Dinner table time is so crucial in our busy world. How you interact with your kids shapes their behavior, self-esteem, intelligence, imagination, competence, and ultimately their character.

In this new episode of the Clean Eating for Kids podcast, learn and utilize these practices to translate to mealtime that is most effective and backed by astounding results in the psychology community of practitioners.

Learn these eight styles of communication with your child that will build their confidence and strengthen your bond during interactions.

✔️ Unlabeled Praise: This provides a positive but nonspecific evaluation attributes activity or behavior, or product of your child. It does not tell a specific behavior you like but does communicate approval. Use phrases like, "I love that." "Great, thank you very much." "Great idea." "Perfect."

✔️ Labeled Praise: A specific favorable judgment of an attribute product or behavior of a child. You're telling them precisely what you think is positive. "I like it that you've got broccoli on your plate." "You're doing a great job of using your fork." "I'm really proud of you for filling your plate with such wonderful colors."

✔️ Reflective statements: It has the same meaning as the child's verbalization. You are paraphrasing and elaborating, but you're not changing the meaning. You're simply repeating what your child says. "Mommy, there's an apple on my plate here." Your response? "There's an apple on your plate." "I dropped my spoon." Your response? "You dropped your spoon." "Oops, I did that wrong." "Oh, you think you did that wrong?" Those are all great examples of mirroring and reflecting and builds confidence and connection.

✔️ Behavioral description: they're non-evaluative declarative sentences or phrases. They describe the child's observable verbal or nonverbal behavior.

✔️ Neutral talk: It's composed of statements that introduce information about people, objects, events, or activities or indicate attention to the child but do not clearly describe or evaluate the child's current or immediately completed behavior.

✔️ Questions: Verbal inquiries of behavior. They request an answer but do not suggest behavior is to be performed by your child. Here's an example. "Now, what would you like to eat next?" "How many muffins do we have?" "Would I like to share this fruit salad with you?"

✔️ Indirect Command: The suggestion for behavior in question form or implied using the word "let's," such as "Let's see if we could get the napkins out for the dinner table."

✔️ Direct Command: Statements that contain direction for a behavior to be performed. Here's an example - "Please use the spoon to mix the ingredients in the bowl." "Please hand me the salt shaker."

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We created the HOW TO guide with tips and tricks to transition your family to eating clean, feeling more connected, and being active and fit. Each week you will receive access to modules with lessons that cover mindfulness practices, nutritional know-how, and psychological tips and tricks with a library of resources to create deeper connections while increasing immune strength and instilling a lifelong enjoyment of clean foods for your entire family! https://www.crystalclearkids.online/fsp

As parents, our job is to set our children up for a lifetime of good health, a robust immune system, proper brain, and body development. We should not forget that it is also essential to strengthen our bond with our family to provide the ultimate need of our biology as humans to connect.

In this episode of the Clean Eating for Kids podcast, learn how creating opportunities to connect allows us to feel safe as our ancestors did for survival and further our health and life goals as a family.

Key points that you will learn in this episode:

✔️ Value mealtime bonding. Recent studies have found that people of all ages who eat with loved ones are far healthier than others who don't. Kids will eat more fruits and vegetables when eating with their parents and less junk food and less soda. And adults and kids get more essential nutrients like calcium, fiber, and iron needed for fitter bodies when they eat with their family at home.

✔️ Set age-appropriate tasks and enlist kids in the preparation of the meal. A three-year-old can set the table with napkins and plastic cups. Five-year-olds can peel oranges for a fruit salad while a ten-year-old can measure and mix ingredients or chop something up with your assistance. This requires a hefty serving of patience, but the result is well worth it. Be mellow and relaxed, and remember you're shaping their experience.

✔️ Avoid comparing siblings for several reasons. Those with more than one child should understand that they don't share the same food tastes and eat the same portions. Involve them by taking them up to the grocery store with you. Allow them to choose a new item that they want to try or an old favorite and tell them it's experimentation time at dinner. It takes eleven times to try something before they decide they like it.

Loved this episode? Please be sure to subscribe and ring the bell for weekly notifications on YouTube.

