Which feeding style do you bring to the table? Listen to hear about the four styles. Plus, learn one of our cohost’s favorite food strategies!
Send us an email: parenting@iastate.edu.
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Which feeding style do you bring to the table? Listen to hear about the four styles. Plus, learn one of our cohost’s favorite food strategies!
Send us an email: parenting@iastate.edu.
Find us on Facebook: @scienceofparent.
This institution is an equal opportunity provider. For the full non-discrimination statement or accommodation inquiries, go to www.extension.iastate.edu/diversity/ext
Welcome to The Science of Parenting podcast, where we connect you with research based information that fits your family. We'll talk about the realities of being a parent and how research can help guide our parenting decisions. I'm Mackenzie Johnson, parent of two littles with their own quirks. And I'm a parenting educator.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:And I'm Lyndi, Professor of Human Nutrition, guest co-host, and a mom to one sweet angel baby and one young, ferocious eater.
Mackenzie Johnson:I know we were debating ferocious, voracious, ferocious, there's a lot of options. I'm like, ferocious. You did good.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Did I do right? Is that right?
Mackenzie Johnson:You got it. We're still practicing.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:I think it's voracious. But either way, he likes to eat alot.
Mackenzie Johnson:We'll figure that out before the next episode. Either way, Lyndi's here. Yes. And we are we're just excited to have you here in season 10. Lyndi as our guest co-host as we talk all about food and kids, and parenting, and feeding and all of it and eating and all the things. But yeah, so last week, we did our introduction to this season, right? We talked about all the different things that influence why we eat what we eat. And you know that we talked about that there was a model, aka framework basically, that there are layers that influence our child as an individual. There are factors from the family level and factors from the broader community culture. So all kinds of good stuff that we're going to kind of talk a little bit more about this season. But what's today, Lyndi?
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:So today, we're going to narrow in a little bit and we're going to examine how our attitudes and beliefs as parents influence what our kids eat.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yes. And those are called feeding styles, right? Feeding styles. Yes. And you're going to find out why I'm really excited about them. Well, when am I not excited? Sometimes I'm not excited. But I'm really excited about this, in particular, feels like such a perfect fit. So feeding styles. Well, I love to start with a definition. That's the thing you've heard and now here you are defining for me, Lyndi. What's a feeding style?
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yes. So Hughes, et al, defines feeding styles as the broad approach that parents take to feed children and the emotional climate in which feeding occurs.
Mackenzie Johnson:Awesome. Yes, I'm like, yeah, of course, it's the approach we take to feeding our kids. But I love the component of the emotional climate. I like that that's a part of it, too. The style you have but it's also part of the climate we create.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yeah, well, we're gonna talk about this, but responsiveness, responsive feeding. It includes things not only about how we feed our children, but the environment around how we feed our children. That kind of thing. So I think emotional climate is very important to
Mackenzie Johnson:I love a term. I love when something is include. just described very accurately, love that. But the reason or one of the reasons I am so excited about this episode is that Lyndi gathered a lot of the research, which I typically get to do. And so Lyndi, of course, has the expertise. So she shared all this great stuff and I got to dig into a little bit, and literally in this report, it was talking about parenting styles, and how feeding styles are really built off of them. And I love that parallel of, we've talked about parenting styles lots of different times, you know, especially all the way back in season one. And I'm like, other times, too, it comes up. But yeah, that feeding styles is really built around the same concepts.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yes, yeah. Feeding styles is an adaption of parenting styles. And we're gonna talk about that today. But I also just want to say that I think a lot of what we're going to talk about, you can find in other seasons of Science of Parenting, that we're going to talk about today. Because we're gonna talk a lot about autonomy today and how we support autonomy, right? But specifically, as we're getting back to feeding styles, so the report that we continue to reference today from Healthy Eating research, says like parenting styles, feeding styles are characterized in terms of one, demandingness and two, responsiveness. So yep, when talking about demandingness, we're talking about how much the parent encourages or controls eating so kind of two sides of the coin right there. So talking about limit setting, rule expectations, and then responsiveness is the other one. And that's how parents respond to the child's cues and needs to encourage eating and support child's developing autonomy. There's that word, autonomy.
