Episode 81 – You’ve Tried Everything… They Still Won’t Eat: Real Strategies for ARFID at Home

Jane McFadden:
Hello and welcome to ADHD Mums. Today we have a really special solo episode on one of the trickiest topics I’ve ever dealt with and that is ARFID. You know those moments where you buy it but they won’t eat it? This episode is about real help for parents navigating ARFID and food refusal.

Now have you ever walked out of Woolworths with $150 worth of food only to get home and your kids eat absolutely none of it? Maybe they cried because the packaging changed. Maybe they were upset because you put it in the fridge and then that made it taste wrong even though it was their favourite thing last week. Maybe you bought lots of it because they loved it last week and you thought this is going to be great, it’s on special but now it’s expired, it’s sitting in the fridge and you can’t believe you wasted another $30.

Maybe you just stood in the kitchen staring at the bin after throwing out another untouched plate of food. If this is sounding familiar to you, this is the episode for you. Whether your child is 4 or 14, if you are wasting time, money and emotional energy trying to get your child to eat, you need much more than just validation.

You need strategies that actually work for neurodivergent children and to protect your own nervous system as well. Now this episode is for any mother who feels like mealtime is a disaster waiting to happen. It’s for parents who keep googling extreme picky eating at two o’clock in the morning.

It is for grandparents, aunties, uncles who are worried about their teen being treated for anorexia but deep down they’re wondering, is that really it? And it’s for every parent who has been told, don’t worry your kid will eat when they’re hungry but they know that’s actually 100% not true.

Now if your child is autistic, ADHD, PDA, anxious, sensory sensitive or you just don’t really understand what’s happening with their eating, this episode will help you make sense of what’s really going on and what to try instead.

Jane McFadden:
Now I have two of three with ARFID and I’m very well versed in how hard it is and how difficult it is. But one thing that I don’t think is spoken about enough is the anxiety that goes on as a mother when you have a child with ARFID. And it’s not necessarily around nutritional intake.

It’s more around if I know that there’s five and under food that they will actually eat and only one thing that they will eat for breakfast. It’s usually an item, it feels like for me, that gets expired easily. Like, let’s say, a hot cross bun or something specific. So what that means is that I have to have it fresh and available every morning otherwise absolutely no food will go in before school.

The same with a nectarine for example. One of my children will eat a nectarine. It will be one of the few, few, few things—and when I say few things, three and under things—that will go into this lunch box. But the nectarine of course can’t be too ripe. It can’t be unripe. It has to be cold. It has to be completely ready. It has to look perfect.

Now having that available is really tricky. The other thing is that I know that if that is not available then we’ve only got two things in the lunch box all day. If that is combined with the breakfast food not being available we are in a recipe for starvation. If there is a sport directly after school I have absolutely no idea how they will ever have any energy.

This level of anxiety is a thing that stresses me out quite a lot in terms of having that star and moon align to have that specific food available for that child at that time, and to have it look right, taste right, and all of the things around it. And that really adds to my mental load.

The other thing that I don’t think is spoken about enough is in terms of, you know, if you’re running late you can’t necessarily buy from the canteen. For example, if you’re going to a friend’s house, they may not have that food available. They can’t understand why your child won’t eat hummus and dip or whatever it is that everyone else is eating.

‘Look, it’s great, what do you mean you haven’t tried it before? Come on, jump in, have a go.’ They’re only saying it in the niceness of their heart but yet it’s really adding a bit of pressure to your child who is then feeling even more uncomfortable, even though it’s out of love from that friend or family member.

This is going to look different for everybody. ARFID is like any other neurodivergent condition or difference. Different things are going to work for different families and children are going to have different ways of expressing this ARFID behaviour. And so I wish there was a magic pill. I wish there was a magic strategy. Unfortunately it’s not that easy.

But what I do have is lived experience. I have been dealing with this in my home for nine years, which has been very, very tricky. I would say that ARFID would be for me the number one thing by far that I would take out of parenting if I could.

