Refusing to eat at school because it's too loud

[englishpigdog]

My ds is being assessed by a clinical psychologist at the moment (I suspect asd).

I am worried about his refusal to eat at school as he says it's too loud but school not interested at all. The only thing he will eat is a nutrigrain bar (i know bad parent feeding him crap) I have tried leaving it out so that he will maybe eat something else but he then just eats nothing. He is funny with food anyway and just the sight or smell of some things make him sick.

I did bring him home for lunch for a while and he ate his lunch no problem at home but i don't drive and we live a 10-15 min walk from school and he didn't like doing it.

He comes out of school grumpy and very hungry, has anyone got any experience or ideas how to resolve this please as I'm at the end of my tether !!

It probably is too loud in the dining hall for him. He probably does have hypersensitive hearing, which means loud noises actually hurt his ears.

1. Talk to school again and ask if he could eat his packed lunch somewhere else. It is a reasonable request. They too should be concerned he's not eating.

1. Look into the various listening therapies available to help this.

Is there a park close by? Now the weather is getting warm you could go for a picnic. IndigoBell has some good advice.

My daughter had this problem in her reception year. She couldn't bear the noise. I spoke to the headteachet, who arranged for her to eat her packed lunch with a member of staff. By year one she was ready to go into the packed lunch hall. ( the dinner hall was still too noisy.)

Be persistent and explain how much anxiety the lunch situation is causing. (By the way her previous school did very little else to help my DD, but they did help her with this. Good luck.

We had several DCs in YR this year who struggled with the lunchtime noise/play etc. It should be easy enough to have a little 'lunch club' in one of the classrooms. We started that and now we're down to just 1 visitor as the others found ways to overcome their fears (unlikely SNs, but anxiety is just as traumatic and scary for a 4 year old).
There is IME at least 1 class in each primary that has staff over the lunch - don't get fobbed off.

Thanks for all your replies, i will go and speak to them again about it but they refuse to accept he has a problem with anything in fact we have been told in not so many words there are much worse kids at the school that are a priority

Ear defenders.
Would he wear them?

Never ever listen to 'there are worse kids in the school'. I should hope there are! But it's of no relevance to you.

In fact if there are worse kids, then all the better. They can all have their lunch together somewhere quiet :)

All you want them to acknowledge is that he's not eating his lunch. This is a pretty easy to prove fact. They need to monitor his lunchbox over a week. And then they need to work out how to solve the problem.

It's their problem! He won't be able to learn in the afternoon if he can't eat.

My dd2 was exactly the same with the noise of the dining hall and the sight and smell of food in general. She would strike out at others with sheer frustration and discomfort. In those days school were considering statementing (nursery).
She's partially deaf but hypersensitive to loud noise - if it's noisy in class she can't hear at all but it hurts her ears - and is still to this day very particular with food (packed lunch being the best option for that) mainly due to the smell (super sensitive nose).
I'm afraid she simply had to put up with schools dining hall until we moved to a different area where the new school was tiny (30 pupils) and therefore lunch times were much quieter.
Dd2 is now 6.5 and less sensitive than she was at 3 and 4 to some extent.

I too suspected asd/as when dd was nursery/reception, particularly due to her language difficulties. Now I freely admit I'm so baffled I haven't got a clue. The more I read the less I know. It does help though to hear of someone elses child having something in common, so I hope this helps you too (even though I've no helpful suggestions for you, sorry!).

Dd3 is exactly the same, she struggled so much in reception, she didn't eat at all for months at school.

The school were actually quite helpful and let her sit just outside the door in a hallway with a couple of other children. They slowly moved the table closer to the door and then let the door open, Eventually Dd3 agreed that she wanted to go in the hall with the others, although I think she was badgered into it looking back.

She is in yr 4 now [at a different school] and still stuggles at lunchtimes but nothing like as bad. She sometimes doesn't eat much but she seems to cope, she eats her lunch on the way home. She is looking forward to summer when they can eat outside at little picnic tables in the quite area.

If you have hypersensitive hearing loud noises can physically hurt your ears. Keep trying with the school OP.

Good luck

Ds also struggled for a long time to eat lunch at school. The dining room is too noisy and too smelly( school dinner smell). DS takes a packed lunch. They have at times let him sit on the chairs outside the hall by the office to eat his lunch ( there were days he refused to enter the hall if he didn't like the smell of the cooked lunch ( usually fish - he is allergic and very anxious about foods he can't eat). The noise is also a problem too. School have been understanding, but I have had to be very persistent to get them to take me seriously - he also has a lunch club once a week where he eats elsewhere and another where there is a TA with him and a group of other children in the hall followed by some sports activity.
As Indigo says there will be worse kids in the school - so as I constantly tell the senco your reply should be- "I am aware of that, and that you have limited budget but this is my DS and of course I am going to fight until I get what he needs."

He sounds just like my DS, who has hyperacusis along with his ASD. Mine is very picky too and has vomited at the meer sight or smell of food in the past too!

On my side of things I put 2 small items and a drink of juice in his pack up box, nothing more so he has only a small amount to eat. He only eats a school dinner one day a week when it's chips day. I made it very clear to school that if all he ate were 3 chips that was fine, but that I wanted him to experience having a cooked school dinner on one day of the week and I wanted him supported in accessing this, in a no pressure, encouraging way!

On school's side they rejigged when he went for his lunch. Instead of going in with his whole class when it is busy he goes in with a small group (which luckily includes a couple of others from his class) who are the first kids into the dinner hall to eat. It's quieter and they then get to go out to play. The rest of the school go out to play, then get called in for dinner, then out to play again - DS found it really upsetting to be set free into the playground only to be then forced into the noisy smelly dinner hall.

My ds was like this in his first year, we gave him an iPod so he could listen to that while he ate. The school were great and fully supported this. He's now in P4 and is as noisy as the rest I'm sure. He is still hypersensitive with his hearing but the school canteen is no problem for him now.

Thanks for all your replies it's great to read others experiences, i think i'll be putting some of your suggestions to the school and see what they can do

I don't like loud noises and at school they don't let me wear my ear defenders in the lunch hall and when the fire alarm goes off