Mackenzie Johnson:Independence, choice, those would be synonyms for autonomy. And yeah, I love that the dimensions are literally the same. Right? So we talked about demandingness and parenting style, too, of having appropriate expectations, asserting authority in an appropriate way. But these are really honed in. You kind of gave an example earlier when we were talking through this of kind of the parenting styles are broad, right. And we're narrowing down to one category of dimension of parenting when we're looking at feeding. So right, we're looking at the physical health and physical eating. And like, yeah, it's what it might look like with feeding, right? That authoritative style or that, well, spoiler, I'm starting to give it away. Oh, but yeah, but I love that it's the same dimensions. And I always love definitions. I think that's a great place to start. So all kinds of similarities. So let's hear about these feedings styles specifically. So there's four, right? Just like parenting styles. There's four.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yeah, yep. So Hughes and colleagues published the different styles in a text called Families, Food, and Parenting. So the four styles that they talk about are authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and uninvolved. But I'm gonna first start with authoritative and explain what that is. So again, we're gonna go back to those two different components of feeding styles, parenting styles, the demandingness and the responsiveness. So when we think of an authoritative style, authoritative style is high demandingness. But then also high responsiveness.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yes. So both high, both high. So then, one of the things in this report was this table. So there's the formal definition that it might look like offering reasoning for why we're offering this or things like that. It also says parent involvement, being nurturing and having some structure around feeding. And so then, something else we want, we're like, okay, that's what the report says. What do Lyndi and Mackenzie say, right, so we're workshopping. Okay, how are we going to tell everybody? How we're going to describe this authoritative style? And we thought of a menu. That's a word picture. You're bringing in our Lori vibes here, Lyndi. Yeah. The idea of a menu is a really good description of this style, right, that it's about choice and structure. And yeah, when you're authoritative, it's like having a menu.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yeah, exactly. You want to put some structure around what they're doing, again, you know, that demandingness, how much a parent encourages or controls. So you want to encourage them, you don't want to control per se, but you want to set those expectations. But then again, you know, important that high responsiveness, you want to be responsive to those child's cues. You want to foster that independence and autonomy to do what they want. So hopefully a menu is a little bit easier way of remembering this, thinking oh, yeah, authoritative is high demanding and high response.
Mackenzie Johnson:And I think one of the other reasons I like this word picture of having a menu being associated with authoritative feeding style is when I get the menu from a restaurant, I don't fight about it, right? Like it just is. And so I also kind of like that, like, yeah, with authoritative, these are just the choices. It's not about control, per se, as much as like, this is what we're willing to offer. And so I just, I love that word picture of a menu. So then what about authoritarian? Again, another parenting style where those two are the same. Authoritarian? What about that feeding style?
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yeah, so authoritarian going back to we're thinking about those two dimensions. So it is high in demandingness. So thinking about it's higher in controlling what we're eating. Authoritarian, you know, you're controlling, but it's low in that responsiveness. So you're not really responding to the child's cues in the same way that you would be if you're just following their lead and you're being responsive.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yeah, that makes sense. In the table of characteristics tells us, this style would often be more restrictive, sometimes even punitive or rejecting of the child and what the child wants. And that it's often like power assertive, or like, I'm in charge, that the parent has that. And so I thought a good way to describe this is basically like, the parent decides and the child complies, right? So if we are having an authoritarian feeding style, it can be things like, well, you can eat it whether you like it or not, right? It can be even like, we talked about the clean plate club, that idea that you have to eat everything on your plate, right, but that the parent sets these rules and the child just has to comply. That would be more authoritarian, right?
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yes. Yeah. I feel like this is one I think of that would be easy to fall into as a type A person and then also someone who does all their work in the nutrition and health space, because I want to make sure my kids are eating the healthy things I want. However, that can backfire in a lot of ways. If we are teaching our children that food is a punitive thing, or this is all they have to offer. Again, we're not supporting that autonomy or letting them make their own decisions around food.
