Eps 130: Ending the Food Battle with Julie Miller

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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Music. Hey everybody. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place for information and inspiration on the conscious parenting journey. I am Casey o'rourdy, positive discipline trainer, parent coach, and honored to be your guide in the work of showing up as your best for yourself and your family. If you feel as though parenting is one long personal growth and development workshop, you have come to the right place. The conversations you will hear on this podcast are all intended to offer you tools for moving forward, for expanding your lens, for shifting your narrative to one of possibility, connection and empowerment. You can be the parent you want to be. We are influencing the world with how we raise our children. When we bring deep, listening, acceptance and courage to our relationships, we are doing our part to evoke it in the world. I am thrilled to partner with you on this path. I hope you enjoy the show. Hey listeners, welcome back to another episode of joyful courage. I'm really excited to share my guest with you this week. My guest is Julie Miller. Julie is on a mission to live a delicious life and bring joy back to the family dinner table. Julie's a registered dietitian nutritionist and a certified positive discipline parent educator, yay, who holds a master's degree in Human Nutrition from Bastia University, which, if you don't know what bastard University is, you should Google that, because it's this amazing place for learning and growing in a really holistic way. She has over 16 years experience sharing food and nutrition philosophy with diverse communities throughout the Seattle area, and today, she's going to share those food and nutrition philosophies with us. Hi Julie. Welcome to the podcast.

Julie Miller 2:03
Hi Casey, thank you for having me.

Casey O'Roarty 2:05
You are welcome. Will you fill in the gaps and share a little bit more about your journey of doing what you do?

Julie Miller 2:12
Absolutely. Thank you, Casey. I got into nutrition for personal reasons, as many of us do, and what I realized was that when you don't have access to really good food, that your health suffers. And so I was hooked on learning more why and how does food influence our body. So I started studying nutrition, and I then got my graduate degree, and went on to become a registered dietitian nutritionist, and then I worked in a variety of community settings, including working with adults and working in pediatrics. And ultimately, I ended up working in public health, and that was a lovely career. And then I took a break from that and had my own children. And so when I had my own children, I discovered positive discipline, and I also realized a couple of other pieces. When I stopped working and started raising my kids, I started realizing that my nutrition work at public health had primarily been parenting work, and I just didn't know it at the time, because I wasn't a parent. I also realized when I became a parent that parenting is super judgmental. I had no idea how much people I felt were watching me and how I was even inadvertently judging other people for the choices they were making. And this is really fierce around food. People will look at each other at the potluck. I can't believe she brought that. Or, you know, you go to the doctor and your child is weighed, and if they're off the grid, you feel judged as a parent, like, Oh, I've done something wrong, you know. And then we get messages about like, Oh, if you feed your child that much milk, you're a good mom, and if your Kyle child eats in the car, they're a bad mom. And so then I started thinking, gosh, we really get wrapped up and as caregivers in this minutia of kind of what we're feeding our kids and how many servings of this and that, and are we getting enough calcium? And we're afraid our kids are going to get cancer and diabetes, and we're really missing the positive discipline piece, which is the relationship and the connection. And so I took my experience working in public health and with families and parenting around nutrition, and my perspectives on parenting through positive discipline and kind of made a big sandwich, took that nutrition knowledge and the positive discipline piece, and I started my own company. It's called the harmonious table. And what I do is I offer workshops for. Parenting groups and preschool classes and school groups, and I specialize in helping families find their own positive feeding dynamic, so that parenting around food isn't a chore, but it's like this nourishing experience for everyone. And you know the constant demand to prepare food and serve food gets really tiring. Yeah, tricky, because we're doing it. You know, for young kids, you're feeding them, you know, four to six times a day, and it's always on your mind. So I really emphasize in my workshop, how do we reduce the drama and the burden of eating, and how do we ensure that children are getting the nutrients they need to grow and develop? And how are we as parents helping them become eaters for a lifetime? We want them to eat well now and as they grow into adults? So that's my my thing. That's what I do.

Casey O'Roarty 5:59
I'm really glad that you do that. And of course, as I listen to you, I can't help but reflect on what's currently alive in my parenting practice and but before, before I share there around food, what are some of the common complaints that you get from parent, the parents that you work with? What are some of and I'm guessing they're probably the same things that I hear. But what do you typically hear that are the biggest challenges for parents?