We created the HOW TO guide with tips and tricks to transition your family to eating clean, feeling more connected, and being active and fit. Each week you will receive access to modules with lessons that cover mindfulness practices, nutritional know-how, and psychological tips and tricks with a library of resources to create deeper connections while increasing immune strength and instilling a lifelong enjoyment of clean foods for your entire family! https://www.crystalclearkids.online/fsp

Do you use sugar as a reward in your home? Think for a minute about how your eating and feeding practice affects your children's health and behavior.

In this episode of the Clean Eating for Kids podcast, let's deep dive into these proven techniques to transition your family to eating clean, removing harmful sugars successfully in your home, and allow your kids to enjoy healthier sweet alternatives.

Key points that you will learn in this episode:

✔️ Learn specific ways to deal with kids of different ages that may already be addicted to sugar. Lead by example by eating a healthy diet, exercise, and have mellow conversations around why sugar isn't the best choice.

✔️ Monitor how your kids feel and behave during and after sugar consumption. You can teach them how to monitor their behavior by discussing it calmly and gently. Explain why they have a sugar crash and have a conversation as to why that happened. Sugar took control of their emotions because it's very addictive and rushes hormones to their brain. And when it burns out, it takes those good hormones away.

✔️ Combine reward systems with reducing sugar. When kids are begging for candy bars at the store, tell them that they can have it if they buy it. If they spent too much of their allowance and hard-earned cash on sugar snacks, they can't buy what they're saving for or have a fun activity out with their friends. Doing so gives them the gift of learning how to manage their own money and teaches the consequences of an action to their health goals.

✔️ Familiarize and incorporate suggested alternatives into the family's diet. Practitioners recommend stevia, manuka honey, agave, coconut sugar, and other natural sweet sources that, from an evolutionary perspective, our bodies are accustomed to.

✔️ Keep those healthy snacks on hand. When our kids and we experience a sugar crash or just a general dip in energy, we reach for foods high in sugar to make us feel better. Think of keeping chopped watermelon or pineapple in the fridge for quick grabbing and make it easy for you to avoid sugary temptations.

Loved this episode? Please be sure to subscribe and ring the bell for weekly notifications on YouTube.

We created the HOW TO guide with tips and tricks to transition your family to eating clean, feeling more connected, and being active and fit. Each week you will receive access to modules with lessons that cover mindfulness practices, nutritional know-how, and psychological tips and tricks with a library of resources to create deeper connections while increasing immune strength and instilling a lifelong enjoyment of clean foods for your entire family! https://www.crystalclearkids.online/fsp

For the first time in history, U.S. children are not expected to live longer than their parents. Why? Cases of obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, and Heart Disease are going through the roof! One out of every three U.S. adults is obese, while one in five kids is obese.

The most prominent suspect is the high consumption of SUGAR. If you're concerned about protecting your children's health (and yours too!), take a closer look at the sweet stuff in your life.

Key points that you will learn in this episode:

✔️ 80% of the food items in America now contain added sugar.
Sugar is toxic, and our kids are under attack right under our noses. Food manufacturers use scientists to figure out ways to reformulate its original state and infuse it under the guise of six different names in one packaged product.

✔️ Get to know fructose, a.k.a. high fructose corn syrup, and why this has been a popular subject among the science community for the last number of years. They are uncovering how it damages your body and its functions.

✔️ Why sugar jumps in, and it hijacks the hormone leptin's job and your brain. You stay hungrier and eat more than you should. Your pancreas, which produces insulin, which helps regulate your blood sugar, also struggles. The more sugar you have in your bloodstream, the harder your pancreas has to work. When your pancreas is pulling double shifts, it leads to obesity, metabolic syndrome, and Type 2 diabetes.

✔️ Know how to read the labels right. Kids are recommended to consume less than twenty-five grams or six teaspoons of added sugars daily. You'll be shocked how this can be consumed with a tiny juice box that you're buying from the grocery store!

✔️ Access the workbook to take some time to evaluate your family's sugar intake and assess your results. I know this is going to be really enlightening and very eye-opening for all of us.

Loved this episode? Please be sure to subscribe and ring the bell for weekly notifications on YouTube.

