Teaching Strategy #12: Just one bite……. how do you get a child to eat something new?
French fries, chicken nuggets, pizza: What do these three foods have in common?
- They are what is called “fast food.”
- They are not exactly “healthy,” being deep-fried in oil or (in the case of the pizza) dripping oil and grease.
- They taste really good (to the general population).
- They are all that your child eats.
Picky or fussy eating—-”neophobia“— is a phenomenon not at all unknown to parents of many autistic children; my friend Whitterer on Autism writes often on this (and well conveys the parental anxiety over “should I make a stab at getting two of the four food groups into my child today” or “fine, just eat something.”) A child not eating the broccoli or the Brussel sprouts, or turning up her or his nose at anything from starchy items made crunchy in boiling vats of oil, is not unheard of, of course, among parents whose children are not autistic. (Jim sometimes notes that his childhood staples were PB & J and pizza.)
But getting an autistic child to “just try one bite” can seem a Herculean task. Over the years, when I have tried to have Charlie eat new and different things, I have tried more and more to keep in mind his differing sensory needs and his general caution regarding anything new, from entering a strange house he has never been in before to wearing shoes a size bigger (but which do not have the familiar grooves and comfy spots of the old, getting-too-tight pair) to, come the start of September, being in a different classroom than he was last year (though he will be in the same school building as he was last year).
When he was just turning two, Charlie—who had, as a baby, eaten any sort of vegetable (in puréed form) and whatever we seemed to put in front of him—-would eat only bread (”he’s carbo-loading” quipped another parent whose child was in Charlie’s daycare center) and (this was a brief period) chocolate chip cookies. Charlie has been more or less on the gluten-free casein-free diet since he was two (he sometimes eats something with wheat in it when we are out). When we put Charlie on this special diet, it actually became a way to expand his food choices which were basically from one food group, and of one sort. Charlie has definitely eaten his full share of French fries over the years but is quite game at trying new things, or at least to take that “one taste.” His favorites are sushi (and not just the California roll), and various Asian rice noodles dishes (and Asian food generally), watermelon and other fruits and vegetables; he always seems willing to try various combinations of meat or fish and vegetables in a stir-fry. He definitely does not like eggs (nor do I).
Sharon asked a few days ago about helping her 5-year-old eat new foods and these are the steps I follow. Any suggestions are very welcome!
(1) Choose one food that will not (you think) too difficult for your child to try to eat. I have been known to consider Charlie eating a different shape of rice noodle—the thin kind instead of the wide kind—as a new food.
(2) Presume that it may take awhile before your child eats the new food, or even lets it touch his or her lips, or come within smelling range.
(3) Pair the new food with an old food that your child really likes. Charlie used to love these crackers, so if he let a new food near his mouth (or did otherwise—see (4) ), he was given a cracker. We were careful not to say “if you eat X you will get/earn this cracker!”. The idea was just to “pair” the new, scarey food with the old familiar one, so that Charlie’s associations of the new food were not unpleasant.
(4)Break down the steps. I first just put the new food on the table or Charlie’s plate and did not require him to eat it. The next time (this could be the next meal or the next day, depending on what was going on with Charlie and with us), I might just let the food near his mouth. The next time, he just needed to taste or lick or smell the food. After that, I would have him put the food in his mouth; if he chewed and swallowed, great!; if he did not, that was fine too and we repeated this step until he did chew and swallow. Then we gradually increased the number of bites of the food. (This website breaks the steps down further, and emphasizes organic foods, dye-free foods, etc.)
(5)Don’t force it. I avoided being too insistent about Charlie doing any of the steps described in (4); I tried to focus on learning to pick up and eat the food himself, with a minimum of any physical effort on my part. (I have elsewhere referred to this as my grass in the wind principle: Rather than straining or “fighting” against Charlie’s anxiety, I try to “bend” myself to it.)
(6) Be careful about cajoling. Charlie prefers for there to not be too much talking in a novel situation: I think he is trying to take in all the new information and to figure out what to do. I keep his sensory needs and general wariness about “the new” in mind, and also my own preference for certain foods everyday, such as a bagel, a salad, coffee.
Charlie, by the way, will eat broccoli and Brussels sprouts but is not overly fond of them—but he has a real liking for cauliflower.