Julie Miller 6:25
Yeah, definitely the, I would say the the biggest complaint is kids saying I don't like it. Parents will say, you know, I've prepared this meal, and before the child's even tried something, I don't like it. I don't eat that. I don't want it. So that's a huge complaint, and that kind of segues often into the second biggest complaint, which is picky eating. And picky eating, I think really, parents are sharing a deeper story. So they're saying, you know, my child won't eat this food group, you know, my child won't eat meat, or my child won't eat vegetables. Or, on the contrary, they may be defining their picky eater as, you know, my child only eats, you know, carbohydrate, rich foods, or my child only does this, you know, so picky eating, and my child doesn't like it. And then Casey, the biggest piece that comes up when we dive into this is that parental fatigue piece. Parents are tired. They don't want to cook anymore, but they also want to give their kids a really wholesome home cooked food that nourishes their body. So it's, it's a delicate balance. There.

Casey O'Roarty 7:37
I get it, I get it. Four o'clock rolls around and I'm like, Gosh darn it, people are going to want to

Julie Miller 7:42
eat, yeah, yeah. And then people are going to want to eat, and then we feel this undo, like, pressure, like, Oh, now I better log into Pinterest and find out what the latest recipe is, or how I don't look appealing. I

Casey O'Roarty 7:57
don't do that, but I definitely don't, you know. It's definitely thought it's, you know, even, even the simplest of meals, it's like, did I pull the meat out of the freezer that? Lately, that's been my biggest thing. Like, gosh, burn it.

Julie Miller 8:10
I didn't plan ahead.

Casey O'Roarty 8:12
Yeah, plan ahead. Yeah,

Julie Miller 8:14
yeah. Food is, is super trendy right now, too. And so it's part of conversation, and it's kind of it can just leave you feeling like, not only did you not get the meat out it just I didn't put enough into it. Like, where do we find that we can be enough around food, right? And parents, parents are in the thick of that, you know? Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 8:32
well, yeah. And in the positive discipline books, and I know a lot of my listeners have read many of them, and if you've read the especially, I don't think that she talks so much about it, as in the main book or in the teen book, but in the Zero to Three book, as well as the preschool book, Jane Nelson includes eating with sleeping and pottying, and says you can't make them do it. These are the things that we can't force them to do, right? And it's this place ripe for power struggles and for a controller like me, holy cow, do I engage. So what are your thoughts about that? Like control inside of even as you say, challenges are, oh, my, you know they come and they say my kids won't don't like the food I eat without even trying it, or I make their picky eaters. Where does control live? Oh,

Julie Miller 9:23
it lives big in my home too. Yeah, I have two kids, and they are lovely humans, and we still are dancing the dance all the time. And I know professionally, and I know through working with families to do it, what I need to do. And it's still an ongoing practice. It's a journey. So, yeah, absolutely, I definitely think agree wholeheartedly with Jane Nelson and other professionals like Ellen Satter, that that you can't force a child to become a healthy eater. You know? What you can do is really focus. Is on belonging and significance and influence and how that child shows up at the dinner table or in the kitchen, and that's what you can do. But learning to eat is like a developmental stage, like like other developmental processes, right? So you know, when we're when the babies are infants, we give them this grace. So they're they're nursing, and they have kind of a tongue thrust, so their tongue pushes out of their mouth, and developmentally, we understand, okay, they haven't learned to pull food into their mouth yet or to chew, so we give them a lot of grace, right when they're infants, and then when they get older, and they learn to pull food back into their throat and swallow and chew all the sudden, we expect grand things of them, right? So they're developmental, they've learned to eat. We're done. We've arrived. But the truth is, it's a much longer process than that. Once they learn to chew and swallow, we're still in some developmental processing. And we also know that kids, you know, they need an adult to really be there to guide them for that, and not forcing them and pressuring them to do that? Yeah, that's all supported by research, right? The more we force them, the harder we make our thing. The controlled feeding practice is the kind of literature, nutrition literature term for what you're talking about control feeding practice, yeah, well, and not to

Casey O'Roarty 11:23
mention we're not going to go here, but not to mention how personally we take everything, like I have had the words come out of my mouth where I say, I don't make gross food.

