk about this today. And hey, everybody out there, if you have questions, send them to us, connect with us on social media or contact us, we have a contact form on our website. Whatever it is, reach out. We’d love to hear from you. We’d love to answer more questions, so we will hear from you soon, and see you next time on The Family Dinner Project Podcast.