We created the HOW TO guide with tips and tricks to transition your family to eating clean, feeling more connected, and being active and fit. Each week you will receive access to modules with lessons that cover mindfulness practices, nutritional know-how, and psychological tips and tricks with a library of resources to create deeper connections while increasing immune strength and instilling a lifelong enjoyment of clean foods for your entire family! https://www.crystalclearkids.online/fsp

This challenging season may be the most stressful time to be a kid ever. They feel fear knowing what's going on around the world by watching the news on their phones, and they feel overwhelmed and anxious while aware that their parents have money stresses and might be health issues in the family.

In this special episode, we will learn from one of the world's leading authorities on mind-body healing, weight loss, and stress management – Dr. Brian Alman. He has coached and trained thousands of people and his simple and yet very effective techniques for self-care.

Key areas you will learn in this episode:

✔️ Why the number one treatment for stress is FOOD. Whether it's grown-up kids like us, medium-sized kids like teenagers, or small-sized kids in elementary school or younger — food is the number one "drug" to shut the mind up and quiet the emotions.

✔️ Learn techniques to BREATHE your way through anything. Dr. Alman teaches that no matter how overwhelmed you get and how bad it gets, close your eyes and focus on your breathing. For just a few moments, you see how this provides relief as people have been doing this for thousands of years.

✔️ Note the top 3 signals to check if your child is stressed. As a parent, it is your job to connect, ask questions and be open. Get familiarized by the triggers and reactions - either they get overwhelmed, withdrawing, or getting feisty in fighting and take action to help them cope with these big emotions.

✔️Find people and resources for help. Suppose you don't have another partner or a family member. In that case, there are wonderful people professionally, coaches, counselors, sometimes psychiatrists, sometimes psychologists, mentors, and teachers who will back you up and be part of the "tribe" to raise your child effectively.

✔️ Get kids to realize they have an inner critic. Make sure that you're not telling your daughters or sons bad things about their bodies. They soak up that negativity because they have their inner judge. compares themselves to everybody else, that worries what other people think of them, that tends to be judgmental and critical, and to learn how to give that a voice.

✔️ Find more techniques from Dr. Alman's book "Less Stress for Kids." The book is translated into various languages used worldwide by parents, teachers and therapists for simple and effective techniques clinically proven to make sure they help kids immediately.

About Dr. Brian Alman:

Dr. Brian Alman, P.h.D is one of the world’s leading mind-body stress experts, who over the past 15 years, has helped his clients resolve past issues and remove personal limitations allowing them to live happier, more resilient lives with his clinically proven techniques.

He is the founder of True Sage International, a reputable wellness program that focuses on managing stress and integrating healthy habits to improve self awareness. His work has been extensively covered across the media, including NBC News, ABC News, CNN, Fox News and much more.

Website: www.drbrianalman.com
Facebook: @DrBrianAlmanPhD

Loved this episode? Please be sure to subscribe and ring the bell for weekly notifications on YouTube.

We created the HOW TO guide with tips and tricks to transition your family to eating clean, feeling more connected, and being active and fit. Each week you will receive access to modules with lessons that cover mindfulness practices, nutritional know-how, and psychological tips and tricks with a library of resources to create deeper connections while increasing immune strength and instilling a lifelong enjoyment of clean foods for your entire family! https://www.crystalclearkids.online/fsp

Does your child get enough sleep? Numerous studies have shown that sleep duration is related to overweight in children. In this episode, we're going to review stress, sleep, feeding patterns, and the importance of parenting to prevent obesity and poor health in growing children.

Here are the key areas covered in this episode: 

✔️  Why studies show that the relationship between sleep and obesity is stronger in children than adults. This may be due to the rapid brain development occurring during childhood and the critical role adequate sleep plays in brain development. Decreased sleep, duration, and quality may lead to specific alterations in regions of the brain involved in energy balance. 

✔️ Understand the value of eating together. Research has shown that consistent family meals may be protective against obesity, particularly in older children—get the tips on overcoming barriers from sharing family meals consistently. 

✔️ Practice stress-reducing techniques with your kids. Practice breathing and meditation, drawing, and other calming activities with your children. Be the example and show your child that you use the techniques that you want them to do.

✔️ Nothing beats good old exercise! Exercise strengthens the immune system while stress depletes it. Going for a 20 minute walk every day can boost your serotonin levels. Take a family walk or go on a bike ride and develop the habit of consistent movement together.

Loved this episode? Please be sure to subscribe and ring the bell for weekly notifications on YouTube. 