So, you know, and they're just looking at me like, I'm still not going to eat it. Tell me a little bit about what you call the division of responsibility and feeding. What is that? Is that, what you were just mentioning, or is that something, yeah,

Julie Miller 11:53
Jane, or, excuse me, Ellen satters work is she's the one that has worked with the Division of responsibility and feeding, and kind of came up with that terminology. And what it is is really kind of defining the roles of the parent or the child when it comes to eating. And what we're talking about here is more in the short term. You know, our long term goal, which Ellen Satter also talks about, is to help children become competent eaters, and by that, I mean they would have the skills and the knowledge and the ability to prepare food and eventually live out of your home and make wise choices. That's our long term goal. In the short term, when we're feeding them multiple times a day, the parent is responsible for the what, when and where the child eats. And I kind of have a little extension of that that I add on to Ellen satters work. I think the parent is also responsible for maintaining connection with the child around food. So the parents responsible for what the child eats, when and where, and the relationship and the child is responsible for whether they want to eat or not, and how much they'll eat, and it's hard we oh, boy, is it. And that's where we get into power struggles, right? When we blur the lines between those responsibilities, that's when we start to struggle. So taking a step back and making sure we're doing our job and they're doing their job, and often we get into that power struggle because our kids not doing what we want them to do. We want them to eat it, right,

Casey O'Roarty 13:34
right? So we I trust you. I trust you to listen to your body, yeah, and yeah, why aren't you eating? Yeah, you need to eat. Please,

Julie Miller 13:43
listen to your body. So why do we do that? Right? Because if we don't, if they don't eat, they're going to be cranky, and that's really fun for us. You know, we also get wrapped up in whether or not they eat, because we have a schedule, like now is the time to eat, because in 10 minutes we have to leave for piano, or whatever it might be, you know, we also, there's a lot of self perception around that, like you need to eat that, because then I'm a good mom or a good dad, you know, I've taken care of you. Or if you, if you eat too much of that, you're gonna get obese. If you don't eat enough of that, you're gonna have cancer, right? So it's, oh boy, we get wrapped up in a tangle, for sure. And I'm hearing, yeah, I'm

Casey O'Roarty 14:24
hearing, which is a theme for me. I'm hearing surrender, you know, such a huge theme on the journey and letting go and trusting that they like this is something that's showing like self preservation is alive. They don't want to be hurting. They don't want to feel bad, right? We have to trust that they want what's best for them as well, right? And even as I say that I'm recognizing like, right? And I need to create space, because. Often what gets in my way is, while you might know what's best for you, but I really know what's best for you absolutely.

Julie Miller 15:07
And as adults, you know, with food, it's tricky Casey, because sometimes that's true with the younger children, they don't developmentally understand the connection between what they're eating and their health outcomes right like we get we know that as adults and older kids, but we need to help guide them in that, because we do have knowledge. On the other hand, we don't want to instill fear in them about that right around that. So, yeah, it is a definitely letting go and trusting. This is a model of trust, and it's trusting yourself as well, that you are doing enough, that you are showing up, and that what you're providing your child is you can feel good about it. Yeah, sometimes when we, you know, dive into our kids about I want you to eat that I wish you we need to take that step back, surrender from what happening is happening from the child, and really reflect on ourselves, what's happening for us. You know why? You know? Maybe the truth is we're thinking, Gosh, it's my job to decide what they're going to eat. And I'm really not showing up here. But that's not my child's problem, that that is something I need to address for myself. And we get, we get kind of in the muck on that, yeah, I don't feel good about myself, so I'm going to be upset with you for not, not doing it, making it

Casey O'Roarty 16:34
happen. That's so true. That's so spot on. And something that happens for me, and is currently happening is my teenager, is she drinks coffee, I drink coffee. Somehow, this is happened. I don't know how it happened. It started to happen with, like, every once in a while, and now, like, she's, it's daily, and I am like, so spun out about it. And even today, you know, I was like, Okay, we gotta, I gotta nip this in the bud. And I got online, I was like, I'm gonna, I'm going to offer, because I just did another great podcast with somebody else yesterday about teens, and because you said we have knowledge. And so where I'm going with this is and how we deliver it matters. Oh, really, yeah. And so I get online and I'm like, okay, caffeine and teenagers, like, what are all the terrible things that happen? And you know what 100 milligrams of caffeine a day is, okay. Like, oh, it's actually okay, you know? And so, and that was so empowering. One empowering for me, right, to read that and realize, like, Okay, I don't need to be such a freak. Because part of it is also like, what kind of mom Am I that my 15 year old, well, she'll be 15 tomorrow. My 15 year old will drinks coffee every day. Like, what does that say about me? And then, like, Okay, actually, plus, I'm totally critical. I'm totally judgmental of her, which she's receiving and responding to, by the way, yeah. And, you know, just realizing Okay, not only does knowledge empower her. But knowledge is empowering

