Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating

In Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating, a family doctor specializing in childhood feeding joins forces with a speech pathologist to help you support your child’s nutrition, healthy growth, and end meal-time anxiety (for your child and you) once and for all.

Are you parenting a child with ‘extreme’ picky eating? Do you worry your child isn’t getting the nutrition he or she needs? Are you tired of fighting over food, suspect that what you’ve tried may be making things worse, but don’t know how to help? Having a child with ‘extreme’ picky eating is frustrating and sometimes scary. Children with feeding disorders, food aversions, or selective eating often experience anxiety around food, and the power struggles can negatively impact your relationship with your child. Children with extreme picky eating can also miss out on parties or camp because they can’t find “safe” foods. But you don’t have to choose between fighting over every bite and only serving a handful of safe foods for years on end.

Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating offers hope, even if your child has “failed” feeding therapies before. After gaining a foundation of understanding of your child’s challenges and the dynamics at play, you’ll be ready for the 5 steps (built around the clinically proven STEPS+ approach—Supportive Treatment of Eating in PartnershipS) that transform feeding and meals so your child can learn to enjoy a variety of foods in the right amounts for healthy growth. You’ll discover specific strategies for dealing with anxiety, low appetite, sensory challenges, autism spectrum-related feeding issues, oral motor delay, and medically-based feeding problems. Tips and exercises reinforce what you’ve learned, and dozens of “scripts” help you respond to your child in the heat of the moment, as well as to others in your child’s life (grandparents or your child’s teacher) as you help them support your family on this journey. This book will prove an invaluable guide to restore peace to your dinner table and help you raise a healthy eater.

“What I appreciate most about Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating is its respectful approach for both parents and children. It offers parents hope, understanding, and practical strategies that really work. Based on sound research and a true understanding of children, it gently but confidently guides families through the steps of building a healthy relationship with food.”
-Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, EdD, licensed teacher, parent educator, and author of Raising Your Spirited Child“Finally, an antidote to the infuriating trend of books about tricking children into eating. Rowell and McGlothlin expertly illuminate the complex emotional world of children with extreme picky eating and the caregivers who struggle to feed them. Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating is a masterpiece of practical strategies, compassion, and reassurance that's perfect for parents, pediatricians, and anyone who remembers hating `just one more bite.'”
-Jessica Setnick, MS, RD, CEDRD, pediatric eating disorder specialist, cofounder of the International Federation of Eating Disorder Dietitians, and author of The Eating Disorders Clinical Pocket Guide

“With the persistent challenge of classification and treatment of feeding problems, eating disorder professionals are increasingly charged with treating children with feeding difficulties, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) cases, and selective eating. This book is an invaluable resource for eating disorder (ED) professionals in need of a thorough introduction to the spectrum of selective eating issues that may be outside their primary area of expertise, from typical `picky' eating to more pervasive food aversions. The authors' expert handling of this topic will empower both professionals and parents to better understand and support their selective eaters.”
-Katherine Zavodni, MPH, RD, LDN, registered dietitian specializing in outpatient nutrition therapy for eating disorders, family nutrition and childhood feeding, and intuitive eating“Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating is a practical, child-focused, and guilt-free guide to addressing a variety of eating challenges. This book respects and values the parent as an expert. The nonjudgmental approach and easy-to-follow techniques will empower parents to make family mealtime a positive experience. By providing a sound overview of feeding development, Rowell and McGlothlin changed my understanding of typical eating. The suggested scripts and keen insight into the child's perspective takes the guesswork out of applying the STEPS+. I walked away with a deeper understanding of how children experience feeding and how my own `feeding temperament' affects how I relate to my children around food. Short-order cooking is out the door and dessert is on the table with dinner now. We're all enjoying a happier mealtime! My only wish is that I'd had this book when my children were babies. I would strongly recommend this book to any parent who is struggling with mealtime.”
-Erin Erickson, MPH, MN, RN, founder and cohost of Mom Enoughr“Katja Rowell and Jenny McGlothlin get the anxiety and many challenges both children and families feel when children are highly selective eaters! They offer sensitive, thoughtful, and practical suggestions to support families in their journey toward happier and healthier mealtimes.”
-Marsha Dunn Klein, MEd, OTR/L, FAOTA, pediatric therapist, educator, author, and co-owner of Mealtime Connections, a pediatric therapy clinic in Tucson, AZ“Lots of books promise to help solve `picky eating' problems, but this one actually does! Rowell and McGlothlin have put together a comprehensive masterpiece.”
-Skye Van Zetten, blogger at mealtimehostage.com“Finally! Not just an acknowledgment, but an exploration and even a `how-to manual' on dealing with the long-neglected missing piece of pediatric feeding therapy-the emotional dynamic for both the child and the parent! Let's face it, eating is not just about nutrition. It's also about enjoyment and family relationships. This gets lost amidst health and medical concerns when a child severely limits his eating. Katja Rowell and Jenny McGlothlin have given us a map for restoring and healing these components as well. Parents and therapists alike will be profoundly grateful.”
-Jennifer Meyer, MA, CCC-SLP, cocreator of care-to-collaborate.com, and popular international speaker in the areas of pediatric dysphagia and neonatal therapy“Finally, there's a solid resource for families who struggle with extreme picky eating! Rowell and McGlothlin leave no stone unturned as they help parents navigate all aspects of their child's eating, from the `how' of family dinners to decisions about feeding therapy. I will recommend this book again and again.”
-Maryann Jacobsen, MS, RD, author, blogger, speaker, and coauthor of Fearless Feeding“A wonderful, parent-friendly resource that is easy to read and full of practical suggestions to help your child `come to the table!'”
-Catherine S. Shaker, MS/CCC-SLP, BCS-S, pediatric speech-language pathologist at the Florida Hospital for Children in Orlando, FL, and coauthor of “The Early Feeding Skills Assessment Tool for NICU Infants”“Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating is wonderful! I currently work with a young male client who struggles with eating, and I can honestly say that this information is so crucial for even mental health therapists who are working to help families dealing with feeding issues. I wish all school counselors could have access to this material. The material in this book has assisted me in helping my client's family in a way that I was struggling to before reading! Thank you for writing this tremendously helpful text!”
-Christine J. Schimmel, EdD, NCC, LPC, assistant professor of counseling at West Virginia University and author of numerous texts and articles on impact therapy, a multisensory, creative approach to counseling and group counseling