Feeding your family is confusing when no one understands WHY it is challenging.

We see you! We know you are at the end of your rope because you have been dealing with this too long. We want you to find answers — and ease with feeding. Let’s center ourselves by starting with a breath.

If you’d like, take a deep inhale through your nose as you examine your worries about your child — and exhale through your nose a sigh of relief. Repeat three to five times. Now, we can dive in from a grounded place.

With us, you can be yourself. You can be honest and transparent about your current mealtime difficulties and feeding challenges. You may relate to the following:

• You have wanted to pull your hair out at mealtime.

• You have struggled to decide what to serve for dinner.

• You have fallen apart when your selective or picky eater refused a meal again.

• You have tried therapy before and it didn’t work.

• You are stressed to the max.

• You feel disconnected from your partner.

• You are anxious about your child’s nutrition.

If this sounds like your current situation, you now have a chance to make a change. Roots Pediatric Therapy will help your family feel more connected and nourished through peaceful mealtimes.

How do we promote change so you can experience peace at meals?

There are multiple approaches, tools, and strategies we utilize to promote positive change for each family. To fully understand the process, it’s helpful to understand the why behind our work. Our mission is for every child in Arizona with a feeding problem to be treated in a respectful manner focused on connection instead of compliance in order to thrive. We start by building rapport with you and your child. We play games, we listen to what you like to do, we observe and participate in your family’s daily routines. We uncover the root causes for mealtime misery. If you’re having trouble, it’s not your fault! Feeding challenges are complicated. It requires understanding nutrition, psychology, neuroscience, anatomy, sensorimotor systems, and more. On average, our clients have visited a minimum of three providers before they start working with us. There are many moving parts, and skilled providers are necessary to identify the top priorities for making improvement.

Feeding does not take place in isolation — it is a communal, sacred, meaningful, and essential daily activity. No person eats the same way — we all have our own food preferences, desires, and abilities. Our approach is guided by our five fundamental values. These align with our services from the direct therapy sessions, to parent coaching, home programming, and ongoing support curated for your family’s unique needs.

Our Core Values:

• Transparency about timeframe, expectations, and reasonable outcomes gained from our services.

• Flexibility while learning to ditch the need for control.

• Connection to our own food stories and one another to enjoy the process.

• Relationships instead of rewards so children can foster their internal drive to learn to eat.

• Curiosity instead of compliance to promote long-term benefits rather than short-term gains.

Our five core values are nonnegotiable — we cannot work without honesty in conversation, mental flexibility, connection in our relationships, and curiosity toward a new way of doing things. We know change will not occur if our brain stays fixed on the past or is constantly ruminating on all.the.things.that.have.not.worked.

This is where we come in! We are here to break the cycle. Stop the spiral into despair. Repair the burnout. We educate you with evidence-informed information, coach you through new habits, and act as your number one fan by advocating for why feeding problems deserve to be in the light — rather than silenced or minimized to something as inconsiderate as “just make your kid eat.”

Our goal: We don’t get your child to eat, we let your child eat, which was inspired by a course with a speech and feeding professional, Jenny McGlothlin MS,CCC-SLP.

Say hello to our solution for you…

Occupational Therapy and Feeding Therapy Programs

Our process has three clear steps:

Investment

Your resources are valuable. Here’s what we can offer you:

Feeding challenges can go on for years. But therapy doesn’t have to.

We will equip you with the skills you need to feel confident and connected during mealtimes.

How can you feel connected with your child after months or even years of mealtime battles? The work often begins away from mealtime and continues both at meals and away from the table. This happens through setting boundaries for safety and nonnegotiables, and then truly learning to let go of control while you play with your child, maybe cook with your child, and learn how to set up new traditions with your child. We must first believe change can happen.

Ask yourself this: What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? Brene Brown, the researcher and storyteller of our time, poised this question nearly ten years ago. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? You would likely try things that are scary, sign up for the class, or maybe even hop in the hot air balloon after only admiring them from the ground. If you know the outcome is going to be successful, you are more likely to try in the first place. We ask that you come with an open mind in order to work through your fear of failure. Failure is often required for growth. It seems backwards, yet if we aren’t afraid of failure, we will be more willing to jump all in knowing the outcome will be better than when we started.

Will our feeding therapy programs guarantee a 100% resolution of your problems and a cure for feeding and eating for good? Absolutely not. We do know, through working with hundreds of families, that small wins will add up to big changes over time. When you show up in the arena, you are giving yourself the best chance you’ve got to make necessary and fruitful changes!

Roots Pediatric Therapy was born to help families plant the seeds needed to cultivate hope, courage, and resiliency in the face of setbacks, challenges, and failures.

With the right tools, we can address the root problems impairing successful feeding and eating skills, inhibiting emotion regulation, and causing significant family stress. Families exist in systems. If one area of the system is off, it impacts the entire flow of the family. The ease is disrupted, and daily tasks start to feel heavy. Our approach to solve this is rooted in Responsive Feeding Therapy, which starts with five main tenets:

• Autonomy to make independent decisions

• Connected relationships to learn and grow together

• Developing competency with the myriad of skills required for safe eating

• A holistic approach to problems

• Individualized care to meet your specific needs

How is this different than other approaches rooted in behaviorism? We believe the dignity of a person must always be honored. “Interventions” are simply invitations to participate, explore, and change. We do not support the use of reward-based feeding methods, bribes, force feeding, ‘the clean plate club’, the ‘no thank you bite’, or any other damaging, unsafe feeding practices. We also recognize that you have done what you have needed to in order for your child to survive up until now.