Julie Miller 18:23
me absolutely. And you know that knowledge, where she's going to get that knowledge from is, is the base of all of that Casey, because if she can get the knowledge from you, that's where we want her to you know you're often talking about kids coming back to you and you being open and willing to hear that and discuss it, and that's the pivotal moment, right? Because if they get that knowledge from society or from their friends, they are going to actually drink more caffeine in the form of, you know, energy drinks or Starbucks grande lattes and whatnot. And, you know, I will, I want to clarify, just to be super clear, that the 100 milligrams of caffeine, because your child is a teenager, your body can handle that, right? So under age 12, I would definitely say, No, kids do not need to be drinking caffeine, right? And thank you for that. Yeah. So I just need to. But I also think, you know, caffeine is a funny thing. We we love it. I'm a coffee drinker. I'll say, drink or not, well, right? But I, you know, we don't need it. It's not a nutrient. There's, there isn't a minimum requirement for caffeine physiologically, right? And it does have some physiological effects on us, like increasing our heart rate once we drink a certain amount, you know, increasing our blood pressure. And with a teenager, there's a real learning opportunity there. And you know, you can give that range of 85 to 100 milligrams to an older child. World and say, Hey, let's tease this apart. What, what actually has that much in it? You know, if I drink a soda a day, or if you'd go to Starbucks, and you have two choices, what would be best for your body, right? And really, you know, inviting them to make those discoveries is often the ticket. If we share the information, then it often, does that

Casey O'Roarty 20:20
work, right? Versus like it my other approach, which is like, listen, it's science, so you need to start right? It's so nice, so not helpful. Thank you for that little side note that we get to and I get to look at my own behavior. I mean, I drink coffee. My husband drinks coffee like that's part of our morning routine. So, yeah, yeah. Again, surrendering. And the other thing too is, I'm just gonna use take advantage right now my own situation Absolutely. She doesn't seem to think she's hungry for breakfast. Sure. Granite, she's up and out the door early. Yeah. And so part of me is like, it's coffee's fault.

Julie Miller 21:05
It's, it's a curiosity, right? Like, I wonder what I wonder if that weren't part of her system. And we do know that, you know, putting some liquid into the body in the morning gives kind of a satiety effect. And teenagers are figured they've figured that out right? Like, oh, I can get by just on this. That's amazing. And I admittedly think we do that as adults as well. Yeah, so, you know, and for an older child, until it's personally meaningful for them to experience how their day is different without food. It's the behavior change is less likely, right? So I think really

Casey O'Roarty 21:46
meaningful that is, I'm writing that phrase down,

Julie Miller 21:52
and you, you said it beautifully Casey. It's modeling they, you know, if they watch us drink a cup of coffee and never eat a bite of food, and then they're out the door. They that's what they're learning. They learn what they live, right? And so, yeah, they'll have that personal experience and along the way, as long as you can stay connected with them and say, I hear you, Wow, that must not have felt very good to to not, you know, be awake in class, or whatever it might be for an older child. I wonder what that could be about. Hmm, let's look into that. Yeah, and let it shouldn't

Casey O'Roarty 22:28
be like maybe it's the coffee.

Julie Miller 22:31
I'm pretty sure if you just drink coffee, your grades would go up. We go to a logical place.

Casey O'Roarty 22:35
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So I have a couple other little questions that I know have come up in the joyful courage community, and that I hear from clients around food stuff, and I know that there's all sorts of things that are inside of it, and we're not going to solve all the world's problems on this podcast, but I would just love to know from someone who this is your focus, what do you think about before bed, snacks? What happens when our kids are hungry before bed? Which we do,

