Episode 159: How to Increase Connection through Mindful Eating with Dr. Caroline Clauss-Ehlers
/In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Caroline Clauss-Ehlers, an award-winning psychologist, researcher, and professor at Long Island University, Brooklyn, to discuss the power of mindful eating for family connections. Here are some of the takeaways:
Mindfulness can help resolve picky eating, relieve academic stress, and cultivate conversational skills, leading to more positive family interactions and a stronger bond between parents and children.
Tips and activities for toddlers to teenagers, including practical strategies to incorporate mindfulness practices into your family's daily routine.
Learn how to transform mealtimes (both cooking and eating) into the meaningful bonding experience they have the potential to be, and discover how mindful eating practices can improve overall health and well-being.
Tips on how to maintain a streamlined food pantry, grocery shop with purpose, and organize your kitchen, making healthy eating habits more accessible and sustainable for families.
If you're looking for practical ways to improve your family's eating habits and deepen your connection with your children, this episode is a must-listen. Join us as we explore the power of mindful eating with Dr. Caroline Clauss-Ehlers and discover how it can transform your family's relationship with food and with each other.
You can learn more about her book and her approach to mindful eating on her website, eatingtogetherbeingtogether.com. And follow her on Instagram, @eatingtogetherbeingtogether.
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen. And on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we're going to have an expert psychologist coming in to talk with us about how we can use food and family meal times to connect on a deeper level with our children. Dr. Caroline Clauss-Ehlers or CC as we'll call her today, is joining us. And CC I'm so glad to have you. Thank you for being here. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are, what you do in your new book?
Dr. CC: Sure. Well, thank you so much for having me. Yes, I'm CC and my husband and I wrote a book called Eating Together, Being Together: Recipes, Activities, and Advice from a Chef Dad and Psychologist Mom. And the book really was about how we can encourage our kids to bring eating mindfulness to meal time and to food and to health into their lives. So our approach is really about encouraging kids to be aware of what they're eating, encouraging kids to make choices about what they're eating. My husband who's my coauthor Julian is a professional chef. And so he really incorporates recipes into the book that try to foster that. And then we have activities for all of the different recipes that kids from toddlerhood through the teen years can participate in. And I guess I should also share that. I'm a mom and I have a range of ages. So my youngest is six. He's gonna be seven in just a couple of days and my oldest is 19. So the activities really come from, you know, our experiences, life experiences around having, you know, young children, through young adults basically. And it was just really fun to kind of think about this. I to be fully transparent and a non cook. I'm really not good at it. So I edited the recipes and I was like Julian, no one's gonna understand this technique. We really need to spell this out.
Laura: Thank you for making it more accessible for all of us. I wanted to ask you. So, did you, did, did any of your kids struggle with pickiness as they were coming up? Because that's something I hear about from my listeners a lot just that we struggle with.
Dr. CC: Yeah, I mean, it was a mix. Our kids really were very exploratory because they saw their dad making all these foods and encouraging them to try these different foods. So we had that aspect. We also had the, you know, no, like, especially with our youngest, you know, he's like, no, I don't want to try that. And, well, could you try it? And we recently were talking about the book and he was at the event and, and we were talking about if you could have a salad, what kind of salad would you want to have? And he said, I'd love to have a candy salad. And then we said, oh, that, you know, Ok. That sounds really good. And then we kind of opened it up to the kids in the group and so then they came up with, they all liked carrots and they would have like a carrot salad. So, you know, I think picky eating is a thing that I don't, I mean, I don't know if all parents deal with it, but it's certainly something that we've experienced and it's been a range, you know, in terms of just trying to figure out and problem solve how to diversify meal time.
Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And I think probably not freak out about it too. So I really like that. You focus on mindfulness and I think it's so important to be thinking about the mindfulness aspect for the kids, you know, being fully present with their food, food, a actually fully experiencing it. But for us too, I think that when we, when it comes to food and feeding our children, it can be very anxiety provoking for, for some parents thinking about their balancing their nutrition and are they getting what they need and all of those things? And I think mindfulness can help with that too for ourselves. Do you want to talk a little bit about how you bring mindfulness into the, into meals, into eating with kids?
Dr. CC: Sure. So, you know, mindfulness is all about sort of that self-awareness and almost like, you know, taking a breath and just being in the moment and I appreciate parents feeling anxious about meal time and things like that. Our kids are like sponges as you know, and they absorb that energy. And so not to put even more stress on it, but to kind of give yourself permission, I think to say, you know, it's ok, we're gonna do the best that we can and that's, that's ok. I think that can open up a pathway for mindfulness. So, one of the things we talk about in the book is we talk about this concept of classical conditioning where things, you know, a stimulus can get paired with something in a certain way, right? And so, and that has an impact on our experience. So when we think about like, we all probably have a food that we just don't like. And maybe there was a classical conditioning experience, like maybe you ate this food and then you got food poisoning or you got a stomach virus. And so you pair now that negative experience with that food. So, you know, it's ok if our kids don't eat all the foods, you know, part of eating mindfulness is to say that's not my preference, you know, but I'll have this right? So like, oh, I don't like, like our sun, like I don't want a lettuce salad, but I'll have a carrot salad. So it's really trying to figure out what those options are. And in fact, in our salad chapter, we have salads that. Lots of salads that have no lettuce at all. Right? You don't even have to call it salad.
Laura: My kid's favorite salad. We got out of a recipe or out of, um, a high five magazine or like a highlights magazine and they love it. Still to this day we've been having it since they were like two and it's shredded carrots, olive oil and orange juice and it's supposed to be raisins. But my kids don't like raisins. So we put craisins in it, like little dried cranberries and it's delicious. They love it and we'll eat a whole bowl of shredded carrots.
Dr. CC: Yeah. And you know what's really fun about that is that, that's eating mindfulness there because like your kids are saying, we don't like raisins but we'll do craisins. And so like a key theme in the book is about, you know, as we're encouraging our kids to be aware of what they're eating and making choices about what they're eating. You can substitute, do things right? Like you can figure out that, that salad is gonna fit what your kids like. And we do it too, you know, as adults, right? Some of us might like ketchup, some of us might like mustard.
Laura: And I mean, it's really like this bigger process, right? Of learning to tune in and listen to yourself, to listen to, to your own body, to your own mind, to your own heart. And like, that's, I mean, for conscious parents, which most of us who are listening to this podcast are working on. Being, that's, that's the whole point. That's all we're really trying to do is to learn to do that for ourselves and to help support our kids and learning to, to tune in and trust themselves. You know, it's good stuff.
Dr. CC: Yeah. And you know, that's such a point of role modeling for your kids. Right. Just to, just to, they're watching you and just to kind of show. Right? Like, ok, we don't want the raisins. Let's try something else. What might that be? Oh, it could be crazy, you know, or even, you know, one of the activities is like, you know, putting out all different kinds of in little bowls, like veggies and stuff and different kinds of things and like, these are the options. So, well, you have to choose something. Right? So, what are you gonna choose? You know? But they're all good options. So, you know, there are many ways I think we can incorporate that with ourselves being models of that for our kids.
Laura: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's such a good point. And something else that you focus on that I really like is this piece of connection too? I think one of the reasons why my kids like that salad so much is because it was in a magazine that we were reading together and it was one of those moments where they asked to do something and it, they heard a yes from us and then we did it together. It was something that, like my daughter, I think was probably, my oldest was four and my youngest was two. At the time, my oldest could make almost entirely by herself, you know? And so we would, that's when she started cooking. She loves to, she still loves to cook with us. And so I, I would love to hear you talk a little bit about how we can make meal preparation, a mindful and connecting experience too for families.
