Parent Training for Picky Eating
Help your child build flexibility around food by changing how you respond to picky eating.
Six structured parent-training sessions | No child participation | $900
Is picky eating shaping your family’s routines?
Buying only certain brands? Following detailed preparation rules? Avoiding restaurants or travel?
Parents naturally adjust to keep their child eating and reduce distress. Sometimes, these changes can reinforce food-related anxiety.
This doesn’t mean you caused your child’s picky eating. It means there are new ways you can help.
Accommodation can look like:
Buying only specific brands or food shapes
Following increasingly detailed preparation rules
Avoiding restaurants, celebrations, or travel
Asking the whole family to follow food-related rules
Arranging for the child to eat separately
A different way to support your child
Developed at the Yale Child Study Center, SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) is an evidence-based treatment used for addressing picky eating.
You learn to change your own responses to picky eating while remaining warm, supportive, and confident in your child’s ability to cope.
The message to your child becomes: “I know this feels hard, and I believe you can handle it.” Learn more →
Because SPACE sessions are for parents, your child does not need to attend. It may be a good fit when picky eating is affecting the whole family, you feel caught in reassurance or rituals, or your child is reluctant to participate in therapy.
SPACE can also complement a child’s individual treatment by helping you support progress at home. Your clinician can help determine how it fits into your child’s care.
You can begin even if your child isn’t ready for therapy
How the SPACE program works
You'll work with a SPACE-trained therapist to understand how picky eating operates in your family and develop a realistic plan for changing the patterns that may be reinforcing it.
Identify the accommodation pattern
Recognize the reassurance, avoidance, rituals, or family accommodations surrounding your child's picky eating.
Make a manageable plan
Choose specific accommodations to gradually reduce, without changing everything at once.
Prepare your child
Learn how to communicate upcoming changes in a supportive, predictable way.
Build confidence
Respond to distress with empathy while showing your child that you believe in their ability to cope.
Why Blackbird Health
SPACE-trained therapists
Work with clinicians specifically trained to help parents respond differently to picky eating.
Care that doesn't stop with SPACE
Sometimes SPACE is one piece of the solution. If your child needs individual therapy, medication support, or other care, Blackbird can connect those services as part of one coordinated team.
We understand the whole child
Picky eating doesn't always happen in isolation. Our clinicians look at your child's broader mental health and development so care can reflect what's really going on.
Virtual care that fits family life
Because SPACE works directly with parents, sessions can fit more easily into busy family schedules.
You don't have to wait for your child to be ready to start making things better.
Blackbird Health's SPACE program gives you concrete tools to respond differently to picky eating and reduce the patterns that keep it going.
Six structured parent-training sessions | $900
Frequency asked questions
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Usually, no. SPACE works directly with parents and caregivers. Your child doesn't need to participate in the sessions for you to begin changing how anxiety is handled at home.
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A family accommodation is something a caregiver does differently because of a child's anxiety. For example, repeatedly providing reassurance, helping a child avoid something they fear, changing a family routine, or participating in an OCD ritual.
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That's one of the advantages of SPACE. Because treatment focuses on changes parents can make themselves, your child generally doesn't need to participate in treatment.
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Blackbird's SPACE program is designed for families of children with diagnosed anxiety disorders, OCD, and picky eating. Your clinician can help determine whether it's appropriate for your child.
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SPACE is a structured six-session parent-training program for $900. Your initial consultation helps determine whether the program is a good fit for your family.