There are so many tricky parts to parenting. My personal opinion is that ARFID for me is the trickiest. It is the most frustrating. It is the most overwhelming. And it is probably the area that I find that I have two steps forward, three back, two steps forward, seven back, four steps forward, zero back. And you go around and around and it feels like I’m not getting anywhere a lot of the time.

But that doesn’t mean that we give up. That doesn’t mean that we stop trying. And that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things we can do.

I am going to walk you through practical strategies that I use every day in my life. And I’m going to really hope that some of this either sparks an idea that might work for you and your child, or you use one of the ideas that I mentioned and it does work. And if that’s the case, that’s awesome—tick tick tick. I would feel great if I could have positively impacted a family with ARFID because it is very, very tricky.

This won’t resonate for everybody. However, I’m hoping that giving enough of different examples will give you a little bit more to work with in your house.

Feel free to jump into the Facebook group. I’ll add the link into the show notes. Jump in and share what worked, what didn’t. I read all of it. And if you notice on the Wednesday I have an ‘Ask Jane’ question post that comes up on the Facebook group. Please drop your ARFID questions, comments, feedback in there. That is the one post that I absolutely guarantee I will answer.

If you haven’t listened to the two episodes previous on ARFID, I really encourage you to do so. I’m going to put them in the show notes. We have a lived experience from Claire Britton. She also is an OT and she works with children nowadays. She reflects back about her journey, how it felt for her, and gives ideas around what her parents could have done differently that would have made it easier. It’s a beautiful episode.

The second episode after that is an episode with Margot White. Now she shares clinically what works and what doesn’t work with ARFID. She gives a great overview and she goes through some really practical steps that we can do at home.

Now what I’ve found is within these two episodes this is such a massive issue that people cannot get enough of. So I’ve jumped in, in school holidays, to add a follow-up with some of the strategies, questions that I’ve been receiving in on email, and I’m going to go through in a little bit more depth in certain areas around what we can do at home with ARFID. And I hope that some of these are really beneficial for you.

Jane McFadden:
So I’m not going to go back into what Claire and Margot have already spoken about, but I am going to just quickly cover ARFID very briefly again. If you are confused what ARFID stands for, it is Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder.

Now this is not a phase, this is not picky eating, and this is definitely not attention seeking. This is a clinically recognised eating disorder where food can become very distressing.

The distress can come from a couple of different areas. First off, it can be sensory—it can be smell, texture or the temperature of food. It could be interoceptive—it could be tummy pain, nausea, they don’t feel hungry. It could also be trauma-based.

For example, if you have asked them to eat something where they’ve actually been nauseous, or they’ve had gastro, or the food has been off, or they really have hated the taste of it and your child vomited, gagged, or they felt pressure to eat—that can create a trauma response and that can also really start ARFID off.

So there are a few different ways that this presents and it’s going to be different for everybody. Now, this is not about weight or body image. However, children can be diagnosed with anorexia because of the amount of food restriction and weight.

That does happen. However, with the information coming out about ARFID, that has really been an emerging space. I’m not going to cover off these two in depth—how they’re different, how they’re the same, the diagnosis pathway for each.

If you would love to hear more about that, please email me or send me a message and I will absolutely cover that. But we can’t cover that today because this episode would go forever if we did both of those topics.

So first off, picky eating absolutely exists, but ARFID is not picky eating. The reason that we want to make sure that we understand what we’re dealing with is that picky eating approaches—like repeated exposure to different food—can escalate anxiety and trauma in kids that actually do have ARFID.

So for example, if you have read online somewhere, or you’re using some advice and it’s around trying different foods, and you have a picky eater, that could work. It could. And there are people that use those strategies and maybe they do get results with that.

The other thing that is really important—the myth around ARFID is that it is not attention seeking. It’s not a phase. And if you ignore it, it doesn’t just disappear. You could ignore picky eating. It can resolve. ARFID unfortunately is not that.

