ALLENTOWN, Pa. — If you scroll through Molly Coleman’s TikTok account, you’ll see several videos of Ruthie, Coleman’s 3-year-old daughter, playing with her food.
Yes, literally.
One video, with more than 4.2 million views, shows Ruthie sitting on Coleman’s lap, “petting a pierogi.”
Another shows her, pigtails and all, putting “corn mittens” on a fork.
Another shows her cheerfully helping Coleman make dinner, chanting “Sprinkle! Sprinkle! Sprinkle!” as Ruthie dresses a salad with salt and pepper.
Through creativity, exploration and sensory-friendly activities, Coleman is helping her daughter subconsciously build positive relationships with food and eating.
“There’s so much pressure to be a perfect parent these days. Through my work, I want to be able to relieve some of that pressure.”Eat Say Play founder Molly Coleman
Through her startup company Eat Say Play, founded in August, she hopes — in addition to its commanding social media presence — to help parents from all around the world do the same with their children.
Coleman said she hopes to take her services outside of the digital landscape and begin in-person visits, showing families around the Lehigh Valley the wonders of feeding, play and speech therapy and how it can benefit both kids and their parents.
She’ll hold an in-person workshop at the Downtown Allentown Market on Jan. 20.
“There’s so much pressure to be a perfect parent these days,” Coleman said. “Through my work, I want to be able to relieve some of that pressure.”
'I wanted more'
“Feeding therapy” is among the many fields of study within speech pathology, which Coleman went to Misericordia University in Dallas, Luzerne County, to study in 2010.
While interning for Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Center in Allentown as part of her five-year master's degree program, Coleman said she took a keen interest in watching people learn to eat again, whether it be following a traumatic brain injury or a stroke.
“I knew I liked this aspect of speech pathology, but I also knew that I loved working with kids<br/>So originally I was trying to figure out a way to combine the two.”Eat Say Play founder Molly Coleman
“I knew I liked this aspect of speech pathology, but I also knew that I loved working with kids." Coleman said.
"So originally I was trying to figure out a way to combine the two.”
After graduating, Coleman worked as a speech language pathologist with Kutest Kids Early Intervention in Philadelphia, where she provided in-home speech, language and feeding services to young children with autism, feeding disorders or developmental disabilities.
In 2020, she had her daughter and moved north to Allentown, where she took another job in speech pathology with Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit.
“I loved my work in early intervention," she said. “But I wanted more.”
'Help out as many people as I can'
Coleman said the goal of Eat Say Play was unclear at first.
“I knew I wanted to be more involved in my community and was looking to begin providing services to families in the Lehigh Valley during the off-hours of my full-time job,” she said.
Social media, too, was a mostly foreign concept to Coleman, who said she “just wanted to do enough to get established.”
“Obviously, I can’t provide personalized medical advice via social media, but I hope to help out as many people as I can."Eat Say Play founder Molly Coleman
It was mid-December when the video of Coleman’s daughter picking at and eventually enjoying a pierogi went viral.
In the video, Coleman uses gentle encouragement, sans bribing or pressure, to let her daughter use her senses to explore foreign food before eating it.
The video prompted thousands of comments from users around the world.
“I just tried this today with my toddler." one comment read. "Not only did he end up eating the rest of my sandwich but he asked for his own AND ate it! THANK YOU!”
Another reads, “I wish my parents knew this stuff when I was a kid. Watching this feels so healing, if not a little sad for my kid self. I’ll try giving myself more space like this.”
Coleman replied, “You absolutely should,” with a heart emoji.
Coleman said social media is a powerful tool in today’s health care education landscape, and she emphasized there is a need to provide “ethical, evidence-based education to the community in an age where misinformation runs rampant.”
“Obviously, I can’t provide personalized medical advice via social media, but I hope to help out as many people as I can,” she said.