Julie Miller 24:43
I think it really depends on timing. And then we go back to that division of responsibility in feeding, because it's the parents job to decide what, when and where. And then we also have to look at the child's developmental stage, you know, for a school. Aged child. If they get home and they're hungry and your family eats early, at five o'clock and they go to bed at eight o'clock, that's a three hour window, it may be appropriate for them to have a snack before bed. If your family eats at seven o'clock and the child goes to bed right after that, then it wouldn't make a lot of sense that they would have had time to get hungry again. So I think a little bit is depending on the schedule, and that is something that the parent can kind of set up. It is appropriate for children to eat a meal and be hungry two to three hours later. And I often give parents permission to close the kitchen. You know, it's it's your space, and that's where you get to set the structure and the kindness and the firmness. You know, our kids, we've eaten, and now the kitchen is closed. We'll eat again in the morning. But the other part I love to throw in about snacks is snacks and meals need to be nutritionally equivalent. A snack is not a snack food. So if your child is going to need a snack before bed, that needs to include something from the produce section, you know, a fruit or a vegetable, and then maybe something with protein or fat. Protein and fat are our satiety nutrients that keep us feeling full. So if you have a schedule where bedtime snacks come into play. They are nutritionally equivalent to the meal. They're not a bag of chips or a bowl of ice cream,

Casey O'Roarty 26:29
right? We do banana, like my go to is you can have a banana,

Julie Miller 26:34
yeah, yeah. And offering them some choice around that is really that part about giving them belonging and significance, right?

Casey O'Roarty 26:45
Even creating, like, what's I think I just was talking to somebody about this, but creating, like, let's brainstorm together. What are, what are snacks that are okay to have before bed, post it, so that when it becomes I want a snack, you get to say, Great. Go look at your list. Yeah, and pick something.

Julie Miller 27:01
And absolutely. And I think there's another step that that can go to say, you know, you can break it down by by days of the week, because what you don't want them is hemming and hawing over the list. Well, I think I'll try this. And, you know, it's you may pick two items. Or tonight, we're offering bananas and cashews, oh, you know, right? So the parent really can set up some structure around that, and then it's not cloudy, you know. Oh, could I just have a bowl of cereal, or, could I have right, you know? And I really encourage parents to avoid the question, what would you like for snack? Right? That opens a floodgate, and then we just end up getting frustrated, and when we get frustrated, we lose our connection with our child. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 27:45
yes. What about Thank you bites?

Julie Miller 27:49
Thank you bites. I do and I am not a fan. I'll tell you why. Casey, it's Thank you bites are

Casey O'Roarty 27:58
a

Julie Miller 28:01
an encouragement to the child to at least try something, right, so that they at least show some gratitude for the meal that was prepared. And especially when you're visiting someone else's home, perhaps, right, you don't want to be grateful. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And the reason I'm not a fan of Thank you bites is because it is a parent imposed consumption of food. We really need to let these children dive into their internal hunger and satiety cues. You know, what does it feel like to be hungry? What does it feel like to be full. What does it feel like to trust your body? If your body is saying, I don't think I can eat that and with gratitude or thank you bites, sometimes we are asking them to try something that might even feel scary to them, if it's a brand new food, if it's something that looks funny, right to them that might actually be setting up fear around food. I think the best thing we can do with a thank you bite is to model behavior of always trying something, right, and not saying it, just saying, Wow, I've never had this before. I think I'll try it. It's about me, right? It's not about my child, yeah, so

Casey O'Roarty 29:22
when,

so parent imposed, what did you say? Parent imposed food intake. Is that what you said? Yeah, yes, food intake. So when we're sitting around the table, and I encourage don't forget to take some salad. I can do that, right? You're not telling me I can't do that, right? I am

Julie Miller 29:54
not. It's not a power struggle, right? No, I am just

Casey O'Roarty 29:58
saying, hey, yeah, this is. Part of what we eat, what,

Julie Miller 30:01
yeah, yeah, definitely, what I would do is discourage any comments about what they need to eat. I love to hear that food would be is served family style. And so I think it definitely makes sense to for the parents to say, tonight, we're having salad, pasta and grilled spinach, or whatever it might be, right? And the parent gets to point out all of the items that are available. And then the parent's job is done. You are completed responsibility for what, when and where, and then the child gets to serve themselves, and they get to decide what they would like to take, when and how. Much you know Casey like when we're talking about kids who need feeding therapy, for example, kids who are really have some food issues, we talk a lot about food exposure, and even in in our regular parenting experience, we do this that we the research shows us, depending which articles you read, that a child needs to be exposed to a food 10 to 20 times before they accept it as part of their repertoire. So just putting it on the table, you can pat yourself on the back and say, I've done my job. They have exposure. Exposure does not mean tastes, exposure does not mean licks. Exposure does not mean anything else. You know, in feeding therapy, we might ask the child to touch it, or we might ask the child to just put it on their tongue, like very progressively, slowly, but we do not ask. We'd never force the child to put it in their mouth.

