There are many children and adults alike that have very strong preferences for food. Why do we have preferences? Why do some children like some foods and not others?
The food that we eat needs to be processed by many different sensory systems. This can be challenging for some children.
The taste
The texture
The look
The smell
One easy trick to helping kids learn how to accept new foods is to work through one sensory system at time. Let’s take a cucumber for example.
1. Start with allowing them to look at the food. They don’t need to come close to it. They should look at the food as a whole, from the outside and what’s inside.
For example, a cucumber looks very different as a whole than cut up. The skin looks very different than the insides.
2. All them to feel the food. Let them touch the skin, the seeds.
3. Let them smell the cucumber
4. Eventually they may lick the cucumber to taste it
Lastly, they may put all the sensory systems together and actually try to eat the cucumber.
This process is not quick and each step may need a few sessions to help them work the processing of that sensory system.
If your child struggles with eating, book a session and we can help you find a process that works for your child.
