“I know it may be hard to understand that what I have in my lunchbox day in and day out are the only foods I can eat at school.”
School kids have gone back to class this week after the school holidays and with that comes the arduous task of packing their school lunchbox. An entire industry has been built around giving parents advice on putting together the “perfect” lunchbox. Pinterest pages, Instagram influencers, recipe bloggers … everyone has their opinion on what we should be packing in our children’s school lunchboxes. Walking past the school staffroom this afternoon I couldn’t help but noticed the brightly coloured posters with “helpful” suggestions for lunch ideas. So, in response to your question “who cares what I pack in my child’s school lunchbox”, the answer is, unfortunately, everyone.
As parents of children with ARFID or selective eating, you have a choice – send a lunchbox that pleases the crowd, or a lunchbox that you child will eat? I hear time and again that schools just don’t get the struggle that children with ARFID or selective eating experience during lunchtime. This is often a topic of focus during feeding therapy. In response I have developed a letter for schools providing information about ARFID and how they can best support a child with selective eating. You can download this letter for free below. My hope is that with a little explanation, your child’s school can start to understand the reasons why you pack the foods you do in your child’s school lunchbox.
I know that some children feel a real sense of failure, shame and judgement when they can’t eat like their peers – when they can’t eat fruit at “brain break” time, when other children or school staff who monitor eating breaks comment on the contents of their lunchbox, when there’s a shared lunch. They have a sense of anticipation for the first 10 minutes of lunchtime to finish so that they can get on with playing with their friends and be equal to their peers again. Surely caring for a child’s emotional and social wellbeing is just as, if not more, important as ensuring they have a “perfect” lunchbox?
So, if your child is scared, worried, too anxious, too overwhelmed or distracted to eat at lunch time, here are a few tips that might help:
- Pack your child’s preferred foods: It is better for your selective eater to have something rather than nothing to eat at school. If possible, it is great to rotate through a list of your child’s preferred foods, this assists with avoiding a food jag.
- Remove the emotional language around the “perfect” lunchbox: At least from home your child can learn that food is food. Removing this language is powerful to your child’s mental health and wellbeing. Their lunchbox does not need to be the topic of the next healthy eating lesson.
- Consider their physical and social environment during school lunches: Does your child feel overwhelmed by the sight, smell, sound of their peers eating lunch next to them? Do they feel safer eating their preferred foods in a busy or quieter space? Does your child have a few friends who support them for who they are not what they eat that can sit with them during lunchtime? The goal is to find the physical and social environment that will set your child up best to eat some foods at school.
- Your child’s food preferences are key to their eating at school: I often hear comments such as “they like yogurt, but it gets too warm in their lunchbox” or “they like jam sandwiches, but it goes too grainy and soggy by lunchtime”. Understanding what it is about the preferred food that makes it non-preferred at school is key to assisting your child to eat at school. Find ways to keep food cold if that is a preference – things like freezing the yogurt so by the time it comes to lunch it’s defrosted but still cold, using ice packs or talking to school about whether your teacher could pop their lunch into the staff fridge. If your child’s preference is to eat warm foods – use a preheated thermos with their hot food inside or again, talk to school about how warming your child’s lunch could be achieved. Sending cutlery in with the bread and jam so your child can spread the jam fresh and not doing it all for them in the morning.
- Communicate with school about your child’s eating: I truly believe that schools are a fantastic place, but at times they can struggle to understand feeding challenges. I have created a letter for your child’s school in the hope that if we can change your school’s understanding then it may just help with the daily struggle of eating lunch at school.
Download your free letter to school from SproutsOT to give your child a voice about their eating challenges here.
This letter to schools was designed to provide generic information about ARFID and how this may impact on your child’s eating at school. As health professionals and educational professionals, we should all have the shared goal of supporting your child to achieve their very best in life. I do truly hope that this letter will prodive some insight to encourage your school to do just that. Please download the letter and share it with your school. I would love to hear how this letter has helped your child’s participation at school, so please feel free to email me or post a comment on our Facebook page to let me know.
If you are interested in finding out more about feeding therapy for your child, or would like an assessment of their feeding I would love to hear from you. You can contact me through Sprouts OT or the New Zealand Eating Disorders Clinic.
Please remember that this advice is sharing ideas about alternative ways to introduce foods in your child’s restrictive diet. I am not a doctor or dietitian, therefore if you have any specific medical concerns I encourage you to speak to your doctor or dietitian about what your child’s specific nutritional needs may be.