Dr. CC: Yeah, absolutely. And that's like classical conditioning, right? Like in a positive way, you know, so I think there are many ways that we can do this. And I just want to say that this is not a book about, that you as a family have to have dinner together every night. That's not what this book is about. And in fact, again, full transparency, you know, with Julian being a professional chef, our family meal time is Sunday night dinner like once a week. People are busy, kids have scheduled, parents are working. It really is about creating sort of a routine or a process that works for your family.
Laura: CC, I'm so glad that you're bringing that up because I think that that is a huge area of concern for lots of families, you know. So lots of the listeners for this podcast are really interested in research. And I think all parents have heard the research on how important family meals are. I think it's so important to understand that research is not as causational, like there's not as so much causality as it makes it seem that there is, you know, that research in media is talked about like that by having family meals, you'll have more connection and, but really, it's a correlate, those are all correlational studies that families who tend to have family meals also tend to do other things that are probably beneficial for the kids and their relationships. So I really like that you're talking about this because there's lots of families that I work with personally, for whom family meals aren't a possibility. There's too much anxiety to come to the dinner table. Sometimes screens need to be used in order for certain children who have specific needs in order to be able to get food into the body. And so I would love to just hear some perspectives in some ways that you can use some of the food as a connection point that isn't specifically sitting out at a table eating together.
Dr. CC: Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's research and there's reality, right? Every family has their own reality. And I, I just to your point of what you were saying is, you know, I was at talking about the book and it was really fun because I was talking about the book with my oldest daughter 19 on her college campus and we did it at the, you know, college bookstore and there, the parents were there and a parent asked a question about, you know, what do you remember is like one of your, you know, meaningful times around family meal time? And she said, I really loved and looked forward to the Sunday night dinner. And I thought, wow, that is, you know, internally I'm, I'm clapping, yay! You know, that's great because to your point and to, you know, families that are now feeling pressure, like I have to do this, I have to do this. We never did that. That it was for us. It was really the one time a week because of Julian's schedule, but it was meaningful and significant for her. So what I'm saying, I guess is that you, families, we encourage families to do what works for them and what works for their lives and their, the structure of their lives and that can be significant and important, right? For your kids.
Laura: I think, I think you're so right, finding the things that matter to your family, creating like a family culture that's meaningful for you that allows for those, those points of connection to happen. I think in my, like my theory and I'm pleased I know you've done more research on this than I have. But I think that it's, it's not necessarily the eating together, that's so important. It's the consistent practice of coming together, communicating face to face having moments where you're present with each other that has nothing to, necessarily to do with eating, but much more to do with being with each other, being together. Right.
Dr. CC: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, the kitchen is a place to really foster that being together in many different ways. So, you know, like for listeners who have teens and, you know, we have two teen daughters, you know, I will just, they love to cook and that's, you know, they kind of got that. Well, they definitely got that from their dad. And so, you know, if they're in the kitchen cooking something or even just, you know, for parents with kids who don't enjoy cooking or don't cook, just getting something out of the fridge. Like I'll, I'll just happen quote unquote to like, be in the kitchen, right? Like I'm just around because if I ask, you know, how are you doing? It's gonna be fine. I'm fine. So, you know, rather than asking, it's kind of like, you know, you're just kind of there and then what can maybe come up organically and we've had these wonderful conversations in the kitchen just by things coming up organically. So I think, you know, that's a way of just kind of being together.
Laura: I know for me when I was a teenager, my parents did a really good job of figuring out what foods my friends liked and always had them at home and So my, my friends didn't always, we always had fresh fruit at our house, just lots of, just big bowl of apples and oranges and bananas out. And that's what my friends liked. And so when my, my house was the place that all the friends wanted to come to and we would just sit in the kitchen eating with my mom and dad and they would chat with us, you know, and that was so nice. And so I think that that's something that my parents did really well, was getting to know my friends getting to know their food preferences because I think you're right that especially for teenagers, the way to their hearts is through their stomach sometimes.