Now, ARFID is a recognized eating disorder. It does cause real distress. And the real distress, yes, is there for the parents, absolutely. However, the distress for the child is really heartbreaking, to be honest.

When I feel frustrated and angry—and I do—in regards to ARFID and managing this at home, I really try and step into how it would feel for my child and the distress that they may feel, which I know is going to be more than mine. That does build my empathy up a little bit when I’m dealing with this and trying to be patient.

Now, there are three subtypes of ARFID. One of the really important things that I have done with ARFID is identify what subtype my child has. And they can have more than one.

The first subtype is sensory based. It can be texture, smell, appearance, generally feeling overwhelmed with something about it. It might be that they have a really strong aversion to cheese or anything melted.

The second one is aversive based fear—so past trauma. Have you asked your child to eat when they’ve been nauseous, they’ve pushed it in, and then they’ve tasted that as they vomited it, and it’s put them off eating that forever, it seems like? That can really happen with us.

There can be things that we remember eating or drinking, and it made us sick, or we vomited, and we’re like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t touch that again.’ That is an aversive fear-based ARFID type.

The third is low interest, interoceptive avoidance. They actually just don’t really feel hungry. For example, you may know that your child hasn’t eaten for six hours, but they don’t actually feel hungry. And then for me, I’ve noticed that obviously would affect my child’s mood.

So you might be dealing with a child that seems grumpy, or overly emotional, or difficult, unreasonable, whatever it is. But they will not agree to eat anything because they don’t think they’re hungry.

Now that is tricky, but it does make it easier when you know what you’re dealing with. It’s also an extra mental load because you kind of have to track where your child’s at—mood-wise, hunger-wise, food intake—to step back to figure out where they’re really at.

An extra load on our executive function, which is completely unwelcome. However, if you can actually tease apart what is the ARFID, where are the real sticking points—like a detective—I have felt in my life that that really did start to make a difference, where I could figure out what is it about the foods that my child will tolerate and not tolerate. And there have been themes within that when I’ve really sat down and stripped it back.

For example, I have had a lot of issues with lunchboxes over the years. What I figured out was that actually two of my children have a very strong sensory preference in terms of things being cold. They don’t want things to be cold that shouldn’t be cold.

So an ice brick into a big general lunchbox underneath it will make potato chips cold, bread cold. And it’s not necessarily that it’s soggy, because I totally understand no one wants to eat a soggy sandwich. But it’s about even the fact that that is now cold and it shouldn’t be.

So I might love Doritos chips, but I won’t eat them if they’re cold. They have to be room temperature. So I have really had to think through and plan better my kids’ lunchboxes, because I have to really separate what’s supposed to be cold and what isn’t, and go through that with them.

Having one lunchbox and having it all the same temperature absolutely did not work. So that stuff can be tricky. But if you think back enough and try to put it together and talk to your child, it can be interesting to figure out what it is and to start having that conversation to at least understand and be aware of where the real sticking points are.

Jane McFadden:
Now, this episode is not about your child eating everything that you put on the table without question, but it does mean improving their quality of life without shame, pressure, and improving the connection and supporting them fully. One of the things that I’m going to talk about is about eating differences instead of eating problems.

Very similar to the way we talk about behaviours. We don’t talk about the child being the problem. We talk about them having a different way of thinking, a difference in their brain. And how can we help tackle that? We may look at safe food lists instead of saying they have a restricted diet or an eating disorder. But what’s safe for you? So we’re trying to put this in a positive language, which will impact your child. We do want to work with our child around co-creating safe lists and being able to be independent, make their own choices and feel in control of their food intake.

