ASD, eating and school lunches

[debs40]

I haven't posted here in a while. It's all been so busy in the pre-Christmas rush!

However, I could do with your support today! I was in tears after dropping DS off this morning. I've developed much better communication with the class teachers and school are sending a TA on an Early Bird Plus course with me next year. Things seem to be picking up.

DS has been difficult the last few days, xmas excitement, picky about eating, sicky and gagging at smells - all sensory overload. He went crazy this morning as I didn't have his usual underpants to the ready! I eventually got him to school.

I spoke to the TA as DS (yr 2) wanted to try school lunches. He has a real thing about eating. Lunch boxes are a nightmare but there are two days when he has school dinner - bliss. Today, he wanted to try fish and chips but is always worried the dinner ladies will make him eat something he's tried but doesn't like. I've spoken to the teachers and TA but it has still happened.

I spoke to the TA this morning and she got very difficult. 'You must understand that it is very difficult for us, we can't guarantee he won't be told to eat up or to have a few mouthfuls'. This causes mad panic in DS. BIBIC gave us a de-sensitisation programme for food whcih is about offering a half a teaspoon full of something new as he's that sensitive. I tried to explain that he wasn't to be put off.

I ended up feeling like a right loony mum. I'm sick of always raising silly little things which seem trivial to them but are massive to DS. I don't see what else I can do. He needs someone to say these things.

I emailed SENco in the end who agreed to speak to the staff but said the dinnerladies didn't force people to eat - which I wasn't suggesting - but made me feel like a moaning minnie.

Why is it always like this? I'm contantly nagging at the school door! DS has been so sensitive to smell and has been sick everywhere tonight and I'm sure it's just overload. I wish people knew what it was really like sometimes.

I'm probably not much help, but wanted to at least lend a sympathetic ear. Ds1 is just the same and despite being desperate to have school dinners so that he can sit with the group of children he gets along with, he just can't eat a lot of the food that's on offer.

To start with we are vegetarian, then there's a list of foods that he can't tolerate the texture of, others he can't stand the smell of (chocolate is included in this list and the dinner ladies simply refused to believe that one) and finally, we are currently trying to ascertain whether he is gluten intolerant (its looking very much like he is) and food is just a minefield for him at the moment.

They aren't supposed to 'force' children to eat things they don't like, but at the end of the day, the dinner ladies at our school are Mums themselves who have had no formal training and tend to try and chivvy the children along.

We have had to admit defeat and now send him with a rather boring and repetitive lunch box every day.

I'm another one that feels she is always hanging around to see the teacher at the end of the day. Usually having to comandeer the teacher while I wait for him to go back in several times to fetch the list of items he's forgotten to bring with him at the end of the day. (He has managed to leave his lunch box at school today as I am ill and forgot to remind him. So that's a mouldy lunch box to look forward to at the start of the New Year then.) Its exhausting.

I know what you mean about feeling like a loony mum. The issues we have to raise must seem so trivial to other people. Its so hard when little things can be disproportionately distressing for our children.

The only thing I can think of is, does your ds have an IEP? If so, could you ask whether its remit can extend to the dining hall? It might be possible to include a section which explains the whole new food process and how it should be handled with what the ultimate aim (desensitisation) is. Then it could be given to the head dinner lady and she could explain it to all the other dinner ladies. Not sure if this would be possible, but might be worth a try?

Would they be able to send you menus for the week so you can prepare yourself and your DS for what's going to be served? You'd also be able to forewarn them if it's not a good day for him and maybe send an extra filling snack if it's not likely to go down well.

We've been banging our heads against the wall with lunches. I live in an area with free lunches for all primary kids but have been sending DS1 with sandwiches. He's been not eating lunches, though (sometimes getting quite aggressively adamant about it) and they've started putting sandwiches and salads on the menu at school, so I'm just going with that in the new year. I'd rather he didn't bother eating something I don't have to pay for, make and then clean up.

Hoping DS is calmer in the morning and wishing you good luck with new year lunches. No matter how much of a nuisance you feel like, you're not and if you didn't help the school out and remind them of things, they'd probably be having a much harder time.

We did the weekly menu thing, as its available on the lea website each week, but by the time ds got into the dining hall he invariably found the meal he had chosen had run out. Prior to him being gluten free we found he was eating a cheese wrap every day and they were still trying to get him to eat peas, sweetcorn, beans with it.

Had another thought, could you (with the agreement of his teacher) give him a note to keep in his pocket and show to the dinner ladies? He may not need to use it, but it might reassure him that they aren't going to force him to eat anything he can't cope with. I just thought it might help him to get past the situations where the TA said he might be asked to eat up or have a few mouthfuls.

Thanks alot ladies. There's some really useful advice there, as ever!

It is hard isn't it when no one else really understands these issues and how massive they are to a child who has very strong sensory issues? I'm hoping that the OT will provide guidance. We are seeing her again in the new year and I will ask her

I will speak to him about having a note and about the IEP issue.

We do have a menu and we look at it to choose what he will try but sometimes, he just wants part of it and I'd rather that than nothing.

Lunchboxes have been whittled away to nothing - no sandwich, crackers, sausage roll, fruit, bread of any kind. A few crisps.
It's such a stress trying to work it out, I'd rather he ate at school!

Yep. I'm at the point of not caring if he has just some salad and a pudding each day. It's more than he's been eating for his packed lunch. It doesn't help that there's only about a dozen kids in the whole school do packed lunches, now, so he goes in separate from the rest of his class - not that he'll readily do anything else WITH his class!