With that, we always start from the place you are at so we can begin removing the guilt and shame you feel around feeding your family. You are the expert (cough, mealtime maven) and we are your guide. We love hearing when parent’s say things like: “we don’t dread mealtime anymore”, “I have realized this isn’t all my fault”, “I haven’t screwed up my kid for life”, and our favorite “this is the best investment I’ve ever made” (brave mom of a 6 year old).

Resources to better understand our philosophy and life’s work at Roots Pediatric Therapy:

• Beyond Behaviors and Brain-Body Parenting books by Mona Delahooke, PhD

• Chicago Feeding Group at www.chicagofeedingroup.org

• Feeding Matters at www.feedingmatters.org

• Learn, Play, Thrive’s strength-based approach to Autism by Meg Proctor, MS, OTR/L, @learnplaythrive on Instagram

• Pediatric Feeding Disorder Consensus Definition and Conceptual Framework article found with the following citation: Goday, P. S., Huh, S. Y., Silverman, A., Lukens, C. T., Dodrill, P., Cohen, S. S., Delaney, A. L., Feuling, M. B., Noel, R. J., Gisel, E., Kenzer, A., Kessler, D. B., Kraus de Camargo, O., Browne, J., & Phalen, J. A. (2019). Pediatric Feeding Disorder: Consensus Definition and Conceptual Framework. Journal of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition, 68(1), 124–129. https://doi.org/10.1097/MPG.0000000000002188

• Responsive Feeding Therapy White Paper found with the following citation: Cormack, J., Rowell, K., & Postăvaru, G. I. (2020). Self-Determination Theory as a Theoretical Framework for a Responsive Approach to Child Feeding. Journal of nutrition education and behavior, 52(6), 646–651. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2020.02.005

• Therapist Neurodiversity Collection at therapistndc.org to understand our alignment with the Neurodiversity Movement as a human rights campaign

… and for the most in-depth understanding of our work, check out two books we co-authored and published with Skelly Skills in 2021:

• Beyond a Bite Parent Edition: Playful Sensory Food Exploration for ASD and Neurodivergent Kids! by Yaffi Lvova and Hana Eichele

• Beyond a Bite Professional Edition: Practical Approaches to Sensory and Feeding Challenges with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Neurodivergent Clients by Yaffi Lvova and Hana Eichele

Meet Your Occupational Therapist & Feeding Friend

Hana Eichele, MOT, OTR/L, Founder of Roots Pediatric Therapy, LLC

I became an OT because I’m obsessed with solving problems. During undergrad, I found out that OTs are skilled professionals that combine the science of medicine with the art of healing to help clients improve. I was hooked! Furthermore, I had work experiences with the autistic population that solidified my desire to learn everything I possibly could about feeding and eating. I didn’t know where that would lead — but it’s been a wild ride.

In 2019, I launched Roots to finally do things my own way — I wanted to address the root causes impacting feeding and eating challenges. I had done multiple research projects during my education that told me our professions were missing the full picture. We needed to dive deeper — past the observable behaviors, to find answers that cause radical shifts with feeding and eating. Children who struggle to eat, have learned how not to eat, at some point in their lives. Not to the fault of their parents, but often due to medical trauma, anatomy differences from birth, or negative experiences around food — which could have been caused by things such as undiagnosed allergies, untreated reflux, or well-meaning adults in their lives. As an OT Feeding Specialist, I examine the root causes impacting why children have trouble eating from a holistic lens.

Observable problem areas may include:

• severe picky eating

• selective eating

• chronic food refusal

• omitting full food groups

• nutrient deficiencies

• mealtime battles

• mealtime behaviors

• poor family habits, routines, and patterns around mealtime

• oral processing

• oral motor skills

• gross motor skills

• fine motor skills

• sensorimotor skills

• learning styles

• cognitive development

• emotional regulation

• …and more! If we are not equip to address an observable concern, we will provide referrals to our colleagues in the following areas: allergy, immunology, gastroenterology, airway, dentistry, myofunctional therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy, psychology, or play therapy.

Keep in mind: If children could eat well, they would eat well because children are born to please the adults in their lives. They are not being malicious, “acting out”, or manipulating you when they refuse food — over and over again. It’s our job to uncover WHY eating is not easy for them.

With the details taken care of, you may wonder, what’s my motivation for this work?

Well, I wish it weren’t so, but I’ve struggled with my own complex medical challenges for over a decade. In 2015, I finally put a stop to it once and for all — I connected with professionals who understood my problems. With their help, I turned my despair and hopelessness into resilience and healing. Optimal health will require our time and attention; however, my challenges are no longer a part-time job to achieve health. My struggle has fostered a spirit of hope — I know deep in my soul that children and adults CAN and DO heal. Life is meant to be lived, not merely tolerated. I’m so thankful for the professionals that were courageous enough to uncover the root causes of my problems.

If you haven’t found the right support yet, I understand how you feel. Healing is a journey, just as feeding is a marathon, not a sprint (thanks to my nutrition colleague Yaffi for that nugget of wisdom). You might need to work with many providers — or you already have — to find answers and change the trajectory of your family’s life. In the meantime, I want to share a healing mantra that might be helpful for you: For the next 24 hours, I will live free and heal. I am no longer bound by my sick past, there is healing in my future.

If you are ready to build trust at the table, work toward long-term solutions, foster positive relationships with food, and experience peaceful mealtimes, I cannot wait to meet you! Apply today, do not delay.

In case you care about the professional stuff, I’ve got that too.

• Family Social Science degree from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Master of Occupational Therapy degree from the University of North Dakota - School of Medicine and Health Sciences

• National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT) Credential #: 383457

• Arizona Board of Occupational Therapy Examiners (ABOTE) Credential #: OTH-007087

• Visit Hana’s professional profile for all the details here.