Mackenzie Johnson:And Lori always jokes about when it comes to the temperament trait of regulation or rhythm that parents want to control the eat, sleep, poop, right? Like, it's an instinctive thing. I am the adult in charge of this small person. This is the thing I must control. And it's like, well, there's a balance. I mean, like literally everything else in life, there's a balance. And you can have too much control without being responsive to the child's needs. And if we're like being dismissive or rejecting or punitive, that's not really offering the warmth and responsiveness that we want. Exactly, yes, we're teaching them one way to eat versus the menu of ways to eat. Yeah. Oh, there it is again. I know. And I was like, we're working so hard to get these food puns. And I forgot to mention earlier, very excited about the title, right, the title of this episode being what we bring to the table. We're gonna talk about that a little bit later, but I am excited to tell you about that. Okay, so the third style, indulgent. So in parenting styles, we often would call that permissive, but I think indulgence is good word for it, too. I like that word indulgence.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:I feel like it's a good food word to continue with our food puns. Yes, we did not plan this one. Maybe you did. Indulgent. So again, going back to those two dimensions, indulgent is low demandingness. So no control, you know, not that structure, whether it be good or bad structure, but high in terms of responsiveness. So you know, you want a cupcake. Okay, here's a cupcake.
Mackenzie Johnson:So the characteristics are yes, warmth and acceptance, but no monitoring, right? So not really being involved in the choices that are offered or things like that. So we thought a good description for this was just kind of a free for all, right, whatever a child wants is what they get. And not really, a lot of times, not having the structure, like you said, of, oh, well, these are things we're going to offer or we're going to offer some balance or yeah, we can eat cupcakes sometimes. But I'm not going to let you eat like nine of these cupcakes right now.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Cupcakes every night for dinner. Yes, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a perfect way of saying it. It is a balance. Having that low demandingness means that there isn't any of that structure put into place so that your child can make that decision to maybe not have a cupcake for dinner tonight.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yep. Yeah. And it is like the free for all. And I remember when we were talking about parenting styles. In that episode, we talked a little bit about synonyms of these different dimensions. And so yeah, for like demandingness. We talked about expectations, but one of the other ones was authority. And I liked that word. And I think that fits here with indulgence, like, if you are giving up all of your authority when it comes to food, and yeah, not that I'm going to decide every single thing that goes in your mouth. But I'm going to have some influence, right. I'm going to make sure you have options. I'm going to make sure sometimes we eat something besides cupcakes like yeah, sometimes something else. So yeah, that indulgent. I agree. I like that. That term is the one. You know, I like a good term. That's the one for that one. Somebody did that right. Yeah. All right. And then our fourth one, pretty similar to the parenting style again. We might have used the word negligent in this fourth category. But I like the word uninvolved, right? I like that, too. It's a good description of it.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yeah, uninvolved is kind of exactly what it says it is. You don't have any involvement or take an active role per se, in your child's feeding. So it is a low demanding and low responsiveness. So you're not responding to those cues. You're not providing any of that structure. It's just uninvolved.
Mackenzie Johnson:And so yeah, this has little control, little involvement when it comes to feeding. And we thought, this is kind of like, best of luck. Like, I don't know, oh, you're hungry, go find something. And actually, I've talked about my kids like to get up in the morning and watch TV. And I have probably had all of these styles in the like my kids wake up earlier than we do, in that category of our day. I've maybe had a little bit of all of these styles. Sometimes I've been like, yes, here are choices. Here are the things that we're going to offer. Versus sometimes it's like, no, you can have this and only this. You can have one, right? I've been very controlling about it sometimes. Sometimes I've been in that indulgent of like, I mean, I'm tired. Just do whatever you want. Go find something. Oh, I have a story that is not my best moment. I literally came downstairs one time to our kids eating granulated sugar. Interesting. Like the sugar tub. Yes. In the living room. Scooped hands. Oh, it was a lot. Yep. So there's been times when I've definitely been indulgent of like, yeah. And I mean, that wasn't ideal. And we had to change some things. You know, we responded to that. But that was Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think yeah, I think you make a good something that happened. And then yeah, sometimes when I have a kid that decides I need a snack at 2am. Tired Mackenzie is not a reliable parent. Like, I cannot be trusted at 2am. And yeah, okay. They went downstairs and they found something. Best of luck. If you're hungry, go get something. So I've been all of these probably at different points. But feeding style is more about a general rule, like a general belief and attitude. Right? point. It definitely seems like you can shift between them. But I think coming back to it, all the things it sounds like you do really do reflect that authoritative style, where you're setting that boundaries. Like we probably shouldn't just be eating raw sugar in our living room. For many reasons. For a lot of reasons. Ants being one.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:That's exactly what I was thinking. The mess. I was also thinking about my dog potentially getting into it. Oh, yeah. really awful. But you know, so providing that structure of No, you know, we shouldn't do that. But not maybe being punitive in the fact like, okay, well, you did this, you can't do something else.
