Make Apple sauce

Make your own applesauce.  Have your kids peel the apples first then grate the apples to make applesauce.  Kids love to help, and it is a great upper extremity coordination activity.  Helping make food is a great task for children of all ages. Little children can help stir and pour.  Older children should read the recipes and attempt to follow it.  Kids love to eat what they make, so it is a great way to help picky children expand their food repertoire.

Family Dinners

We have all heard that it is important to eat at least some meals together as a family.  We also know that with everyone's hectic schedules, this can prove to be almost impossible.  As kids get older, and into more and more activities, the evenings seem to rush by with practices and driving the kids here and there.  For families with older kids, it is extremely difficult to find a night that the whole family is at home at the same time.  But, try to eat together for at least a couple of meals.  Meal time is an ideal time to sit and talk with one another; to find out what each family member has been doing and find out how their days are going.  Children will open up about school, their friends and their teachers.  Parents can share what their days entail and tell fun stories about what happened during the day.  Meals are a great time to sit down and discuss problems and difficulties that the children are having and allow open communication between family members.  Older children get a sense of importance when their parents genuinely listen to them, without distractions.

Family meal times are also very beneficial to families with toddlers and small children.  Toddlers learn by example and meals are a great time to teach table manners and socially acceptable ways of eating.  Children can learn to use their utensils by watching their parents or older siblings use them.  They can learn that it is not socially acceptable to use their hands to shovel food into their mouth.  And small children can learn to use open cups during family meal time. (for those children not quite accurate with drinking from an open cup, give small cups with only a tiny bit of liquid).  Social skills, such as the art of conversation, can be learned while sitting at a meal.  Include your child in the conversations; no matter how young your child is.  So many parents allow children to sit at the table, either at home or in restaurants, with electronic devices to entertain them so that the parents are able to get a quite, less stressful, meal. While this may be ok occasionally, it is important to teach children to sit during meals and quietly engage in the table conversation.  Many children get so accustomed to being entertained by games during meals that they are unable to sit appropriately, without devices, when necessary.  So, start at home. and at a young age, and teach your children these essential social skills.  It may be difficult at first, but in the long run, you will be glad you did.  You and your children will be able to go out to eat and enjoy the meal together.

Minion cupcakes

Here is a cute idea for cupcakes that a mom of one of my clients sent in as a birthday treat.  Minion cupcakes.  The kids in class loved these cupcakes. The minion's head is a twinky with marshmallow eyes and icing mouth and hair. 

Hiding Veggies

Well, had an interesting conversation the other day which prompted this post.  What about those picky kids that don't eat a lot of foods?  What's a problem and what's just being picky?

Here's some red flags:

• your child avoids all foods of a certain texture or temperature
• your child completely cuts out a food group, i.e. no veggies
• your child is not eating enough calories to support his growth
• your child does not sit for meals, and continually wants to graze throughout the day

Any of the above warrants a conversation with a pediatrician and a potential referral to an OT, speech therapist, or feeding clinic.  There are many ways to approach feeding with a child who is resistant to trying new foods, even gagging on them.  A multisensory approach paired with a behavioral strategies is best.  To ignore one or the other is setting the child up for frustration.  A consult with the medical community is always recommended to ensure feeding is a safe activity.

Here's some ideas to get you rolling, whether your child has significant feeding issues or whether you think he's just being picky:

• try making your own pizza or spaghetti sauce, you can hide lots of red or orange veggies and fruits pureed into it
• try having a 'dipping' snack using a preferred cracker or pretzel, dip into a variety of tastes, including pudding, yogurt, dressings, even pickle juice or salsa!
• try using a ratio like three bites of a preferred food to one bite of a non-preferred
• make sure that at each meal, at least one preferred is on the table
• try and make snacks and mealtimes consistent so that the child doesn't graze all day, if he does, he may never feel truly hungry
• be patient, kids may take 10 to 15 presentations of a new food before they try it
• try a multisensory approach, play with your food
• challenge the child sequentially, working a new food towards the mouth, he may need to touch it with his hands, touch it to his cheeks, touch lips (give it a kiss), touch tongue, be allowed to hold it in his mouth, then spit it out, etc. working up to eating it
• let you child have his own fun utensils, have him help set the table and prepare the food

What's worked for you?  Have specific questions?  Please comment!

Fishing for Snack

Try this quick and fun way to work on dexterity and eye hand coordination!  Give the child a spoonful of peanut butter in a dixie cup and a small blue plate with goldfish crackers.  Have him pull a small pretzel stick from a large cup using his pincer grasp and scoop a little peanut butter onto it, that's his bait.  Then press onto the fish crackers to 'catch' his snack!

Or try this for motivation.... use half a raisin or fruit snack and stick it at the end of a pathway or maze.