Ep 338: The Missing Link in Pediatric Feeding: Critical Skills Grad Programs Skip

But like I said, this is not just another ceu, okay? This is going to change how you do feeding therapy. And honestly, even if you only joined for the TOTs and MYO modules, because a couple people have done that and they're like, oh, my gosh, that was worth its weight in gold. It will pay for itself in your clinical confidence and in the referrals that you start to attract and in the results that you're getting your patients. And so, like I said, we've had grads enrolled just for these modules, and they. They tell me all the time, they're like, it was. It was worth it. That alone was worth the investment. Hello, my friends, and welcome to episode 338 of the Untethered podcast. This is your host, Hallie Balkan, and we're going to dive into an episode today that is a little bit different than what we usually do here. And before we even jump in, I do want to apologize because I have my merpy in my mouth now, and if you've listened recently, you know I was getting it. But if my speech sounds a little bit different, that is why I'm going to do my best to speak super clear. But here we are.

Welcome to the Untethered podcast. I am your host, Holly Balkan. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, podcaster, business owner, and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to.

Bring you the most up to date.

Information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, airway tether, dural tissue, and pediatric feeding therapy space. If you're new here, I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to spread this message far and wide. If you've been around since June 2019, thanks for being a loyal listener. As we jump into today's episode, remember to listen with correct oral rest.

Posture, tongue up, lips closed, teeth apart, breathe through your nose.

Let's get started.

