food explorers

I'm beginning a 2-week "staycation" while the boys' caregiver is on her vacation. There's a lot I hope to do in these 2 weeks, including activity and non-activity with my kids. I also hope to get back to blogging (a common refrain among bloggers, it seems.)

I have a lot of BIG IDEAS floating around in my head that I want to unload, but today I think I'll start with something more manageable: a report on Henry's "food explorers" class.

Any of you with children with major feeding issues will already know all of this, and more. But for families like ours, with smaller (but still frustrating) food issues, maybe this will be helpful.

Henry eats a (comparatively) wide variety of foods, but is very resistant to trying anything new, and has an extreme reaction (gagging) when forced to try most new things and particularly vegetables. He also prefers to eat with his fingers and pick food apart, peel it, squash it, etc.

The food explorers meet twice a week. The kids are presented with a variety of foods to discuss that day. The foods are passed around the table and each child must serve him/herself. Thus they are forced to at least interact enough with the food to touch it and place it on their plates. For some children this is quite a feat in itself. I should note that the foods aren't anything exotic. Past sessions have included string cheese (just touching it to pull it out of the bag made Henry gag), turkey slices, orange bell pepper strips, vanilla yogurt, graham cracker sticks...

They discuss the properties of the foods, and last week they made a craft using the foods. The literature the therapists have been sending home each week really encourages children to play with their food, which would not have been my instinct.

There is some kind of reward system for interacting with the food. But no one is forced to eat anything. Overall it has been a positive experience for Henry, maybe because he is willing to try many of the foods- he gets a lot of positive feedback. But the idea is to focus on the positive, of course, no matter the level of interaction.

Let me give you an example of how this has translated into our home life: last night we served Henry hot dogs from the grill, blueberries, and barbeque potato chips. Seemingly three of his favorites. But the chips were a different brand, and were ridged. Totally and completely different from the barbeque chips that Henry likes. I was in the unusual parental position of asking Henry to eat one of his potato chips before he could have more blueberries.

"I'll sniff it" he offered.

"Um, OK" I agreed. Then I negotiated, "how about trying a lick of it?"

So he sportingly picked up the chip and licked it. I hoped that the taste might encourage him to actually eat the rest. It didn't, but I let the subject drop.

It will seem a little goofy to anyone else dining with us, but this system feels right to me. I hate only feeding Henry his favorite foods. But I hate forcing him to gag down a bite of broccoli even more. I like the idea of having him serve himself an un-preferred food, keep it on his plate, and maybe sniff or even lick it. It seems like a compromise we can live with and maybe it will condition him to eventually try something new.