My good friend told me that once you become a parent, from day one there is always something to worry about.  As a baby, you ask, “Are they eating enough?”  As a toddler, you question, “Are they on track with their developmental milestones?” In preschool you wonder, “Are they getting along with others?”  Of course, the list goes on. Who would have thought that any parent would need to worry about a child’s relationship to food or their body image?  With the media’s pressure to be super thin and the food industry’s push for “super size” portions, maybe it’s time that we started to pay more attention to this issue.  Some people eat to satisfy an emotional need or they eat because of distorted thoughts and habits around food. A healthy relationship with food means that one is able to eat to satisfy a physical need. There are certain factors that may contribute to your children developing an unhealthy relationship to food as well as a distorted body image.  The ramifications to these issues are serious.  Thankfully, there are ways to help your children set the building blocks for good physical and mental health.

Usually I like to start my articles with a catchy phrase to draw the readers in. However, I think this topic is so vital to the emotional health of our families that the title alone will make people want to read more! Why is it so important to communicate with our children? Although it may be tough to get them to open up, having an honest exchange with our children helps them feel validated, helps them learn to identify and process feelings and gives them a safe place to talk about the stumbling blocks that occur on the road of life. Developing open dialogue allows children to hear the important messages you are trying to send to them. Parents and children should be talking about fun topics like sports, video games, clothes, food as well as more serious things like feelings, friends, school or challenges they are facing.  Sometimes it’s just not easy to talk but there are many ways to help your children share and create an atmosphere of candid discussion.

Two of my neighbor's children, Tara and Jackie have been best friends since kindergarten. They did everything together from play dates and girl scouts to dance classes and sleepovers. They are both great kids who make their parents proud.  They are in 8th grade now and there is a change in the air.  Lately, Jackie has been hanging out with a new group of girls who dress differently, they make fun of other girls who are not "cool" and their schoolwork is not a top priority anymore.  Tara is happy with who she is but has been getting pressure from Jackie to do things with which she is not comfortable.  Does she choose her gut feeling which is telling her not to change or does she follow the crowd for fear of losing her best friend? This is the dilemma for Tara (and for any of our children in a similar situation).   Why would a happy, confident, secure 14 year old girl even think about changing the way she looks or changing her priorities? The answer of course is, peer pressure.  Unfortunately, this is an inevitable part of growing up.  In order to help our children resist negative peer pressure, we have to understand what it is and why it happens. We then need to build up our children's self-confidence and judgment skills which will help them to navigate this unavoidable rite of passage.

Stop right there!

If you are a parent, I know you are in the midst of a busy day because let’s face it, most parents’ days are hectic. But I would like you to stop for a moment and ask some important questions about your family’s time. How many times do you tell your children to hurry up because they have to get to the next activity? On weekends, is it hard to get your whole family together because of everyone’s schedules (Doherty and Carlson, 22)? Count how many after school activities your child/children participate in. Do they have someplace to be every day of the week? Are there any days where they can just hang out and be a kid? Do you sometimes wish you could slow it down? Studies show that over-scheduling our children is having a negative impact on them and we need to pay attention. If we don’t change our ways, we risk having overtired and burnt out kids who will ultimately lose the desire to participate or enjoy any activities at all. In order to understand this over scheduling phenomenon, we also need to look at why some parents push their children to do so much in the first place.