Okay, so as I mentioned, today is a little bit different. All right? This is a bonus episode because we are officially in the final days of enrollment for my course, Feed the Peds, and I don't want you to miss this opportunity. If you're an slp, an ot, a pt, and interested in or currently working in the pediatric field feeding space. Okay? So if you are listening to this on the day that it drops, you have just like, I don't know, 24, maybe 48 hours before doors close, and they are not going to open again until next year or until 2026. This is the last time. We're offering this in 2025. So in this short little episode that we are recording here, I'm going to share a sneak peek into, like, the real gap that graduate school left all of us, really, when it comes to pediatric feeding. And there's going to be a little clinical pearl that I'll share that you can use right away. So if this resonates, I do want you to go over to feed the peas.com so that you can enroll before doors close. But let's jump in. Okay, so let's first start with talking about the gap, the gap that they just don't teach. Because here's the thing, okay? Grad school did not prepare, really any of us for pediatric feeding. I think there's maybe I can. I can count on less than two hands the number of graduate programs that teach pediatric feeding and swallowing. A lot of programs are focused more on, like, you know, dysphagia. Excuse me, in adults and not so much in pediatrics, which is unfortunate and we're really hoping that changes. But in the current reality, this is. This is the current. This is what we're dealing with. Right? So it didn't teach you then, right, how to assess a toddler who's refusing solids. It didn't show you how to screen for tethered oral tissues. It didn't give you tools to adapt myofunctional strategies either for the birth to five population. You know, those kiddos who are not appropriate yet for a traditional myofunctional therapy program, because even if you are lucky enough to go to one of those programs that does PD does teach pediatric feeding. Again, there's maybe, I don't know, I think six. Six of them total that I'm aware of. Hopefully there's more out there that I don't know yet, don't yet know about. But if you were lucky enough to go to them, they are not talking about tethered oral tissues and adapting myo strategies for the birth to five crowd. But these are the kids that are showing up on your caseload, right? So what happens? You're left googling, piecing things together from Facebook groups. Maybe you're watching random YouTube videos, but you feel like you're missing something big. Because the reality is that nobody who's ethically providing information out there is showing you how to do therapy with exercises and all of that on social media or on YouTube because, hi, that's unethical. And every child's therapy looks different, right? So we can't just go plaster exercises out there for you to follow. We can educate, right? But education can only go so far. So what happens right again, you're left trying to piecemeal it all together yourself without the appropriate mentorship and guidance and, you know, frameworks and information that allows you to actually step into critically thinking about these topics. And so that, my friends, is why so. So many therapists tell me, like, I, I know I need more. I just don't know where to get it. Like, I know I knew I needed more, right? I just didn't know where to get it until I found Feed the Peds. And that's actually really exciting to hear from therapists because what I've done in Feed the Peeds is unlike any other course out there. There's still zero other courses that do what we do inside Feed the Peeds. But what I will say is some people have said that just the TOTs and MYO modules alone are worth their weight in gold, and they would enroll in Feed the peds all over again just to have access to that information. And that, my friends, is why I wanted to kind of focus on that for a few minutes today in this short little episode. All right, so let me give you a little taste, if you will, of what we cover inside the program. One of the biggest red flags, and I really don't love that term red flags, but I feel like everyone knows what that means, so we're going to roll with it. One of the biggest red flags for a possible tethered oral tissue right, in Toddlers for Existence, for example, is messy eating that just doesn't seem to improve. Okay? We get parents who say to us a lot, and maybe you have two of you already work in peed feeding. They'll go, oh, you know, oh, their food's just falls out of their mouth. Or I was just all. All these, like, you know, off the plate on the side. And listen, I know adults like this, too. But here's the thing. If you look closer, the tongue might not be lateralizing properly, right? It might not be moving side to side. That's what I mean when I say lateralizing. Maybe they're. The food is poor cooling in the cheeks, right? They. They've got those cute little chipmunk cheeks and cheeks, and it's not always because they still have the baby fat there. It's because those chipmunks are storing food in the cheeks, right? They've got this little chipmunk cheeks holding food. And it's not because they want to. It's because they're struggling to Clear it properly. And instead of chewing efficiently, a lot of times these kiddos are mashing up the food, right? So let me. If you're watching on YouTube, I'm just going to show you a little bit. Let me get one of my little mouth puppets here and show you what I mean by this. Okay, so they're doing more of this, like, up and down munch, right? The tongue might not even be moving. The tongue, like you see in this example, might be living on the floor of the mouth, and they're just going up and down, up and down, up and down, mash, mash, mash. So when I say mash, right, they may not even be moving the food to their molars, to their teeth. They may. The food may just be existing wherever they put it in their mouth, or it might be moving to their tongue and. And staying there, and they're literally mashing their tongue up against the roof of their mouth. Um, I had a kiddo once who, like, I don't remember if it was like, ramen or whatever it was. It was something where the veggies they were eating and the food they were eating was very easy to mash. And so people