Mackenzie Johnson:So now nothing in the morning.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yeah, yeah, exactly. So maybe you can pull different feeding styles into what you're doing but I think in general, it sounds like your attitudes and beliefs really come from, I'm trying to guide them in the right path on what to eat, provide them structure. Because they do get up in the morning. You've talked to me about you have the botobox kind of style in the morning where you have an option or you do lay out food for them. But you also do that preemptively because you know, you're not gonna get up to help them, right? So you are providing structure, right? With autonomy within that structure.
Mackenzie Johnson:And so I have in the last few months, our strategy for I'm not gonna get up at 5am with you. And I'm really bad because I don't go to bed early. Like if I could get myself - that's a whole other thing. Okay. But so I don't wake up when they get about four, or if one of them does, so we've just got little cheap little containers. And then on Sundays, we set up the food for the week. So each container is like a 5am is early. breakfast for the morning. And so these are the food groups that are going to be offered. You could choose an apple sauce, or you could choose an apple or those are kind of the same thing. Like an applesauce or even dried fruits. Or yeah, like a carb, like a granola bar, a little thing of cereal, whatever. And then, usually, we try to do like some kind of protein or dairy of like, a beef stick, a cheese stick, a yogurt, like, but so it's like, okay, those were the categories. So that was the structure I was providing. And so they can get up in the morning and get themselves, you know, whatever that box is gonna look like. And so that was kind of our balanced way of that is just a little chaotic here in the morning, guys. A little chaotic. Very early for me. But yeah, so there's four different styles. And I do think there's a little bit of grace in that. When we think about styles we're talking about generally, right, like if I'm with friends or family and I get caught up in doing something fun. Yeah, my control and authority over what my kids eat, I can get distracted. But in general, what we strive for and what our general beliefs are around food is what has the most impact, right? Not those kinds of exceptions. Or at least I hope. Maybe I'm just telling myself a nice story about it.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:No, I mean, we can't be, with parenting styles, you can't be perfect all the time. Right.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yeah, thank goodness. Right. Thank goodness, it's the general experience. Because I do think, I mean, this might be an assumption, but I feel like for many parents, the goal is to raise a healthy kid, you know. You talking about raising a healthy independent eater. And I do think that at some level on a lot of people's radars, none of us want kids that aren't healthy when they grow up, or even as kids, want them to be healthy. And so let's talk a little about the outcomes associated with these views. Because honestly, we talked about research and reality, not just the style themselves, but what's the impact of them? What are the outcomes? How does that affect our kids?
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yeah, definitely. And one of the great things about feeding kids and feeding styles is there is a wealth of research and literature out there for us to pull in to talk to you guys about today. So a 2013 review of literature on the influence of parenting style and feeding styles on childhood health outcomes found that across different parenting and feeding styles, it was really the authoritative style, so you know, high demand and high responsiveness, appeared to be the most protective parenting and feeding style. So what I mean by that is it was associated with the best outcomes in terms of kids eating, having a better diet quality, and that kind of thing. Better eating behaviors. Yeah. So on the flip side of that, the indulgent feeding style was consistently associated with the more negative health outcomes.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yeah, it's interesting to me, the authoritative, that tracks with what we understand about parenting styles and the research around them. And the research around feeding styles from the report that you sent, or that I was reading that you sent, looks like it's even more solid, right? There's really consistent research around authoritative feeding styles having positive outcomes for kids' health. I do feel like I was a little surprised that indulgent was the most associated with negative outcomes, because I could see downfalls of the different strata, like of the different styles in other ways. Like if they are uninvolved, do kids feed themselves enough? Like are we underweight? But there's outcomes across all of that, but that the indulgent was associated? I mean, right. It says a little specifically was like problematic eating behaviors, poor diet quality, higher weight, yeah, there was just a lot of negative outcomes for our kids.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yeah, and, oh, go ahead.
Mackenzie Johnson:Well, I was gonna say I think of that indulgent style of one of my friends. She would hate that I'm telling this story. When I think of the indulgent feeding style of our kids, my friend tells the story about she would go to visit grandma. And this was like, once a year, she'd go stay with her grandma who lives far away in the summer. And she talks about it. She's like, yeah, I remember I was eating chocolate chips for supper in the bathtub.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Very indulgent.
