Creating a New Food Experience for Picky Eaters
This post was contributed by Megan Moret, a Doctor of Occupational Therapy student who worked with us here at Parker Place as part of her final capstone project in the fall of 2021.
Parents of picky eaters know introducing new foods is usually a difficult process for both themselves and their children when there are aversions and tearful objections occurring in the process. Parents may find themselves avoiding any changes or additions to their children’s diet and feeding routines to avoid these unpleasant situations. Creating a full-spectrum sensory experience is a beneficial technique for picky eaters to ease their way into regular consumption of new and healthy foods. Developing a routine through strategies for targeting expansion of a child’s palate as soon as possible assists in developing healthier eating habits into adulthood.
Children in charge
Parents can initiate this experience by grocery shopping with their child and allowing them to choose new fruits, vegetables, and other various novel (and healthy!) food items each week. Inclusion of your child in the early stages of discovering and introducing new foods available in the community provides your child with a new weekly responsibility and promotes an opportunity for ongoing family bonding in the process. Children are often eager to take on “grown up” roles and will likely take interest in participation in food preparation for mealtime. Taking the time to teach your child how to prepare simple and fun snacks such as smoothies or trail mixes provides an opportunity to educate and introduce new foods and preparation techniques to benefit the child throughout his or her lifetime. As your child’s interest and skillset in the kitchen progresses, your opportunity for sharing more complex healthy recipes grows.
Engaging their senses
For younger children unable to participate in the grocery shopping and food preparation process, there are additional introductions strategies available to gamify and ignite the child’s creative side with use of new foods. Parents can provide their children with either printable play doh mats or coloring pages and encourage their children to place the foods on the page to create fun and exciting designs. During this activity, the child is touching, smelling, manipulating, and familiarizing themselves with the new food without the pressure to taste it yet.
Offer some tactile fun with these free, printable Play-Doh mats!
Or, engage your child’s creativity with these free printable coloring pages!
(Tip: Don’t have a laminator for your printed pages? Trim the edges of the printed coloring sheets or Play-Doh mats and place it into a gallon sized plastic zip-and-seal bag to make them reusable and ensure easy clean up!)
Kid-friendly dining ware
Additionally, there are products such as EZPZ that offer a fun mealtime experience via silicone sectioned plates for children, which form stimulating pictures such as smiling faces and flowers. The utility of using a sectioned plate is beneficial for children who struggle with foods touching during mealtimes as well. EZPZ has excellent resources to understand which dining sets are appropriate for each age to develop appropriate feeding skills!