To cook rice every night?

[RiceisLife]

DS (4) is on waiting lists for ASD and ADHD. He stims, he separates all his food, he meltdowns, he has v few friends, he refuses to wear certain clothes, he has a twitch anc struggles verbally. He is in mainstream school just started but they are kick starting lots of additional support

He is obsessed with rice. He barely eats breakfast, he has school lunch, but for dinner he is happy to try what we are eating (spag bol, curry) but he is really obsessed with idea of having rice on his plate. If no rice dinner becomes war. Tears, food on the floor etc

DH tells me I'm pandering. That if he's hungry enough he'll eat. I say it's so easy for me to boil a handful of rice along dinner, why not just make it??

It's causing real issues. We aren't united which is upsetting DS. We have wider issues about our different responses to DS and my heart is breaking to say that the stress of our son is killing our relationship - we hate each other a lot of the time

Anyway - rice - am I being too soft?

This!!!!!!! 100%

Your DH is an abusive prick, you need to protect and support your DC.

Please show your DH this thread

My son when around that age didn't eat much but rice and a slice of American cheese on top. He is 26 and will eat anything. Tell your husband to leave him be.

This is a brilliant little rice cooker, about the size of a kettle. https://www.amazon.co.uk/VonShef-Small-Rice-Cooker-0-3L/dp/B078NW7BLK/

Rice cookers are so simple a supervised 4 year old could use one. And they keep the rice warm for hours.

OP

My carer has a very limited diet. His mother force fed him at times as a child. He ate so little at school the dinner ladies would give him extra chips on the one day they had them as they knew he would eat them.

He finds it incredibly hard to try new foods. He will say what I am eating smells nice but will rarely try it.

He does have some ASD traits, but his diet now, I'm sure, would not be as restricted if he could have eaten the same thing every day and then tried things.

Sorry but your DH is being a dick and the sooner he learns his son is not going to be 'cured' or 'change' the better.

Home is your DS's safe space, he should feel nothing but loved and supported.

I will add to what many other pps have said. My DS has ASD and he was one of the beige food kids for a long time. I don't like beige food so was always cooking him different meals. As he grew up though he got more experimental. He'll now eat most things.

But, if you let your DH turn food into a constant battle, it won't end well. Your DS will be less inclined to want to risk new foods and stay limited for much longer.

I do have sympathy for your situation. But my heart does really go out to your DS. Your DH is trying to bully autism out of him. Poor kid. Your DH may call it fighting but it's not, it's bullying.

Not food related but my DD is autistic and as long as she has adjustments available to her (like your son with rice) she is more comfortable to try other things as she knows she has the adjustment as a back up even though iften she doesn't use them - for her that's a tangle fidget toy in her pocket, option of using a toilet pass at school and noise cancelling headphones when galavanting to potentially noisy places.

I'm sorry you're going through it - it sounds very tough. Just a reminder that there is no "let you" when it comes to what you do for your child (or otherwise) - you don't need your husband's permission to take whatever you think is the right course of action.

Your life sounds tough enough at the moment without DH adding these stupid 'rules' .... if he has rice every night, then so what! He needs to pick his battles, and he sounds very unsupportive.

Even if it was 'pandering' (which it isn't!) then so what! We all like to do things that our kids like/enjoy.

Imagine dishing up dinner to a friend, something you knew she hated! You just wouldn't do it, so why do it to a 4 year old 😞

Yes, so I suspect DH is also ND absolutely - since having kids v much so - so much of it he finds so hard. I agree with all your comments about what DH needs to do - educate himself, accept the reality, embrace it even, but what do I do if that isn't ever going to happen. He's come a little way to my way of thinking, but every day there is a battle over something. I can't see him changing. He honestly think by me adapting things to make DS more comfortable, I am basically ruining my child. What do I do I can't get him on the same page? I can't force him to read a book. He won't.

I am definitely cooking my boy rice though. Don't worry about that. Rice rice and more rice. Thank you - i need to give my head a wobble sometimes. he honestly makes me doubt myself so much.

Being a SEND parent carer is challenging enough. You don’t need abuse alongside it. So sorry.

For my two, I cook plain spaghetti with grated cheese and a portion of chicken noodles every night. For the past 8 years. I supplement with vitamins. I can tell you categorically that if they don’t have their “safe” foods, they will NOT eat.

I have this, it's great.

And yes a vote for rice every day, ASD issues aside, rice is always a good idea

This. Very disappointing DH needs to better educate himself. Talk of fighting your son's neurodiversity makes him an unconscionable dick IMO.

@RiceisLife do try cous cous and quinoa, DD liked foods that were 'dry' in texture and cous cous and quinoa offer different nutrients and are easier to store once cooked without risking food poisoning than rice and of course you can mix them up with the rice and they go flavour wise with anything rice goes with too

So DH has restrictive eating habits, poor instinctive empathy and doesn't seem to understand compromise, hmmm.

Of course you cook the rice! You have a child with ASD and he likes rice, it’s his favourite so you give it to him. I mean if he was asking for hand caught salmon for every meal and you couldn’t afford it, would be difficult but we are talking rice.

With DC we have to pick our battles sometimes and this isn’t worth fighting.

Your DH sounds like he has a lack of understanding for your child’s condition and is actually a little mean. Why does he want to make the day harder for a child that already has some struggles

I'm really not trying to scaremonger but I'd just be slightly aware of how much rice a young child consumed because of arsenic levels. I recall reading something about how it varies according to where it's been grown etc. I expect you'd have to eat loads to be a problem but it's something to keep an eye on. https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/arsenic-in-rice

One of my DC has to have bread with every meal (ASD) but as he is good at trying things otherwise I've always just made the adjustment.

My son is the same but it’s oven chips. And he is 32 years old. Your husband is not accepting his autism. My ex husband still thinks I am too soft with our son, despite being diagnosed himself. He thinks that if he can do something then his son can too. He doesn’t accept that our son is more affected than he is. That’s because he doesn’t live with him and see how the tiniest thing can be an issue and affect his mood. You need to advocate for your son, and you will probably need to do it at times throughout his life.

IME it's always the undiagnosed autistic Dads who struggle the most to make the required change of thinking and behaviour they need in order to make the reasonable adjustments for their diagnosed autistic children. A lot of the time it ends in the mother taking on all or almost all of the care taking of the child (whether she's NT or ND herself) or the relationship doesn't survive at all. In the couples I've seen survive if it's where the Dad acknowledges that he had autistic traits and/or would meet the diagnostic criteria themselves.

Give him rice! The idea of ‘pandering to’ does not apply with an ASD child. If he’s willing to try other things then that’s a huge win for his diet and well-being. Keeping him feeling calm with the rice on his plate is definitely the right choice

So he won't feed the child healthy food that they like, but instead insist that the child should like something else? Tonight, and every night from now on, wait until your dh has cooked and then cover the food on his plate in beans. See how he likes it! Then give your kid the rice.

I said all sorts of things before becoming a parent. Not cooking a different meal for everyone was one of them! But you parent the child/ren you have. With kids that have restricted eating, what on earth would be the point of forcing them to only eat things they don't like? Throughout history, we would have had a limited diet, it is only now we can choose from almost anything every night. My autistic kids have various and different eating restrictions, so I feed them what they will eat and look to ensure that diet is balanced over a week, not per meal. Carbs one meal and veg a different one is fine.