Mackenzie Johnson:Very indulgent. Right, very indulgent. And so obviously, it's not always that extreme. But just that idea of yeah, have whatever you want, however you want. And if that is the regular experience of a child, right, if
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:And yeah, I think that's a perfect I get to know food that way? Yeah, you told us last week that way of thinking of why indulgent is likely associated with the if we're predisposed, your bodies are naturally going to want that sugar. And yeah, and if we never, I don't know if worst outcomes is because what indulgent is, it's that low curb is the right word for that, but if we never foster interest demandingness but high responsiveness. So it's a lot of in anything else, sugar alone is not enough for our bodies, right? We need protein, we need other stuff. that warmth. And as parents, if you see your kid liking what would be considered the unhealthier options but you want to be responsive to them, and you want to make them happy, you're going to continue to give them the food that they are going to be more likely to like because it tastes better to us. Right? Versus the things that maybe don't taste quite as delicious to us. So I think that's probably why indulgence has the highest association with those poor health outcomes.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yeah. And as you said that, you know, you talking about wanting our kids to be happy, like, oh, yeah, enjoy. I think there can be a lot of things that inform our style, our feeding style, and I think, what do we bring to the table? I was talking to Lyndi a little bit about this. What do we bring to the table? Right? That's the name of the episode. Baggage. Yeah, we bring baggage to the table in some cases, because yeah, maybe my inclination toward a food and so I might be indulgent because maybe growing up, my parents were so strict with food that the pendulum has swung so far that I'm like, I never want my kids to feel like that. I want them to know there's lots of different stuff they can have, not just so strict. And so then I'm indulgent. Or maybe I even think about it like if you've had a strained relationship with your child related to custody or there was separation for a time from your child and thinking about, well yeah, when we're together I just don't want to upset them. I don't want to fight about it. We only have a little bit of time together. And so then we just indulge and offer them indulgence. And I think the same thing can be said for authoritarian styles. You know, I even think of the way I was raised. I was typically a part of that clean plate club. I was expected that the food you put on your plate, you need to eat all of it. But I also know my mom grew up with a lot of food scarcity. They didn't always have food. I've heard her talk about eating bread and lard sandwiches, because that was all they could afford for the day. And so I know that the clean plate club of you need to get every calorie, you need to get every crumb, because we might not have food tomorrow. Right. And so I think there's things that can influence the styles that are not just like, yeah, sure, good outcomes with authoritative, just do that. Okay. Yeah, well, it's a little more complicated sometimes. I think it's important that we acknowledge that, too.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Again, these were talking about feeding style today, which is your own attitudes, your own values around feeding. So those are influenced, if we think about the model we talked about last week about what influences what kids eat, guess what. It influences what we eat, too. So we are influenced by the circumstances around us, our community, our culture, how we were raised, different generations. So you know, I think this is an opportunity for you to think about your feeding style and if you want a different feeding style, we're gonna talk about how you can actually do it here in a little bit. Yeah, and some strategies for moving towards a more authoritative if you feel like you're too indulgent, if you feel like you're too authoritarian, something like that. So it's possible, but yet, I mean, you're completely right, Mackenzie, there are so many things that influence our ability to actually feed our children, not how we feel about feeding our children.
Mackenzie Johnson:Absolutely. And so let's dig into this strategy. Because I really do love this strategy. I would say, I've learned that my daughter was maybe like, toddlerhood, maybe preschoolish. And I do feel like it's literally changed how our family operates, or at least for me, how I operate around my kids and food. So tell us about the strategy for feeding styles and a belief attitude. What's one way we make this concrete?