Dr. CC: Absolutely. And having, you know, those fruits just in bowls on the counter and just available like, oh, I'm running out the door, I'm gonna, you know, take an apple with me or oh I'm, you know, gonna go, I'm gonna take this orange like one of our snack recipes is so easy. It's just, it's apple wedges. It's like you just cut the apple into wedges. You put some mix up in a separate bowl, some cinnamon and sugar. You Sprinkle it on the apple bowl and then you have it like, oh I'm taking this apple or oh, let me make this, you know, yummy kind of sweet snack real quick. Boom, boom, boom. And there you go. But you know what? You're saying with the friends and what your parents did is so important because, you know, they're, they're building community there for you and for your friends. And there's this idea of like, positive peer pressure, right? Like we've had, you know, kids come over pre-pandemic and, you know, like parents saying, you know, when my girls were little, our, you know, our child and we talk about this in the book, like, just to know, you know, our child isn't gonna eat any salad just to know. And, you know, and my girls love salad because the salad dressing is so good. It's made with maple syrup. It's so yummy. And then it's like, oh, well, I'm gonna try because they're trying. And then suddenly like, oh, everyone's eating salad because it's not salad as we think about it. It's salad, like it's really delicious and, you know, you could substitute that word salad for anything, right? Any, you know, fruit or, you know, any broccoli or any anything.
Laura: I think that the highlights too is something that can happen at friends' houses or in different environments. That can be a little clue to that. There's some pressure happening at home. So sometimes, I hear from families where the kids are very picky at home, but adventurous other places. And that's always a little bit of a tell for me that there's some, there's some pressure system happening in, in the house, you know, and so looking inward checking in if your kid is in that place, if just checking in with yourself, what's the energy around food that I'm putting off? You know, not to blame anybody for things, but just, you know, just, you know, what is, what's going on there? Just, just getting curious and kind, very gently curious with yourself about that, I think is so important.
Dr. CC: Yeah. And I really appreciate you saying that we talk a lot about sort of being aware of your own relationship with food and what your own relationship with food is like. And then how that might be getting communicated and getting back to like, ok, so maybe your child doesn't like a certain food that's ok. You know, like we all have foods that we don't like. It's ok. You can, there are other other things or other ways that you could introduce or reintroduce that food or not. You know, it, it's ok. I love that. I think that there's just a lot of pressure on parents to do things a certain way. And so I really appreciate the permission to be flexible and to let go and to just kind of move with what is possible for your kids and for your family. Yeah. And you know, I'm referencing the book here, but you know, our the dessert chapter is called the Subtitle For Desert is the imperfections of living a perfect life. And that relates to dessert because people also have feelings about dessert. And this is not a health food book. It's a balanced eating book, a psychological book, cookbook in a way. And, you know, dessert is, is a part of that. And it really is, you know, this pressure that so many parents feel to be perfect. I mean, one, I mean, I'll speak from my own experience. Not obtainable. Oh, my gosh. No, no. But then you see, you know, like I see some of my, you know, students in, you know, higher education and, and it's like this is about learning. You're not here because you're supposed to know it, this is about learning. And so, you know, I think kids who, that pressure for kids and for parents and it's real because it means higher education is expensive and there's, you know, you gotta get the scholarship. I mean, this is real but what we lose out on with that is, you know, the joy of making a mistake of building resilience for making a mistake, the joy of, you know, taking a risk trying something new and seeing what that's like. And, oh, maybe that wasn't great. But at least I tried and now I know that, you know, I tried to make that new friend and it didn't work out and ok, that's ok. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I think that it's, you know, when my kids were little, my, especially my first we did a lot of sugar restricting. I was in a community where there was a lot, just a lot of like, kind of almost like orthorexia, which is uh kind of over controlling health foods. And I realized when she was maybe like maybe two that she had very little experience with sugar and when she had it, she had very little ability to, to self regulate around it. And so we kind of had to make a big shift in our approach to sweets. And now my kids self regulate beautifully around sugar, but it can be really uncomfortable and unsettling for some parents to see their kids practicing and playing with food and figuring out where their limits are figuring out how to listen to their body and how much candy is too much. And when does it make my tummy hurt? It's, it, it can be really hard for, for parents to, to do that. And I think it's really important because it's learning to be self regulated around things like that is an important skill too that gets built over time. