Practical Autonomy-Based Tools for Families Stuck in Food Struggles - Restrictive Eating and Pathological Demand Avoidance Part 3| Ep. 160

About this episode

Casey discusses practical tools for families dealing with food struggles related to restrictive eating and PDA.

If you've heard me talk about autonomy, equality, and lowering demands before and thought, "But what does that actually look like at the dinner table?" — this episode is for you. This is the third episode in my series on eating and PDA, and it's the most practical one yet. I'm walking you through six concrete accommodations you can experiment with if your PDA child or teen struggles with restrictive eating: autonomy, equality, lowering demands, sensory accommodations, strewing, and novelty and dopamine. Throughout the episode, I share anonymized client anecdotes and real examples from my own life as a mother of two PDA sons — including how our family navigated mealtimes during the hardest years and what things look like now. This episode is meant to be an experiment you can try out and observe, not a prescription. I hope it it's helpful for you. Key Takeaways Why Restrictive Eating Happens | 00:00:00 Before getting into the practical tips, I revisit the causal logic for why eating is so often impacted in PDA children and teens. Control around eating tends to be the outcome of cumulative nervous system stress, and is often an attempt to reset autonomy and equality when a child…

People in this episode

Host: Casey

Topics covered

• autonomy
• restrictive eating
• pathological demand avoidance
• family dynamics
• mealtime strategies

Keywords

• PDA
• eating struggles
• mealtime accommodations
• autonomy in eating
• parenting strategies

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