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yeah, so there is a woman named Ellen Sattar who's done a lot of research and writing around something called intuitive eating. And she also talks about, really within this something called the division of responsibility and feeding. So this is where you the adult, you're responsible, the parent, you're responsible for what a kid eats, or you know, what they're offered to eat, when they eat and where they eat. So again, the what, when, and where, you know. For me, for example, my child is 10 months old. So I put the food on his plate. I decide he's eating at,
you know, 5:45pm. And it's going to be at our kitchen table. But it's the child's responsibility, my son's responsibility to decide how much he eats and whether he wants to eat the broccoli or not eat the broccoli.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yes. And, okay, this is such a stupid thing. I was like, yeah, who, what? No, not who. Not who. I guess the who is the child. But this idea of dividing that responsibility, literally, went from me stressing about, oh, how much did you eat? Just try a bite. Pressure. And I mean, pressure that I put on my child, and that I felt like, no, no, I want you to try these things. I want you to like these vegetables, I want you to like this kind of food. And all of a sudden, it's like, you know what? I can decide what to offer. Right? So that's how I have always kind of conceptualized it. I put it in my head of like, I can decide what to offer. And yeah, and when we offer it, where we offer it. And my child gets to decide how much to eat. Or if, right, if they're going to eat any of it. And I've even you know, heard this in the extended explanation of this kind of concept of division of responsibility of, you know what? If I get it on your plate, having it on your plate for a food that you've been maybe a little resistant to, that's progress, and ou still get to decide. It's your responsibility. Am I hungry or not? Right?
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Am I hungry? Am I not? Am I going to eat it or am I not going to eat it? Yeah, so there's, you know, again, division of responsibility, I'm responsible for some things. You're responsible for the other things. But at the end of the day, we think back to how this relates to, you know, a feeding style that we would maybe want to emulate specifically in terms of if we want the best health outcomes so authoritative here. You're fostering that autonomy by letting the child choose what to eat, how much they're eating, but you're also that structure, you're providing that structure in the what the when and the where.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yes, and so that is a great balance of that responsiveness and demandingness, right? So the responsiveness is letting the child choose, like, you're not gonna eat that at all, or you're gonna want a whole bunch of this. One of the things in our house is noodles. There's a certain kind of noodles my daughter likes. They're fine. I like other noodles. Sometimes I serve the noodles she likes. And sometimes I serve the noodles I like and sometimes when I serve the noodles I like, she does not eat them. Right.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:That still happens in my house as
Mackenzie Johnson:Right, like I'm offering this, you get to adults. choose whether or not to eat it but the great news for me is I don't have to fuss about it. Right? I don't have to stress about, you need to try this kind of noodle. You're gonna like it more than you think. I don't need to add all of that. I can do things to encourage her to try it. Like gentle encouragement, but in a responsive way, right, like responding to the cues and preferences of my child, but still holding the structure and the expectations. It really does take, I mean, I can't say all of the stress out of meals, because I still experience some stress.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Food's never not going to be stressful, right?
Mackenzie Johnson:I mean, we got to prepare, we got to clean it up. We gotta have it, right. There's all of these things. But it is nice to remove that layer of, I'm not gonna worry about getting you to take one bite. In the division of responsibility, I get to let that go. We've got food and we're sitting here at the table, or sometimes food sitting here in front of the TV or sometimes out to eat or sometimes at a picnic. So I would say hopefully, fingers crossed, most often at the table. But yeah, but it can look a little different. But structure and responsiveness. Yes.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:And I think at the end of day trying to take the anxiety away that you maybe feel as a parent around feeding your child, because I know, I feel that about sleeping in my child and I do my best to control you know, to, to regulate my own emotions around around how my child sleeps. But feeding is hard. Because feeding is, you know, we get asked at the pediatrician's office every time we go, you know, here's your child on the growth chart, here's how they're doing, how much are they eating, how are they doing with that? And so there are these outside objective things that we see that are saying, you know, whether it's someone actually saying to you or are you thinking in your own head, I'm doing a good job feeding my child. It's trying to take some anxiety away from that, that your child doesn't have to eat that thing in order for you to feel good about their feeding.
Mackenzie Johnson:Yes, yes. And I think you're getting at that idea of how value like food has so many values to us. And I even think like I have friends who are like, Oh my gosh, my baby's in the 90th percentile like yeah, good, chunky baby, and that's celebrated, right? That body size of their baby is celebrated. And sometimes it's because that child was maybe underweight at a time, and they've worked really hard to help that child be healthier. But I've also had friends who are like, Oh, they're just so tiny. They're like, 5%, right. And that's a value. Right? There are different values around all these things. But yeah, the division of responsibilities, I can release some of that. Right? Yeah, I can release some of that. Because a lot of it, let's be honest, most of it is not going to be within our control anyway. So like we said, all kinds of things influence our food, why we eat what we eat. So I think that brings us to our Stop. Breathe. Talk. time where Mackenzie DeJong, our producer, comes in and kind of asks us an off the cuff question here. So we take a break, take a breath and try to speak eloquently.