That’s the frame that we’re coming in from. I’m going to move straight into practical strategies at this point. The first thing we’re going to talk about is a food rotation tracker. So this is a visual tool and it’s going to track each child and what they’re eating. Number one, what are they eating now, today? What foods did they used to eat but they don’t eat currently? And three, past safe foods that could re-emerge. The categories might be, for example, love this food, eat it every day, a maybe food, a not yet, or a past food. So start to have a look at what tags and categories you can put on it, maybe slightly different for each family.

Just remember as well, one of the most frustrating things is when your child loves something, they basically survive off it for a week and then you put it in front of them and they go, I don’t want to eat that now. It looks different. I don’t like it. I’m sick of it. It looks funny. It’s too cold. I don’t like the packet. It’s changed, whatever it is. Now that can be quite confronting as a mother. If you’ve gotten used to a particular thing working, you’ve gone, you’ve sourced it, you’ve made sure it’s there. Maybe it’s been on special, you bought lots of it and they are like, I’m not eating that ever again.

Don’t panic if that happens. This is called food jagging. So food jagging is when they are fixated on one food and then suddenly it’s dropped. Now this is very common and nothing to panic about, even though you kind of want to panic because you’re thinking, oh my God, there’s only three foods they were eating and now they’ve only got two. What am I going to do here? So a strategy in this moment is to keep that used to eat list and talk about dropping in that safe food because sometimes your child will go, yeah, I could eat that again now. And now suddenly you’ve got another food that’s on the safe list. That can really help, especially when sometimes kids forget what they used to eat. That’s happened to me before where I’d be like, but you know, what about we just try this again? They go, oh yeah, that’d be great.

So categorising foods can be really helpful and if one food drops and goes on that jag list or they’re not going to eat it at the moment, you may find that another food they used to eat might pop back in and that can be really, really, really helpful. One of the things I wanted to tackle upfront here is that a lot of the time ADHD mums put in a lot of effort and time into research. They listen to these podcasts for example, they download the kits, they read the blogs, they follow me online and they upskill and upskill and learn and learn and geez, you do a good job.

But that can also mean that not everybody in your life is going to be upskilled. One of the most draining parts of being an ADHD mum or being a parent to a neurodivergent child is, for me anyway, that constant advocacy and having to advocate for your child because you’re really trying to help and support them and you really need it to be consistent. You also know what works and what doesn’t work and a lot of the old traditional ways that sometimes people still use, particularly grandparents, are the things that don’t necessarily help or work.

And one of the tricky things with ARFID is that having that bad experience can really set them back and you’re not there all the time. So it can be really tricky to get everybody on board with what you’re talking about, particularly when a lot of this information is new and as well that a lot of the time with some of this information you don’t get a quick win. So it’s not like you can say to somebody, hey, do it this way, it works instantly, you see that result and then everyone is on board. So this can be a really challenging, draining part of being an ADHD mum, I think, because it’s that constant education and upskilling of everyone around you.

And for me, that can cause a little bit of anxiety where I then am concerned about leaving my child with others. Just dropping them with someone can seem really overwhelming for your child or you, and you really are kind of emotionally regulating and you’re really there for your child at a high level, which means that can really create separation anxiety when you’re not there. That means it’s more difficult to take breaks. That’s tricky to navigate.

So what we really need to do if we have family dynamics or co-parenting, whatever it is, the way that your family is made up, is consistent approach and agreeing on things is obviously the best way. However, that can be really tricky depending on your relationship, even if you’re in a relationship with somebody and you get on really well and you’ve just got different ways of looking at things. But it is a great idea to build a non-negotiables list with people who are actively involved with your child at mealtimes.

For example, you may agree on rules like number one, there is no pressure to finish. Number two, there is no praise for a clean plate. Three, there is no comparison to siblings. Four, there is no talk about being grateful because children in Africa don’t have any food. You may agree in your family dynamic around what is okay and what is not.

If you can do that, that’s great. And I understand communicating with ex-partners, family members isn’t always easy. And if you are in dangerous or toxic situations, and it is better for everybody not to have contact, of course, I respect that. If you can have the non-negotiables list, great. If that’s not an option, that’s okay.