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, it's so interesting what you're saying because there's research that shows that when there's like a restriction of things like sweets that kids are going to want to have that more. And of course, of course they were the, I know, scarcity and the forbidden fruit. You know, it's just, of course they're gonna want more of it. Um, yes. And I mean, and that just makes so much sense and it's so funny. So we saw that so clearly with both of my kids, my first one, you know, went from being, you know, really, like not even really liking sweets and just eating fruits to then being kind of obsessed and then we did a little bit of healing with that versus my second one who we didn't restrict at all. We just gave access to. She still consistently will eat part, maybe part of a piece of cake and then just eat fruit. You know, she, she still just is I nothing's messed with her yet. She just listens to her body. It's so beautiful to see. It's beautiful, it's beautiful. And you know, you're also, I appreciate what you're saying in the sense that every child is different, right? Like you can have, you know, your kids or your kids, they can be so different. And I think that makes it hard because, you know, as parents, we have to try to like tailor these ideas for each kid even though they're all our kids. So that's another level of challenge. It is. Although that I think that that's why I like collaborative parenting so much is because that's really the it when we get put ourselves in a position that where we have to be the knower of all the right ways to do things and we have to figure out, OK, this is how I'm gonna do it with this kid who's different from this kid who's different from this kid. That's a, that is a lot of pressure. But if we come from a place of like, ok, so they're the expert on themselves and all I really need to do is meet them with curiosity and they'll, they'll let me know and we'll work together to find out the right approach for each of these individuals. It's a lot less pressure, you know, it's a lot less pressure and there's no power struggle there. You know, it's like we're in this together if there's no power struggle. Sorry, you know, sometimes I feel like the kids, some kids like the power struggle just because they need the practice of fight, like standing up for themselves too, you know. But yes, I agree. Um Well, so you see, I, I really appreciate this conversation and the work that you're putting out into the world. Will you share with us if people want to get in touch with you where they can find you? Absolutely. So we have a website for the book which is eating together, being together dot com. And I also have a website which is doctor C C N Y C dot com and I'm happy to, you know, answer any questions folks have and just, you know, be a support. It's, this is, I really appreciate everything you said today and I'm, I'm hopeful that parents can, you know, really find their own path. Um And again, that's you know why I share that for us. It was, you know, the Sunday, the Sunday dinner and I am definitely not a cook. Yeah. You know, I, I think one of my kids' favorite meal time traditions is a Friday. Is we watch a TV show together and eat dinner together and they, they love that because normally our meals are completely screen free and it's just very special for them. Um, so finding those things. Yeah, that's very fun in the snack chapter. We have this amazing and it is, it's just, it's a great and I'm gonna just take credit. This was my recipe, not my chef husband's but for popcorn making homemade popcorn, it's like a little oil and then you have your popcorn kernels and your sea salt and the trick is that you put like three kernels in the oil and you let those pop first when you hear them pop, you take the pan off the oven, let it cool a little bit because you don't want those three kernels to overcook and burn. Then you put the rest of the kernels and you put it back on the heat and you're gonna get this great popcorn and then the activity of course is a movie night. Right? Yeah. And then you've got this great popcorn and movie night. And uh, you know, you were talking about your kids, my girl's friends were like, is your mom making the popcorn? Like it's so good and, and then you enjoy that time together with the popcorn. So you figure out other ways to like be together and have food, be a catalyst for that. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much CC. Well, I'll make sure that all of your links and everything are in the show notes. Um We really appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
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All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!