Cauliflower photo courtesy of DotCalm9 and French fries photo ratterellvia Flickr
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Food and Diet, Parenting, Sensory, Teaching Strategies
10 opinions for Teaching Strategy #12: Just one bite……. how do you get a child to eat something new?
bev
Aug 23, 2007 at 9:56 am
Maybe try sneaking some new veggies onto the pizza? I learned to like broccoli and cauliflower by first eating them deep fried. After a few years (yes, years) I started to enjoy the taste of the vegetables without the glob of fat attached. I still don’t like them raw, but can tolerate them when they show up in a salad, and I happily eat most any vegetable lightly steamed or in stir fry.
mommy~dearest
Aug 23, 2007 at 10:47 am
A great suggestion I heard (but sadly doesn’t work for my son) is to pop some veggies in a Cuisineart or some other food grinder, and blend those puppies to a puree. Then you can take the ground up veggies and mix them into spaghetti sause, pizza sauce, or whatever it is your child will eat.
Mine refuses spaghetti (even without the sauce), and will not eat homemade pizza. I’m trying to figure out how I can get fruit or veggies into a cheese-it, a waffle, or mac-n-cheese.
bethduckie
Aug 23, 2007 at 11:23 am
with mine the issues were more textural rather than taste. Admittedly he did spend some months on bread, oranges and milk only! Other than that, whilst he wouldnt touch cooked veggies he’d eat them raw or cooked and blended very well in a soup, he knew they were in there, but that wasnt the issue for him. He also cant cope with things that are mixed, so plain pasta, alongside veggies, alongside cheese is fine, pasta in a chunky sauce with the cheese melted on the top is not.
Laura Collins
Aug 23, 2007 at 11:25 am
I highly recommend the literature on OCDs. Much of what you describe as helpful would be in the category of “desensitization” used in the treatment of OCD. I know it helped me a great deal with my extremely sensitive son to look at it as a “can’t” and not a “won’t” and then to, as you describe, break it down in to smaller steps. It also helps, as you mention, to start where they are and not where someone somewhere thinks they “should” be.
Leila
Aug 23, 2007 at 11:32 am
In my son’s “feeding therapy” what has worked to make him try SOME new foods was building momentum and rewarding those little steps with a favorite reinforcer (first smell, then bring to lips, then lick, then bite - and that is reinforced with a bowful of his favorite treat, and lots of cheer). Once he takes that first bite and realizes he likes the taste, then he’ll be able to eat bigger portions and the reinforcer is slowly faded.
Of course there are some things that make him gag so we don’t insist on them. There are other things that he won’t put in his mouth in any circumstance, he won’t even try regardless of the reinforcer. But as someone said above, those things can be mixed in with other preferred foods. My son hates cheese, for instance, but won’t mind if it’s mixed with refried beans.
Luckily he loves most fruits, so he’s not eating only processed stuff. He’s now eating chicken mixed with rice and beans, or by way of chicken nuggets. He won’t touch junk food staples such as burgers, hot dogs, pizza and fries. But because those foods are so common and many times the only options when you go out to a party, fair or sports game, we are including them in the therapy.
Leanne
Aug 23, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I blush looking back at some of the things we did to make Patrick eat.
I will admit that bribery still takes place at our table in the form of ’supper treats’. You eat your supper, you get your treat (and mom gets one too!). But that’s usually with foods we’ve already convinced him to try before. New food are tough and often require ignoring him completely while he investigates all its properties.
He still can’t eat cooked carrots. They make him gag. So I’ve decided to let those go…
Regan
Aug 23, 2007 at 3:55 pm
I guess it goes without saying to make sure that there are no issues with food intolerance or physical (metabolic, structural or digestive) problem before starting any kind of feeding program?
(I just thought that I’d mention that because it was an FYI that I got from Cathleen Piazza at the University of Nebraska–feeding problems/programs are her specialty).
Otherwise our strategy has been very similar to Kristina’s or Leila’s…so far, so good. The funny thing is that my daughter has a very healthy diet, so healthy that we also had to “teach” eating restaurant and fast food to open up some options when on trips.
Picky Picky
Oct 10, 2007 at 5:39 pm
[…] published study highlights not one but two concerns of autism families, picky eating or “neophobia” and the interactions of genes and environment. According to an article in today’s New […]
Ariane
Mar 13, 2008 at 7:42 am
Fantastic. I will definitely share this with the parents with whom I work!
Kristina Chew, PhD
Mar 13, 2008 at 8:41 am
Hope it is helpful—-there have been times when Charlie has only been eating about 5 things (most starchy). We try to make sure vegetables, fruits, and protein get in the mix!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: