On Demand

Before the Bite: How Attachment and Emotion Shape the Way Children Receive Food

with Deborah MacNamara, PhD
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Register Now $59

Coming On Demand Fall 2026

Expected release September

Course Description

We have never known more about food. And yet, feeding and eating struggles have never been more common. Something essential is missing — and it isn't information.

Nourished brings together the science of human attachment, emotion, and development — including new insights from gut-brain research — to reveal what lies beneath the surface of every feeding challenge: relationship. How children and teens receive food — whether they are open, resistant, or shut down — is inseparable from how safe and connected they feel to the adults who care for them. And the sources of disruption are real: stress and alarm can rise from within a child's own body, or flood in from the world around them. Either way, it lands in the feeding relationship.

This is not a conversation about what parents are doing wrong. Quite the opposite. It is about helping the caring adults in a child's life understand what is happening — and why they are uniquely positioned to be the answer their child needs. Connection doesn't just matter alongside nourishment; it is nourishment. And when adults understand how to hold onto their kids through the hard moments, they don't just reduce the struggle — they restore the conditions in which their children can truly receive care.

Drawing on Dr. Deborah MacNamara's award-winning book Nourished, this presentation offers parents, educators, and helping professionals a relational and developmentally grounded path through — one that brings food back to what it was always meant to be: an expression of caretaking that reaches the people we care for most.

In this 2 hour webinar, you will learn to:

  • Understand how attachment and emotion shape feeding and eating, and why relationship is the foundation from which all feeding challenges must be approached.

  • Recognize how stress, alarm, and disconnection — whether arising from within a child or from the world around them — disrupt receptivity and show up as feeding and eating difficulties.

  • Identify ways to restore the relational and emotional conditions that allow children and teens to receive care and nourishment from the adults who matter most to them.

Audience

This intermediate level course is appropriate for Pediatric dietitians, feeding therapists, OTs, SLPs, PTs, assistants, educators, early intervention providers, parents/caregivers, and other professionals (social workers, nurses, registered dietitians, etc.) working with children with feeding challenges. Please contact us at [email protected] with any needs regarding accommodations. 

CEU Info

Certificates will be issued verifying participation in 2 hours of continuing education once you complete the quiz and achieve a 100% score. Check with your professional organizations licensing bodies to determine exactly what may be accepted for you. This course is eligible for ASHA’s professional development hour requirements. You will not require ASHA pre-approval for this. See here [https://www.asha.org/certification/FactDef/] for more information. This course is eligible for AOTA credits. Please check your state’s guidelines for specific information about this continuing education activity may apply to your state’s CEU guidelines.

Instructor

Deborah MacNamara, PhD

Dr. Deborah MacNamara is an award-winning researcher, author, developmentalist, counsellor, and educator with over 25 years of experience supporting parents, educators, childcare providers, and helping professionals in understanding children's behaviour, emotional well-being, development, and feeding challenges. Her work brings together food, emotion, attachment, and development — translating the science of human connection into practical, relational care. She is the author of Nourished: Connection, Food, and Caring for Our Kids (and Everyone Else We Love), which received the Nautilus Gold Award for Parenting and the Living Now Evergreen Gold Medal for Health & Wellness in 2024, and Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (and Anyone Who Acts Like One). Deborah is on faculty at the Neufeld Institute and has presented internationally, including at the United Nations and the Dalai Lama Center for Peace & Education. She is the creator of the Gather to Eat presentation series and course, helping professionals and communities reconnect feeding with relationship and restore nourishment to its rightful place in human care.

Coming On Demand Fall 2026

Expected release September

Cancellations

Cancellations must be in writing. We are unable to issue a refund after 10% of the content has been viewed. If the Get Permission Institute should need to remove course content for any reason, course fees will be refunded or transferred to another course at the discretion of the participant.