WWYD, statement with no provision for lunchtime

[claw2]

Ds had his second day at school today.

Class teacher asked to have a word at pick up today. Told me ds was distressed and crying at lunchtime and hadn't eaten anything.

Although the school policy is no packed lunch, he suggested I bring a packed lunch for ds. I declined and said I would rather just monitor the situation and discuss it at the meeting in early October or earlier if need be.

If I give ds a packed lunch, he wont eat it. He hadn't eaten his packed lunch in previous school for 3 years. If I provide a packed lunch, which wont be eaten, then I am the only one to see it hasn't been eaten.

Ds has an OT feeding plan, which could be put in place (although it isn't in statement). Ds has an extremely restricted diet and I was told by the school, they could cater for this.

In order for ds to eat in school, he needs a plan, some structure and adult supervision.

Have I done the right thing?

Well, I don't think it makes a difference whether you send a packed lunch in or not then. If they want to make it up they'll just say he's eaten a school dinner.

I think they are specialist school that were not prepared for all of the issues to be true. There is a lot of reference to the child having difficulties 'only in paperwork instigated by mother' and not in real life iirc.

I agree that the school should be able to handle this, but I also think that they haven't adequately been prepared, or prepared, and just for once, I don't think it is entirely their fault.

Maybe a note in contact book about head telling me school would cater for ds's restricted diet and I would like them to monitor what he eats? (as they are not)

Then raise OT plan at meeting in October?

Star, no I meant if they are not checking his lunch to see if its been eaten or not, it will look like im making it up about it not being eaten, as this is what previous school were implying.

Got to dash, thanks guys for the advice, will try checking back later

Star - whether they are prepared for it being true or not, is no excuse. If they offer themselves as being able to cope with ASD kids, they should be able to. It's bread and butter stuff.

'ASD kid won't eat in lunch hall' - stop press. WTF are they taking public money for?

Also, sorry, but if a kid won't eat, his health comes first, not some game-playing, feckless LA.

You're in the school now. Make them earn their bloody money. Be nice, approachable, team-playing and ask them to let you know how he gets on with his lunch box.

This is basic stuff that any mainstream primary should be able to cope with.

It sounds like they are trying to leap to step 99 of a eating / phobia desensitisation programme, without doing steps 1-98! They need to keep it short, systematic and successful.

So they need to target one thing at a time:

• eating at school at all
• eating something new at school
• tolerating others eating around him / food / germ phobia

Only once he's successfully doing all 3 individually can they expect him to tolerate all 3 together

So if the priority is for him just to eat, then start 1:1 in a quiet space with food he likes (bread or chip) and eat one piece of bread or 1 chip and get a reward

It may be they have to start with him just touching the food, or licking the food and being rewarded just for doing that

Once he's eating (which may take weeks) they can then work either on him eating the same food (chips and bread) with others (eg they could gradually move him nearer the lunch hall) OR eating a new food eg bread with a tiny bit of soup or spread on it BUT not both.

They should only be putting one new demand on him at a time and using a hierarchy of very small steps. And keep data of success or failure of each step.

What they absolutely must not do is make a fuss about him not eating or pressure him to eat. They should sit him on his own, give him a tiny portion of his usual food and a reward for eating it. If he refuses they take the food and reward away with no fuss, just move on to doing something else and try again later. They could try presenting him with a tiny bit of bread several times a day (always paired with the reward), they don't have to work on this just at lunch and in fact given he will feel pressured to eat at lunch it would probably be better if they started working on it at other times. The staff must not make him more anxious about eating. The restricted diet is often about control and making him more anxious is likely to just make him exert even more control by not eating because he knows they cannot force him to eat. Its the one thing children can control.

They could try and find a reward which is really motivating and keeping that just to work on food eg something mega like a favourite iPad game

if he will eat on his own and the issue is others eating / germs etc then they work on that eg reward him for sitting next to someone eating, reward him for tolerating someone next to him spilling something, building up the time he sits etc etc but not expect him to eat as well until he is tolerating the others around him.

Its about building success. "wow you ate a piece of bread, you can play on the ipad etc" then building from there. Positive reward for eating. No consequence, reaction or fuss for not eating (apart from not getting the reward). If he gets upset about losing the reward they can just calmly say we'll try that again later, then come back to it.

if it were me I would want them to start by catering for my ds's restricted diet. I would not want ds to have to choose his lunch or worry he would not get what he was expecting. I would want it as simple as possible. Then once he was coping with eating something provided by the school I would hope to move him on to the o/t plan.

my ds is having packed lunch at the moment. Same thing every day. One day I hope he will be open to having something different. But, if he was at a specialist school that could cater for him and follow an o/t plan I dont think I would want him to have packed lunch.

