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