Casey O'Roarty 31:41
So I'm really aware as I hear you and I and I think about what you're saying, I'm so aware of what is Ha, the ya, the yabuts that are happening for me, like, Yep, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna be transparent, and I'm gonna tell like, I'm gonna own what I have been doing, and I'm going to put it out there, and I am thinking, oh my gosh, but if I don't tell them to have salad,

Julie Miller 32:10
yeah, they might not.

Casey O'Roarty 32:12
Then what does that mean? Julie

Julie Miller 32:16
means, I know I think it's that fascinating. It's the short term versus the long term. Goals. In the long term, we want them to be able to say, Wow, I'm going to eat that salad. I am hungry, and I understand that this is good for my body, not because my mom told me to, because you're you're not going to be there, right? And then the modeling piece, which we've mentioned a couple of times, is huge, and creating a family norm, if there is salad on the table, you are doing your job. You're saying, This is what people eat. This is food, yes, right? And so you're doing your work. That's really important. And some families choose to take all of the items that they're serving family styles, which is a lovely idea, and pass everything around. Everything goes around in a circle, right, or between people, so that the child holds the dish, yeah, and then makes a decision. And what you'll notice over time is that the child may be willing to try it, and our job really, is to put it out there and then not talk about it. Let's talk about something else. I also don't recommend talking about, you know, grades or bad things that are happening, food. You know, the joyful time at the table is the time to talk about our lives and our day and how we're doing and to decompress. It is not a time to get into a battle about food or who's eating what. Yeah, so okay, and you got to get uncomfortable Casey. It's gonna be really hard. It's sitting on your hands and biting your tongue, and

Casey O'Roarty 33:53
it's tough, yeah? Well, and that's what I'm like, I'm like, okay, okay, so yes, and I get, I get to choose like, I'm just be, I want to be really transparent for what's happening for me right now, in case it's helpful for our listeners. Like, I get to decide how going into this experience, if it's going to be really a lot of work and really heavy, or if I, or if I'm going to choose into like, yes, what a nut. This is what joyful courage means to me. It's rejoicing in that opportunity for personal growth and development through parenting. Like, that's what this is. I get to practice one, one, practice what I preach. Two, really, trusting that this is the long term versus the short term, and I'm going to go into this, like, not, Oh God, it's going to be so annoying, but really, like, all right, yes, I don't have to be on anybody's case about what they're eating. Thank you. Yeah.

Julie Miller 34:59
Well and Casey, that's it. This approach, not only does it work long term in developing these healthy eating habits, it is so freeing for parents. Yes, imagine all of the time you can get back that you could put into cooking home cooked meals or or to doing other things that are important to you, if you let all of that energy that you're using up in Food Battle. If you, if you can let that go, Yeah, and just say, my job is to say we're sitting at the table. We're not going to have any screens at our table, we're not going to answer the telephone, we're going to sit here. And here is the nourishing food I've prepared for us, or sometimes here's the takeout I picked up, because that's the best that I could do, and that's absolutely fine and wonderful,

Casey O'Roarty 35:43
and I love that. What also gets taken away is one less opportunity for us to send the message that somehow they're wrong or not good enough or not capable. You know, in that judgmental piece, we don't have to be with anymore. So I am feeling, I'm feeling really good about this. Can we have a follow up call? Julie,

Julie Miller 36:01
absolutely. I'd love to know how it goes well. I

Casey O'Roarty 36:05
will definitely, definitely share for sure. And I know I have one more. I have another little thing that comes up, and I'm already 100% sure I know how you're going to respond to this. But sometimes parents find themselves making more than one meal, or it becomes, well, if they don't want what I'm making, they have to be the ones to get up and make themselves a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So what do

Julie Miller 36:28
you think? Right, right? Again, it's a little bit about where they are age wise, developmentally. But I definitely think there is one meal made, and this is the family meal, and that is offered if you're bucking up against that, like they're not eating what I'm preparing. And this isn't working. It might mean they don't have enough influence and significance, and so I really invite them into planning the family meal. Yes, love it. You know, the menu for the week can be a part of a conversation at a family meeting younger kids love to go shopping. Older kids like to look through recipes online. Bringing them in in a significant way outside of the meal time, can really help them dive into what is being served so that they're not wishing for something else. I don't think we need to be making separate meals. There is one meal. This isn't a restaurant. This is home. Yeah, absolutely. So find another way for them to have influence if they they aren't enjoying what, what they're being served. Definitely. Oh, great.