were like, oh, wow, that's a really, like. That seems like advanced. This kid likes Indian food, this kid likes Asian food, this kid likes this other type of food. And we started to look at what the kid was actually ordering and eating. And yes, they liked the flavor profile, but the child was hyposensitive. They were not. They were not feel things really easily. So that. That higher flavor profile was helping me kind of alert their mouth to the food, right, that was going into their mouth. And they were choosing foods that were either, like, steamed and easier to mash, or they were cooked in a way where it did not require a lot of. And so they could either munch, munch, munch, and break it down easily, or mash, mash, mash, and break it down easily. And so this is the thing that is happening, right? Like I'm. Like I said, instead of chewing efficiently, they are mashing that food up and kind of hoping for the best. So this is what a lot of therapists miss. A lot. Most therapists in, in fact, miss this. And so inside, feed the peds. This is one of the things that we talk about. We talk about chew patterns, we talk about, you know, we teach you how to spot things like this, how to assess it, how to actually give parents and caregivers, like, a real explanation as to what is going on. And here's the Kicker, right? When you catch something like this and you pull, put the right plan in, in place, therapy actually moves so much faster. And your families start to feel relief, which in turn helps you to feel like, okay, I got this. Like, I know what I'm talking about. And you feel more competent as a clinician. And competence leads to confidence. And I feel like since I launched this course in March of 2020 and this podcast back in summer of night 2019, I have talked about a ton. Probably. You guys are probably sick of hearing me say it. If you followed me for the past six years, you're probably tired of me hearing, like, hearing me say, like, conf. Or competence builds confidence. Competence leads to confidence. But it's true, right? And listen, at the end of the day, we do like, I don't know everything. You're never going to know everything. We are all lifelong learners, right? But to even get a glimpse of confidence as a therapist, we have got to understand what we're doing and have the ability to express, explain it to somebody else. Because then we get their buy in. They help support the therapy. Therapy moves faster. Families, everyone's nervous system is in check. Everyone can take a deep breath, breathless. And there goes. There goes my lisp for my appliance. Everyone can take a deep breath. And we all feel. We all feel good, right? We feel like we're moving in the right direction, okay? And this is, my friends, this is just one tiny little sliver of what we cover inside the tots and myo modules. I just wanted to kind of give you a little. A little sneak peek, a little clinical pearl, right? Because I want you to start looking at those messy eaters a little bit differently. Like, why is it such a mess? Why is the food falling out of their mouth? Why are they getting more on the plate, on the floor, on the table than they're getting in their mouth? And I'm not talking about babies who are learning how to feed for the first time. I'm talking about toddlers who have been on solids for a couple of years, okay? So I want to just kind of frame that for you right now. Here's the other thing. I know some of you are thinking like, well, Hallie, this sounds amazing. I need this, but I've already spent a lot of money on CES this year. I just can't add another big course right now. And listen, I get it, I do. But I want to reframe this for you, okay? Because this is not just another ceu. And I think that's the misconception out there. People are like, oh, you're, you're a CEU provider for Asha and aota. Yes, we, we are. Oh, I don't need any more CEUs in the CEO cycle. Here's the thing. This is a comprehensive course on assessing and trading with a whole lot of other bonus information that is included inside this course. Right. Aside from the actual bonuses, like there's just a lot more. Plus you get lifetime access to it. But that's a whole nother story. The other thing I want to mention too is that we do have a certification that follows. You don't have to get it, but there is a comprehensive certification as well. As far as this course goes, I mentioned you get lifetime access. There is mentorship, and it's ultimately a roadmap that you're not going to find anywhere else. It just does stay still, does not exist even five years later. And I think we've done this course now 17 times, I believe. I think this is the 18th time we're teaching it and the last time in 2025. And so you're just, you're not going to find it anywhere else. Okay. And the reason why I feel so passionate about this and why I say this with conviction in the way that I do is because it's a 12 week course. And when you all enter, we break it down in a way that you're, you're following what we call our elevation movement. And that's my methodology. Right. This is a method of where we combine skillset, which anybody can teach you, but we're including skill sets that not everybody teaches. And we're combining them and bringing them together, especially when it comes to Tots and Mayo and these little ones. Then we're also bringing in the mentorship component. A lot of people sell it and most people don't give it or they don't know how to actually give it. And the really cool part about the way that we have structured our mentorship and we have several. We've got 2300. Maybe it's 2600. I have to go check the numbers, guys. I don't remember, but at least 2300 graduates, SLPs and OTS who have graduated from Feed the Feed course. So we know this works because we have some really good case studies here. We're creating critical thinkers and you are turning into critical thinkers. I don't want to say we're creating it, but the way that we've created the program allows you all to go from where you are today to where you desire to be. 12 weeks from now. And so we're seeing a lot of you come out asking different questions, treating patients differently, looking at it through a different lens, understanding where to go next in therapy. And yes, again, we all need to start somewhere and we all need to have mentorship, like ongoing