Jane McFadden:
Number two is to use medical reframing if you’ve got sceptical family members around you. So for example, with ADHD, it’s pretty well known now that a lot of people will say something like, if my child couldn’t see, of course I would get glasses because that helps them. And imagine having a child that can’t see, and then you’re not giving them glasses to help them. A lot of people have taken that metaphor and taken it into ADHD and gone, if my child’s brain isn’t working in this different way, why would I not support it with medication? I would take this the same step further for ARFID and medicalise it as well if you think it would help.

For example, you may say something like, think of ARFID like asthma. Pressure does not open the airways. Pressure does not open appetite either. So you might say something like, if my child was struggling to breathe, you wouldn’t just stand there and say, just breathe, just breathe, just breathe, or you’re going to die, just breathe, because that would not help a child breathe who has asthma. Pressure does not help ARFID. I reckon it would have to be the number one thing that probably unravels it the most.

There are so many articles and professionals that are really understanding that pressure does not help ARFID. If anybody would like to share any information with anybody that is a little sceptical, I’m happy to provide that information. And one way around this can also be, if you have sceptical family members, is to get external authorities to back you up. So you may not say it as if it’s your point of view, it’s your information. You may say something more like, hey, our paediatrician is recommending this, this is what our OT sent out. Ask them to provide information from them and let family members know that you are following external professionals.

This is not you researching yourself. This is what you’ve been told clinically to do. You also may create parallel parenting zones at mealtimes. So for example, if you have one parent that struggles to be neutral, they may feel a little bit more frustrated. They may struggle with this more so than the other. You may find that it’s better off to have them doing bed, bath, teeth or homework and then have the other person who’s a little bit more patient with the dinner time.

So you may decide to divide and conquer. Or if you are in that fortunate position where you have multiple family members who are able to be neutral, divide and conquer is good there too because everyone gets a break from the experience of dealing with a child with ARFID at a mealtime, which can be really draining if you’re the one who’s always doing that part.

And number four is to prepare a script for family events. I really like to anticipate comments that I know are coming. For example, just have a little bit, be polite and eat this, I made that for you. Or you know, grandpa or grandma or uncle Bob that says, that’s so rude, this is so yummy, have you tried it? Why won’t you try it? And I’ll show you, just have a bite, here, let me help.

Anticipate well-meaning comments or maybe comments that aren’t even well-meaning and be prepared to address them in the moment. Particularly when they’re in front of your child, you want to support your child, but you also don’t want to be overly assertive, create a huge argument. Your children are watching you.

So I would have responses like, number one, thanks, but we don’t push food, we’re fine, thank you. Or two, I’ve got this handled, thanks, no issues here. Or three, we’re actually working with professionals around this, so thanks, but I’ve actually got it handled. Using frames that really close it off like, thanks, we’ve actually got a strategy and I’m happy with it, thanks so much, they’re happy with eating their chicken nuggets, much appreciated, and finish it off.

I wouldn’t in that moment, in the family dinner table, start to quote research or anything like that. If they’d like to talk to you about that, it’s another time. If anyone would like to argue about it, you need to be ready to say, I’m not actually speaking about that in front of everybody, I can talk to you later if you’d like. And then if you choose to avoid them, that’s up to you. That’s really a personal decision, but I wouldn’t enter into a debate in front of your child about it.

Okay. We’re going to move into a different theme and this is around why a lot of people think that kids with ARFID are being difficult and why they are not being difficult. Let’s move into practically what am I doing at home? Where do I get started? And how do I get started?

Jane McFadden:
Number one, we want to separate the identity of the child away from food intake. So I would allow, and I would encourage a child to say things like, I’m somebody that doesn’t really like to eat things mixed together, or I only really like cold food. I don’t really like heated up food. Get them to understand what it is about something that they don’t like.