Casey O'Roarty 37:34
So great. Thank you, Julie. Do you have any final thoughts for listeners around this whole ah,

Julie Miller 37:44
their food is so pervasive. I mean, we're just dealing with it all the time. And my wish for parents is that we just give ourselves a break a little bit and kind of back up. And food is is so trendy right now, and everybody's into food, and you may not be, and it's okay, your job is to provide food for your child, provide some structure and to love them unconditionally, that that's your job, and yeah, just embrace that you're doing the best you can and own if you need some more knowledge or understanding of how do I cook food? What is healthy food? How do I prepare that? Then own that and seek that out and you can it does not have to be complicated, and it does not have to be gourmet. You know, my child the other day, she took a radish, just a whole radish, as her in her lunchbox. That was her choice. And I thought, well, I didn't really have to prepare that. That was lovely, right? So we often think that it's going to be complex, but really, I just had to wash off the radish and make sure it didn't have dirt on it, that it was simple, right? Love that, love that can be super simple. And then Casey, the other last kind of thought I have is I really encourage parents to filter out the noise of the judgment around parenting and food and not worry about what other people are going to think about your child and about food, and let go of some of that fear around, oh, my child's going to have this disease when they're 40, because I let them have a fruit snack, right? So, yeah, just just relax into it a little bit and trust that we're all on a journey and we're going to feed them. Well, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 39:36
thanks. I feel so much better after this conversation. So in the context of all that we have discussed today, what does joyful courage mean to you? Julie,

Julie Miller 39:48
oh, so many things. In the context of food and nutrition, I joyful courage, to me, is the. Invitation to kind of live boldly with your own truth. It's the courage to, like, hold tight to your own convictions and your own values for your family and your children. And that to do that in a joyful way. I see joy as you know, Joy is like this long lasting good feeling, right? And to kind of go with that long, lasting good feeling about living your values and your truth that is joyful courage. It is yeah, it's okay to be different than someone else, or to maybe not be what might be the norm for your family history, and to do it with passion and love and connection, that's the joyful part of it,

Casey O'Roarty 40:44
beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much for all you do, yeah, for families and kids. Where can listeners find you and follow your work? Julie,

Julie Miller 40:55
yeah. Thank you, Casey. I am not on social media, I know, not yet. So in my practice, I am really kind of on the ground at all times. You know, that's where my work takes place. Is talking people to people that said in 2018 My goal is to step into the digital world. So your listeners can find me on my website, which is www.harmonioustable.net and they can also email me at J Miller [email protected] and if your listeners have questions, please, please reach out and when I do get that said digital presence up and running, if your listeners would like to email me, I'll be sure to let them know when that's live. Great. Yeah, yeah. You know, if you're in the Seattle area, what I tend to do is offer workshops, and they tend to be private, so I'll be asked by a particular school. So if you have a parenting group or whatnot, please reach out and let me know. Great. Yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 42:06
Thank you so much. Julie,

Julie Miller 42:08
oh Casey, thank you for creating this space and for all of the work that you do. I'm honored to be part of your conversation.

Casey O'Roarty 42:18
Joyful courage community, you're amazing. Big. Thanks and love to my team, including my producer, Chris Mann at pod shaper. Be sure to join in the discussion over at the live in love with joyful courage group page, as well as the joyful courage business page on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to the show through Apple podcasts, or really, anywhere you find your favorite podcasts, you can view the current joyful courage. Swag over at the web page, intention, cards, bracelets. E course offers the membership program, one on one, coaching. It's all waiting for you to take a look. Simply head to www dot joyful courage.com/yes. That's joyful courage.com/y. E, S to find more support for your conscious parenting journey. Any comments or feedback about this show or any others can be sent to [email protected] I personally read and respond to all the emails that come my way. Reach out, take a breath, drop into your body, find the balcony seat and trust that everyone is going to be okay.

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