mentorship, and any specialty that we seek out in life, in any industry, however, the ability to assess and understand what you're assessing, make sense of it, right? Create a treatment plan, start therapy, continue therapy, and check in with mentors as needed. That is, we don't see that coming out of most other courses. There are other courses out there that are like, okay, step one, step two, step three. That is not how feeding therapy works. My friends. Like, you gotta know that every single child who comes to you through a feeding therapy lens is not going to present the same, right? But there are certain foundational things, like in skills that we can look at, and then there's other things that are going to change from kid to kid. Okay, so there's that the third pillar of our elevation movement is identity. And I don't want to spoil it, but. And this is like a very brief thing that I walk y' all through in the beginning of the course before you even dive into, before we even release the first module. But so many of you are out there like, well, I can't call myself a pediatric feeding therapist. Why not? Are you? You know, and I'm never, we will never tell you to misrepresent yourself or your skill set, but so many people think that someone else needs to hold them, you know, not hold them, hand them a magical golden crown that reads pediatric feeding therapist to put on your head at some point in your career before you even call yourself that. We're not saying, go out and say you're the specialist and the best person and everyone should just come to you. Like, that's a little arrogant and ego driven, right? No one's telling you, telling you that. But if you don't step into actually believing that you're a pediatric feeding therapist before you start to take these courses, you don't step into that identity. You're never actually going to step into becoming one. And this is why we have Thousands now of SLPs and OTS who have come to us and said, this is the first course where I truly stepped into that identity. I feel like I know I'm a pediatric feeding therapist. I am here to help the pediatric feeding cases coming my way, and I feel ready and equipped and they're actually going out doing it. And some of Them have been, you know, taking courses for years and they've never actually gone out and treated a pediatric feeding case before. That, to me, is mind blowing, right? So when I say we're doing things differently, I mean we're doing things differently. There's a reason why this is the 18th time we're teaching it. We run three cohorts per. Per year. This is the Last one for 2025. But like I said, this is not just another CEU, okay? This is going to change how you do feeding therapy. And honestly, even if you only joined for the TOTs and MYO modules, because a couple people have done that and they're like, oh my gosh, that was worth its weight in gold. It will pay for itself in your clinical confidence and in the referrals that you start to attract and in the results that you're getting your patients. And so like I said, we've had grads enrolled just for these modules. And they, they tell me all the time, they're like, it was, it was worth it. That alone was worth the investment. Okay? Obviously you get way more than that to go to FeedThePedes.com check it out, you'll see all the different modules that we offer you. I would love to have you guys join us. So here's the deal, okay? If you're listening to this on the day that it's airing, you really got only a couple days left before doors close. Because once they close, that is it, my friends. They close. They won't open again until 2026, as I've already said. And so that means this could be another 6 to 12 plus months of feeling like unprepared, turning away cases will truly. Yeah, we'll say six to 12 months. Because I. We don't even have our launch schedule completely solidified for 2026 yet. We are working on that right now. So we will soon, but it will be sometime in the first quarter of the year that we run the next course. But I don't know when. So if you know, another 12 months of feeling unprepared, like I was saying, turning away cases, second guessing yourself in sessions, you know, or you can make the leap now and finally have the training that you need. Okay? So if you go to feed the peas.com, you can join us today before doors close. Please don't wait another year. If this is something you've been wanting to do, you owe it to yourself, my friends, and you owe it to the kids who need your help. I am stepping back into remembering why I did this in the first place and like I shared with you at the beginning, I want to get kids off a pediatric feeding wait list and we cannot do that without your help. So if this is something you're feeling called to do, if you have questions, DM me at Hallie Balkan on Instagram I am here for you. I would love to answer any questions you have about about the course. We also have something really cool, an AI component that is basically your pocket mentor and you're going to get when you enroll in Feed the Peeds. You also get access a six week trial with that we release at a certain point in the course. So that's really cool and everybody is eating it up like it has become such a cool tool that's only available for our programs anyways. Halle AI. You know ask me about that too in the DMs if you want to know more, but I would love to just say don't wait. Join us. Can't wait to see you in there. Thank you for tuning into this bonus episode. I wanted to drop this in because I just think timing is urgent. I don't want you to miss out. And just remember grad school didn't prepare you or me for pediatric feeding, right? But you don't have to keep struggling through it on your own. This is your chance. So I really do hope to see you inside Feed the peds and we'll see you in there.

Quick Disclaimer all information, content and material.

Of this podcast are the opinions of.

The speakers and is for the informational purpose only and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you found value in this episode.

And want to hear more of these.

Myotots, Airway and Feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode on your social media platforms. You can access free resources and all I offer@halibalkin.com or pop over to Hollybulcken on Instagram to get all the latest updates.