I skipped around a lot, but this book gave a lot of good advice that I am going to be trying with my very picky six year old. We have done a lot of the don't do's that are talked about in the book. I had to highlighted so many of the different quotes that I am hoping to use this summer. It changed my view on how kids look at food, and hopefully we will be able to open our daughter's choices of food.

Like everyone else reading this book, I have a mini me fussy eater. A 5-year-old who is reluctant to eat many things, mealtimes are known to end in tears without any food eaten. My hopes for End the Mealtime Meltdown was maybe a little different - my fussy eater is currently being assessed for ASD and more than anything, I wanted to educate myself and understand what goes through the minds of children when it comes to their relationship with food.

End the Mealtime Meltdown gave good advice and it made me change my way of thinking and approaching things in the future. "Appreciating new flavors and food takes time and practice much like learning the shapes and sounds of letters." Sounds obvious, but this was something I'd never thought of before, and the book is full of quotes like this which I've highlighted and saved for future reference.

I did think the book was slightly long winded and could have been condensed slightly, however overall I got what I wanted from reading.

There is some good advice in this book about how to have more positive mealtime interactions with your kids. I like the idea to focus on the five senses and ask open-ended questions. I have definitely done ALL of the things the book says you are not supposed to do: bargaining, begging, "you didn't even try it!", etc. It does seem like we are making some mealtime progress by putting some of these ideas into action.

I think that helping kids have positive associations with foods should be accessible to everyone, and this book just doesn't hit the mark for this. It's too long and repetitive, and the language could be simpler. It could have been a long blog post. I don't think most people have time to read this much about how to talk to their kids about food, or to journal about it. Regarding the language, as an example, one sentence is "gastronomic intelligence is an intrinsic attribute that everyone has the capacity to strengthen". I'm not sure it needs to be that complicated.

Thank you to New Harbinger Publications and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.