As parents, we spend a lot of time worrying about what our children eat. Is it nutritious, is it enough, is it too much, and is it socially acceptable behavior. And we love to feed our children good food and it makes us feel good when they eat. It’s part of the good Mom rating scale. I am a good mom if my child eats good food three times a day. I am not sure who thought that was true but I don’ think they ever had a kid! Children, all children, have issues with food. They like all the wrong things, they eat too much, they don’t eat anything, they get hungry two hours after they refused dinner…. and on and on. From infancy to adulthood food can be our worst enemy disguised as our dearest friend.
And when you add autism to the mix, food issues become more intense right along with all the other behaviors that are more intense because you child has autism.
So let’s look at the typically developing child to get a better perspective on how to help your child with autism. Keep in mind, your child with autism is a person with food issues. So let’s focus on the person (little person that he is!) and not the autism for a minute.
Remember
• People eat for a lot of reasons – and being hungry is probably not one of them
• People refuse food for a lot of reasons and not being hungry is usually not one of them.
Let’s take a moment to look at food problems.
Health:
Is your child on medication? Does your child have a diagnosis that includes food issues (Prader Willi)? If your child is on medication, or has a medical condition which affects how he/she eats you will probably want to use more preventative measures and stay away from the behavioral methods. If the medication makes your child gain weight and you want to cut down on food consumption, you just have to keep food out of your child’s environment and only give your child what you want him to eat. We all know that might end up with a meltdown. To avoid the meltdown, you will have to be very tricky about when your child eats so that there is something to do right after the food is gone that will distract your child from wanting more. (Eat in the middle of the movie, stop the movie, eat, and then turn it back on). Health issues and medical issues are not behavioral issues so throw away the behavioral strategies and do what keeps you sane and your child from over eating.
ATTENTION
Most of the time food has little to do with attention - but you might want to consider this. There is no better way to get an intense interaction with your Mom than make her crazy with your eating habits. So sometimes the food is just a way to get you to REALLY pay attention. Requesting one food and then rejecting it, spilling the food, throwing the food, now all that that could be just to keep Mom engaged. So let’s not get all nuts over this behavior and see it for what it is. “I want you to pay attention to me and only me. Those other people in the family are definitely unnecessary – can’t you see that?”
Yikes – what to do? You may have to go to some survival mode on this if your child is young; otherwise no one gets to eat. So feed everyone else while your child with autism is engaged in another activity. Then teach your child to sit at the table with everyone and have everyone pay attention to your child at the table. Have irresistible food for your child that he will eat what is there. He needs to learn that eating is a social game where he can get attention from everyone.
SENSORY
But usually it is a sensory issue. Understanding the sensory feelings around food may help you understand why your child has food issues but may not do anything at all to help you deal with them. (Well, that’s not very helpful!)
First – think about yourself.
• When your stressed your stomach gets tense and your brain says, “You’re hungry, let’s eat.”
• When you’re tired your brain says, “I need more energy, let’s eat sugar.”
• When you’re thirsty your brain says, ‘Something’s wrong, let’s eat.”
• And when you are watching TV, your brain says, “Let’s add a little oral fun here and let’s eat.”
So before you child eats to solve any of the above problems, you might have to take some drastic steps.
If you know your child is over stimulated or anxious (or if your child is always living with high anxiety) do some deep pressure activities before and after he eats. Or just some calming activities that he likes to do. (Think of it as the cocktail hour and have a glass a wine for yourself).
If you have a child that is up all night prowling for food, or a child that just begs and begs, you may have to replace the food with available water. (I know that can be very messy and cause an outbreak of wetness in the house – so you may just dismiss that idea as ridiculous.) You will have to keep food out of reach, and I am well aware there are no locks for refrigerators or cupboard that can stop a food junkie (You just went to the bathroom for 5 minutes!!! ) so you may have to go to some extreme measures – put the refrigerator in a room that is locked. Keep the food in your house down to a minimum.
And you will need to use picture schedules – this is a person with food issues and like any person with food issues they need to have help with control. Now, don’t trap yourself with a time schedule or you will have a child who goes ballistic if it is 11:30 and lunch is at 12:00 and you happen to be stuck in traffic. Have your schedule be an activity schedule. This morning we are going to the park (I was going to say shopping but that’s a whole another blog) and when we get back we will eat lunch. Two pictures Park and Lunch. (“But,” you say, “we will get to the park and he will just want to come home to eat lunch.”) Another picture schedule is called for with activities at the park. Have enough activities that will take time. (Walk around the outside of the park, swing on every swing, slide 20 times, etc.)

Well that is a lot of info to digest (bad pun). If you want to explore your child’s eating issues, call me.  The first call is free. 208-596-2777.