The Intentional Table

50 Episodes

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Act Like You Don't Care What Your Kid Eats

2026-10-0809:58

You made a meal the whole family would eat. So you thought. You even put something on the table you know your kid likes. And they take one look and say, "Gross, I'm not eating that." It's so frustrating, especially when you're really trying. And it's so easy to end up saying "just try one bite" or giving your partner the side eye across the table. But instead, I want to give you one simple thing to do in that moment. In this episode, we talk about: What to do in the moment when your kid refus...

What's Actually Making Kids More Anxious with Kristen McNeely

2026-10-0145:29

Worry and anxiety often feel like something is wrong. Like there's something we need to fix. But what if it's a normal human response to have these emotions? And what if we can teach our kids that they're completely capable of getting through them? On this week's episode, we have Kristen McNeely, a marriage and family therapist who specializes in helping kids and families work through anxiety, without ever sending kids to therapy. She works with parents to actually decrease the time it takes ...

Weight and Health Aren't Synonyms with Dr. Lisa Folden

2026-09-2452:24

Most of us grew up believing that being smaller means being healthier. That if the number on the scale went up, something was going wrong. And if it went down, we were doing something right. It's such a deep belief that we rarely stop to question it. But what if weight and health were never actually the same thing? Dr. Lisa Folden is a licensed physical therapist and body image coach who works with people living in larger bodies and folks in recovery from disordered eating. She came to this w...

I Don't Tell My Kids Broccoli Is Healthy

2026-09-1713:06

We can probably all agree that broccoli is healthy. It has vitamins, minerals, fiber. So when your kid asks if it's healthy and you say yes, that seems harmless enough. And it mostly is. But most of us never stop to ask what we actually mean when we call a food "healthy." And once you do, the whole idea gets a lot harder to pin down than it seems. I break down the four reasons why I don't label food as "healthy" with my own kids, and why the way we talk about food matters if we want our kids ...

It's Not the Sugar, It's the Shame with Crystal Haitsma

2026-09-1050:24

We think our reactions to how our kids eat are about the food. The sugar, the snacking, the fourth piece of pizza that makes us snap... "That's enough." But it's rarely (if ever) truly about the food. Crystal Haitsma is a life coach whose entire practice centers on shame, and how shame is basically at the root of all of our reactions. As a parenting coach, she kept noticing that parents already knew how they wanted to respond. That wasn't the problem. It was that they often couldn't do ...

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