For example, I have a child that will not eat lukewarm or room temperature sushi, even anything that’s not really cold. She will say, I only like to eat cold sushi. And as soon as she makes that statement, people around her will go, oh, well, let’s put it in the fridge then. Good point. If they are able to identify and advocate for themselves, that is going to be a skill that is going to serve them moving forward.

They validate them without challenging them. I wouldn’t say things like, well, what do you mean? It tastes the same in the room temperature as it does in the fridge. It’s the same food. Why does it need to be cold? Who cares? I wouldn’t argue. We are just validating, okay, for them. They like to eat it in this particular way. It also makes it easier to figure out what else they might like to try if they are able to isolate what it is about the food that they like or don’t like.

Number two, I would use language that really shows them that they can be independent. So for example, I wouldn’t say something like, let’s try one bite over and over again, this is the requirement, if you’d have one bite, you get this reward, otherwise you don’t. I would say something more like, look, you’re the expert on your own body, you’re going to know if you’re ready to eat.

What this will do is it will protect the child and makes it their choice. And it reduces a lot of the anxiety and the nerves because they’re not going to worry for hours before they hit the dinner table as to whether they’re going to be able to eat that or not. If they are worrying for hours and hours because they know publicly they have to have this one bite, you don’t think it’s a big deal. The amount of anxiety that will build over that time will make it almost impossible for them to eat anyway.

And I mean eat anything. So if you are having this situation and then your child won’t even eat a safe food, have a think about how anxious they are when they’re hitting that dinner table. And think about how you feel when you’re really, really, really anxious about something. Do you feel like trying to eat new foods? Maybe you don’t feel hungry at all. So try and put it back onto them as it’s their decision. They don’t need to dread anything like you’re going to force them at any point during the day. Taking the pressure off is a really good idea.

Number three is to really look at those labels. So you want to be careful if you have a child that’s saying things like, I’m bad at eating, I’m fussy, I don’t like to eat food, I hate trying new food. Just be aware that whenever they’re labeling themselves, that’s really reinforcing what you don’t want them to be reinforced. It’s kind of like when a child says, I make bad choices, I’m a bad boy, I’m a bad girl. I wouldn’t let them label themselves.

I would turn it around, flip it around and say something like, well, you actually really understand what your body likes. That’s something really clear. And you’re really good at listening to what your body needs.

Number four is to let your child say no without consequence. So practice scenarios where your child refuses to eat the food and nothing changes. There’s no removal of TV, iPad, whatever they want. There’s no disappointed tone. It is just like, yep, no worries, you are neutral either way.

This really helps to reduce the threat perception, the anxiety and the feeling of like, oh my God, I don’t like it now and I can’t tell her because mommy’s going to be so upset with me, or what will dad do? I don’t know, oh my God. And they start to put pressure on themselves, even if you’re not putting pressure on them. So when you get that no, try to breathe deeply, control your face, if you have to go outside for a moment, take a breath. It’s okay.

Number five, create a food script with your child. You might find that there’s a way that you speak to them that works and doesn’t work. So ask your child, how do you like to eat? What would you like me to say? Do you want me to say dinner’s ready? Or would you like me to say the food’s here on the bench if you’d like it? Would you like me to leave it here?

Talk to them about the way that they would like you to talk about food. You may find that allowing them to shape how that communication looks is going to really work for them. Now, family members that are sceptical, that can be really tricky, but I know it really works because if you ask a child in a few different ways, you’ll see a different result. Find the way that works for your child and stick with that. Script it, write it on the fridge, let family members know about it. And it will effectively take a lot of that pressure off if you don’t even know that you’re putting the pressure on.

Even by saying dinner’s ready and having everybody come over at once might be enough to produce a lot of anxiety, depending on what has been there before. They may prefer you to say, I’m just going to leave it on the bench, come grab it when you’d like. That might be enough for them and that might actually make a real change for them.