Mackenzie DeJong:Are you ready for this?
Mackenzie Johnson:I'm ready.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:I don't know if I'm ready.
Mackenzie DeJong:Alright, so you're telling me that when my kid asks for a cupcake, you can't have a cupcake? Right? Is that what you're saying? No. So when can they have a cupcake?
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:The best thing I can say is, it
Mackenzie Johnson:Lyndi? depends. Always. I think setting those boundaries again. So this is a great setup for me saying listen to the next episode where we're talking about food parenting practices. That will give you more strategies and actual tools for how to put these feeding styles into practice. But I think it depends. You don't want to say to your kid, you can't have cupcakes but you don't want to say to your kid, let's have cupcakes every night for dinner. And I think because you've talked about that, you go to a party and there's cupcakes there. Of course yeah, you can have a cupcake as part of this celebration, this enjoyment. Another part of it is, if I'm at home, am I going to have cupcakes all the time in my home? So that's something we're going to talk about when we get to different practices we can put into place. What food is available in our home? Is it an option to even have a cupcake tonight? if it is in my house, then it is an option to have that cupcake tonight, right? But if it's not my house, you're not gonna have that cupcake tonight.
Mackenzie DeJong:Alright, so you're saying, keep it in mind. Stay tuned and we'll get there. All right, I'll accept that answer. Maybe the question was something I should have asked at a later date.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:No, I think it's a perfect to say continue continue listening to this podcast, and you will learn more. And also, it depends. You can have a cupcake. But just maybe not only cupcakes.
Mackenzie Johnson:Exactly. I was gonna say, yeah, it's the balance of, yeah, sometimes we have cupcakes with dinner in our house. Yeah. Sometimes my kids ask, Oh, can we have candy? Yeah, let's have some candy. Right? It's not a matter of always yes or always no as much as it's providing structure to make sure our kids' bodies get what they need, right. Like, as a parent, I get to choose what to offer and I want that to be balanced. Sure.
Mackenzie DeJong:All right. Well, I'll let you go.
Mackenzie Johnson:Oh, yes. I mean, cupcakes on the mind. I would like a word count on how many times we did say cupcake, it was the example we followed. But it could be other things like, you could say strawberries. My child only wants strawberries. That's the only food they want. My kid only wants mac and cheese. My kid only wants, yeah, whether it's cupcakes, whatever. The balance and the mix of yeah, those two dimensions of, I have authority, demandingness, appropriate expectations, alongside responsiveness of like, my child has some independence, choice, autonomy, and that I'm responsive to their cues and their needs. And yeah, that it looks different to. It can look different at different ages. Oh, so we all have kids at different ages. So I think it's great, you know, this week, diving into these feeding styles. There's a lot of positive outcomes associated with authoritative, more negative associated with the indulgent. But we also know a lot of things are going to influence that beyond just, yeah, sure, it's just a choice. And that's all I do. We know that there's a lot of what do we bring to the table - food and baggage, and reusable grocery bags, right? Reusable grocery bags. That's the visual for today. But it is a chance for us to kind of reflect on our style. But next week...this was like beliefs and attitudes. What's next week, Lydi?
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:Yeah, yeah. So again, this week we were talking more about those attitudes, beliefs, values around our feeding practices, or feeding styles. And next week, we're going to talk more about how to actually put those into action, talking about our parenting feeding behaviors and actions.
Mackenzie Johnson:It's gonna be good. So thanks for joining us this week on The Science of Parenting podcast. Remember that you can subscribe to our weekly audio podcast on Apple and Spotify, whatever your favorite podcast app is. So you can subscribe and then don't miss the rest of the episodes coming this season.
Lyndi Buckingham-Schutt:So come along as we tackle the ups and downs, the ins and outs, and the research and reality all around The Science of Parenting.
Anthony Santiago:The Science of Parenting is hosted by Mackenzie Johnson, produced by Mackenzie DeJong, with research and writing by Barbara Dunn Swanson. Send in questions and comments to parenting@iastate.edu and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. This institution is an equal opportunity provider. For the full non-discrimination statement or accommodation inquiries go to www.extension.iastate.edu/diversity/ext