You will know what is best for your ds. Good luck!

Agnes, that is sensible advice but I do think that, sometimes, some children simply cannot eat in the way school demands whatever the rewards etc.

Sometimes reward system simply cannot overcome the child's core difficulty and the constant trying can go on and on and make the child feel like a failure for simply being who they are.

I say that as a mum whose son has had support systems around him for years trying to get him to integrate into lunch halls, classrooms, PE etc etc all to no avail.

And I feel I've wasted his life, and blighted his childhood, by constantly trying to make him something he is not.

Thanks guys for the advice, Agnes is right is step 99 without including step 1.

Its the same for me, trying to get school to follow an OT feeding plan, which is much like Agnes describes, its a desensitisation plan. Im trying to get them to do step 99 and follow the plan. When step 1 is getting them to actually believe me.

Previous schools have caused a lot of damage. I would tell them that ds wasn't eating, they would ignore me. They would then tell outside agencies ds had no difficulties eating in school.

New school I am back to square one, getting them to identify that there is an actual difficult to start with. Which they are recognising, however because this wasn't anticipated, there is no plan.

At this point, I will get its early days, give him time to settle. I think my best bet, is to give it a couple more days (ater all ds hasn't eaten in school for 3 years) ask THEM to monitor it and ask THEM what to do about it, with my preferred option being they provide food that ds will eat and for ds to be able to sit with an adult on the table.

Also I am left with devising a plan with a class teacher, who wasn't in the meeting, who isn't aware of ds's eating difficulties etc, but who was there at lunchtime and has seen how distressed ds was and is obviously concerned about ds not being able to eat.

Trying to explain to his teacher and devise a plan at pick up time in 5 minutes is difficult.

I have recorded in ds's contact book, that ds wasn't able to eat in school and asked that he monitor the situation today. Come pick up time, when ds hasn't eaten I will be expected to have all the answers.

I have it sorted, I have spoken to the head teacher and agreed a middle ground with him.

School will provide ds with 2 slices of bread with no butter until the meeting in October and monitor.

Hi claw2 that's great you have agreed a middle ground with the head teacher until October. Hopefully your ds will feel more settled knowing he will get his 2 slices of bread every day. It has been alot for you to worry about, I hope you can relax a bit more now. Is everything else going ok with the school?

Hi Tacal, I gave the HT a list of foods which are more tolerable to ds ie he either eats or has eaten previously.

Today he ate 'a little bit of sausage roll' woo hoo everything else is going fine, still a bit of refusal and a bit of fuss, but going well all things considered.

How is your ds coping with eating and his new school?

That is great! You must be so happy that he ate a bit of sausage roll today! It is a good start and hopefully as he gets more settled he will eat more.

My ds says lunch time is good. He is insisting that it must be the exact same things in his lunch box every day. He says everything at school is good but he is having big tantrums/angry moments as soon as he leaves school and when he gets home. I think the change of school and also the fact it is a busier school is a lot for him to cope with. But I am amazed he is saying lunch time is good so he must have more support at lunch time than he did in the other school.

I hope things continue to go well for your ds.

Thanks Tacal, its a huge relief, they made the changes yesterday lunchtime and its had an immediate affect on him.

Ds also ate better at home today too and yesterday after school he actually asked could he have some money to buy a snack at break time! and he bought a strawberry multi grain bar, how amazing is that!

Great news that you are seeing signs of improvement too, I suppose it will take time, but all heading in the right direction

wow it is amazing how much difference it makes when the school is supportive and makes changes. That is fab that your ds bought a multi grain bar at break time!

Claw thats

IE I totally agree not all children can adapt to school life, I'm not sure DS will tolerate a bigger school when older. I think the aim is always to start from where the child is comfortable and see if you can slowly widen things out from there. If Claw can get the school to see 1 piece of sausage roll as a success (not a failure) then their attitude to him eating 2 pieces will be totally different than if the expectation is to eat a whole meal. It should be about creating success. If you don't see success (we tried eating programmes 3 times with DS months apart before it worked) then you should back off and leave it or try something different. Its the relentless insistence on carrying on with a plan even in the total absence of any success that causes the damage I think. We would never carry on with any intervention for more than a week or so without seeing positive progress.

Agnes it was getting worse and quickly, Thursday he just didn't eat, Friday he was breaking down in tears and refusing to eat. Monday he was refusing to even go into the lunch hall, until they assured him he didnt have to choose a 'proper' dinner and could have bread. As you said step 99.

They have removed that stress and offered him food he would normally eat or has tried in the past, which could be seen as a backward step. But not as backward a step as giving him a packed lunch would have been as they suggested.

Hopefully by October, now they have seen there is a difficulty, we can discuss OT plan.