Let’s move on with some more practical strategies. I want to talk next about burnout and eating shutdown, which I don’t think are very well understood.

Jane McFadden:
Number one, we really want to have a look at the way that digestion can really shut down. So we know that, for example, burnout, which can happen at school or various other places, can trigger a shutdown and that can actually affect digestive systems. So for example, if your child’s in burnout, they’re exhausted, they’re going through a lot, you might talk to them about how your tummy’s like a laptop, your tummy’s like an iPad, it can’t run when it’s frozen. We really need to calm you down before we get to the mealtime.

So for example, if they’re going through a lot, there’s a big, big, big thing that’s happening for them, I wouldn’t pull out a roast dinner and say, okay, it’s five o’clock, it’s dinnertime. You want to have a look at the body’s stress response and whether they’re able to eat, depending on where they’re at with their nervous system.

The other thing that’s been a real game changer for me is around the post-stimulation reset routine. So for example, you may get some kids that don’t eat at school and then they are absolutely famished and they need a heap of food when they get home. You also may have that child that actually needs to decompress before they can eat. They may need to have reduced questions, quiet time. They may need to relax. They may need to just rest and then they can eat like an hour later.

So have a think about whether your child is someone that needs to eat straight after school or whether they need a resting time. Number three, you also want to offer protein first foods and low demand foods. So for example, you might find that cheese cubes go well, yogurt pouches, plain boiled eggs in my house go well. Of course, without the yolk, they have to be white. You can put them in the fridge, don’t announce them. You can just let the child pick them out and say, this shelf on the fridge, you can eat anytime, this part of the pantry, you can eat anytime.

If your child is one of those children that does need downtime and let’s say they’ve been out all day doing this really cool thing and they come home and you’re like, oh my God, you must be hungry, let’s have lunch, your child may say no. And if they do, they may need to decompress first. Instead of saying, but you must be hungry, you haven’t eaten for seven hours, I would say something like, well, it makes sense if your body isn’t ready for food yet, you might actually need to rest and relax first. Some people do. Let your tummy relax and then it will probably start to feel hungry. Feel free to let me know when that happens. So that’s a good way of taking the pressure off as well.

The other thing is as well is if you have days that are highly disrupted and you’ve got lots going on, unpredictable things, I would then stack in your predictable foods, your safe foods, take them with you if needed and rotate those. If this is happening over a few weeks, for example, let’s say you’re on holidays, you may need to rotate through safe foods rather than going out for dinner and cafes all the time and going, oh, here you go, here’s another new food, here’s another new thing, and then telling them they just have to have it. If they’re out of routine, they’re out of sorts, you’re staying somewhere different, I would absolutely take as many safe foods as possible with you or try and locate them where you are.

One of the other things that I’ve seen work really well is called a personalized safe food atlas. So you have photos of exactly what the food is. For example, if your child loves sushi, you wouldn’t just get a photo from the internet of a different flavour, it looks different, and say, oh, that’s sushi, and you know, do you want that? Because that photo is not actually of the exact sushi that that child likes. So when you’re creating food menus or atlases or whatever it is that you’re creating, make sure you take a photo of the exact brand, the cutlery, the exact setup, and sort it out by maybe textures or sensories, if that’s what they’re interested in, or colours, and add context.

For example, the sushi, this one here comes from this place, this particular food here that dad makes. And be specific around that food, because remember we’re dealing with specific kids here. We’re dealing with kids that really, it does need to be exactly the same. And share those with family, friends, school, to make sure that everybody’s across what is on which list and when that changes. It can be draining, but it also gives the child choice. They can go and point to it and go, this is what I feel like, oh, I might try this again, or, hey, I’ve actually got a new food to add to this. And that can be really exciting as well.