We created the HOW TO guide with tips and tricks to transition your family to eating clean, feeling more connected, and being active and fit. Each week you will receive access to modules with lessons that cover mindfulness practices, nutritional know-how, and psychological tips and tricks with a library of resources to create deeper connections while increasing immune strength and instilling a lifelong enjoyment of clean foods for your entire family! https://www.crystalclearkids.online/fsp

The Role Stress Has On Your Child's Health

Stress is a natural, mental and physical response to life experiences and situations. Stress can affect anyone, even children. Early life stress exposure may disrupt hormones that regulate appetite, metabolism, and fat storage, increasing the risk of obesity and unhealthy eating behaviors, and unhealthy fat deposition patterns. We have to keep in mind our kids aren't going to exactly come right out and tell us that they're stressed. Some of the physical, emotional, and behavioral cues might not be that easy to decipher for parents. In this episode, we're going to review how to identify it, what it does, the role it has in your child's health, and most importantly, what to do about it.

Here are the key areas covered in this episode:

✔️ Keep in mind that there aren't bad kids. Just because we don't perceive a situation as stressful doesn't mean that children aren't stressed out by it. They're little people feeling big emotions, and their perception is what's creating their reality. The ways that they may be trying to tell you are easy to pick up on once you're able to watch and listen with patience, empathy, and an understanding of what some of the signs may be.

✔️ Understand that stress leads to obesity. Studies found that children exposed to chronic stressors in early childhood had lower self-regulatory abilities measured by an ability to delay gratification and a larger BMI.

✔️Why leptin and ghrelin are the two hormones that play a crucial role in appetite regulation. When leptin is released, it acts as satiety, meaning feeling full signal, decreasing energy and food intake. Ghrelin, on the other hand, has the opposite role. It stimulates hunger upon its release.

✔️Know why cortisol release may lead to excessive consumption of foods high in sugar and fat and ultimately excessive weight gain. Exposure to repeated stressors, both a blunted cortisol reactivity response to stress or an elevated BMI body mass index may be observed.

✔️Stress is another byproduct of poor sleep habits and quality. When you have poor sleep, you experience an increased response to food stimuli, meaning you're hungrier and have decreased leptin levels.

Loved this episode? Please be sure to subscribe and ring the bell for weekly notifications on Youtube.

We created the HOW TO guide with tips and tricks to transition your family to eating clean, feeling more connected, and being active and fit. Each week you will receive access to modules with lessons that cover mindfulness practices, nutritional know-how, and psychological tips and tricks with a library of resources to create deeper connections while increasing immune strength and instilling a lifelong enjoyment of clean foods for your entire family!

https://www.crystalclearkids.online/fsp

Clean Eating for Kids Podcast empowers families to be aware of their nutritional needs and supports the whole family to transition simply and effectively. Together, let's strive for a healthy future.

In this episode, we discuss in detail the food that you need to reset and to give your gut and whole body the opportunity to heal itself.

Here are the key areas covered in this episode:

✔️ Look into the foods that you are eating that are common toxic triggers. These are corn, eggs, soy, red meat and veggies like potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, dairy and gluten.

✔️ Know the three major things to remove from your diet right now to clean up your gut and really kick start your energy.

✔️ Investigate your triggers and start your cleanses - it may be difficult but during the time that your cleaning and repairing you are already giving your gut a fighting chance.

✔️ Check these highly recommended resources: Clean Cut by Dr. Alejandro Junger and GAPS, which stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell - McBride. Both of these cleanses will bring about astounding results and life-changing shifts in the direction of your health.

✔️ A true gut ally is bone broth that will clean and repair your gut tissue like a champ.

✔️Be guided by this gut friendly list of foods to have in mind and bring when you go shopping to start off a clean diet household right now.

Loved this episode? Please be sure to subscribe and ring the bell for weekly notifications on YouTube.

We created the HOW TO guide with tips and tricks to transition your family to eating clean, feeling more connected, and being active and fit. Each week you will receive access to modules with lessons that cover mindfulness practices, nutritional know-how, and psychological tips and tricks with a library of resources to create deeper connections while increasing immune strength and instilling a lifelong enjoyment of clean foods for your entire family! https://www.crystalclearkids.online/fsp