Strategies to Support Exploration of New Foods

You do not need to be a short order cook!!

How can you help your child learn how to be excited about new or different foods? How can you help your child begin to eat new foods? These are a few of the suggestions that can make a big difference! Therapists at ProActive can help your child learn how to eat a variety of foods.

  1. Make sure not to use words or phrases such as “will you” or “can you” or “just take a bite” or “did you like it?”  These provide the opportunity for your child to say “NO!.”  Instead, use phrases of “YOU CAN…”. There is a lot of power in how things are phrased when kids are anxious.  Provide them statements that empower them that they can do hard or new things. 

  2. Engage in therapy snacks every day. The goal of therapy snacks is not necessarily to eat foods but to have opportunities to explore, engage, and play with foods.  It is critical that your child to be able to have fun with foods and not feel threatened by the sight of a non-preferred foods. The goal is to make friends with foods and how can your child feel empowered to figure out how to explore foods.  

    1. Do not ask or suggest to take a bite or did they like the food.  Instead, talk about the sensory properties of foods.  Remember, food is just food.  It is not a “good” food or a “bad/yucky” food.  

    2. Is it crunchy or soft? Is it a big flavor or little flavor or no flavor food? Big smell or little smell?  What does it feel like on your lips? Tongue? Teeth? Does it spread all over in the mouth or stay together? 

    3. The key to therapy snacks and exploring is to help your child be able to describe foods and what they see, what the food feels like, what happens inside their mouth as they chew or explores it within the mouth.  It is scary for a child to think about what might happen when it goes in the mouth. We want the child to feel safe and excited. We want to give them lifelong tools of how can they explore a new or different food and still feel safe rather than immediately shutting down and saying (out loud or internally) “I am not going to eat that food.” 

    4. Can you begin to pair a preferred food with a non-preferred food?  

    5. Can you use a strip of raw fruit or vegetable as a spoon to lick, scoop, and taste? 

Emily Brandt