Another strategy I really like at home is to let your child help prep, help cook, without eating the food. So you might play food games. You might do smells, guess the texture, what food is it, and let them know that they don’t actually have to eat the food. We are just getting familiar with it. Maybe we’re learning how to cook. Maybe we are putting the foods into safe foods, not yet foods, and there’s no, we don’t need to worry about, we’re not going to be eating it today. All we’re doing is having a look and exposing ourselves to it and try to make it fun.

So that can be a really fun thing to do, as long as the end goal isn’t to get them to eat any of that that they’ve cooked. But it can be a really low stakes way to make food fun and to bring kids into it. And then maybe you eat it. Maybe that’s your lunch that you’re cooking. You know they’re not going to eat it, but maybe they’ll watch you eat it. And so some of those familiarity parts and reducing the fear can work. Depending on the child, taking them shopping, getting them to choose, showing them menus can work depending on the child.

Jane McFadden:
You might like to really look at the way that the environment is before you eat. You might want to have a think about your child’s mindset before they eat. Are they regulated? Are they coming in off their iPad and their iPad actually dysregulates them if they’re on it too much? Is it too noisy? Is it too crowded? What is it that they need to feel nice and calm when they arrive? If after homework, you go straight to dinner, that may not work. They may need 20 minutes downtime. So have a look at what your child needs to regulate before they start eating and build that in as part of the routine.

When we’re looking at tracking, I would be tracking the regulation of your child as they’re eating, as opposed to what they’re eating. So if you’re going, okay, Samantha ate this and this today, that really wasn’t enough protein, and you’re really stressing about each daily intake, I would focus more on how calm are they after they eat, how regulated are they, how did they feel, did they connect, did they eat the safe food but they seemed fairly happy, what is it about the meal that was good and how were they regulated?

I would really keep the meals short, calm and quiet. This is not a long hour, everybody sits, you don’t leave the table till everyone’s finished. You want to observe, but you want to look at it and then keep the data in your mind, write it down later. You’re not going to be creating a list for one child in front of everybody and say, you ate one sausage. Publicly working in situations like that often create a lot of shame. I wouldn’t be doing that publicly.

When you’re doing those tracking, really zoom out over the week. I’ll be looking at nutritional intakes over seven, ten days minimum. I wouldn’t look at each day and critique it. No day is going to be perfect. The days don’t have to be perfect. And some days may be really difficult. Some days might be great. So have a look at the week period or the two week or the monthly period, not the day by day.

When you’re looking at progress, have a bit of a think about what progress is. Have a look at the win being more around reduced anxiety and increased trust rather than eating new foods or having variety. Have a think about, did they feel safe with the food this week, how did it feel? And have a look at that as the progress rather than expanding the food menu, if that’s what you’re doing. I wouldn’t look at success around how many foods they’re eating. Look at success around how they’re feeling, how you’re connected, and that’s where you will start to see some progress in terms of actually moving forward and maybe suggesting a food that they like, but they have to feel emotionally safe first.

This is a really tricky topic. I would absolutely recommend that you go and seek professional help if you can. Make sure that whoever you seek professional help from is neuro affirming and you might like to look up Claire Britton or Margot White. They’re very neuro affirming.

I really hope that this episode has been beneficial for you. I’ve really tried to make it as practical as possible so you’ve got things that you can actually try right now rather than hearing more about why it happens. I really wanted to empower you to try some things, learn about it, and see if you can see some improvements using any of these strategies that I’ve listed.

Please jump into the Facebook group, share what worked, share what didn’t. Please share this episode around to anybody else who’s struggling in this area, and please know that this is not about you. This is not your fault. This is not a failure on your part or your child’s. ARFID is really a neurobiological and sensory safety issue. This isn’t a parenting flaw. It’s not a behavior issue that you need to kind of squash with reward and punishment, but there are things that can help and things will improve.

You are doing better than you think and I’m right here with you. Thank you so much. The key message here is you are not alone. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, follow us on Instagram or head over and join our amazing ADHD Mums podcast Facebook community. Everything you do matters and helps to spread the word about what neurodiversity in females looks like.