about Life Skills: dining etiquette for a hopeful future
5 CommentsIn 0.5 seconds… a teaspoon… with a quarter cup of rice and rib meat precariously balanced atop… racing toward his awaiting, gaping mouth about a foot away from his bowl… and his eye contact and attention are on the basement door as he tries to discern the sounds coming from the computer downstairs.
The Elder’s massive spoonfuls of grub being shoveled into his mouth at a high velocity rarely reaches the goal of getting food into his mouth as much as spilling it all over the table, chair, and floor. (Thank goodness we are at the point I can omit “walls” from that list!) I think his reasoning is “the faster I eat the sooner I can be done with this miserable task.” In this particular scenario I could probably tack on “and check out what’s happening on the computer.”
Those who have known him since birth know that motor skills and sensory defensiveness have not allowed him (or others in his vicinity) to enjoy how wonderful the experience of feedings can be. When it comes to meals that require utensils (mashed potatoes for some reason doesn’t fall under this category), he is actually a slow eater. He just stuffs it all in his cheeks like a chipmunk as fast as he can and then slowly swallows his food. It appears to be tactile foods like oatmeal or rice and boneless meat of the day (again I ponder why mashed potatoes aren’t on this list). Medicine also makes the cut to be swallowed slowly. Blech! It takes him so long to swallow a teaspoon of tylenol regardless of what flavor it is. But I digress…
I hope today is a turning point for this dilemma that has plagued our dinner table for years. I pray that we will have family dinners in the future of all of us sitting and eating together instead of one of us constantly asking if he can be excused before we’ve even started eating – or even have made it to the table!
As I watched that mountain of rice topple over (thank goodness back into his bowl!), The Ever Elusive Brilliance surfaced…
Brilliant Life Skill of the Day:
“If the food doesn’t fit in the spoon, then the bite is too big.”
I really wish I thought of this sooner. So simple. As soon as this logical explanation left my lips, I could see him reprogramming his brain and he began to process how much food was actually on his spoon. He not only slowed down to mentally calculate the food to spoon ratio, but he also significantly reduced the probability of speaking with his mouth full and we actually had a small conversation about Amazon.com.
We have also employed a number of other “tricks” to reduced the stress of mealtimes – a big one being “keeping them seated” since without that they were just grazers and “meals” were a fleeting concept. What trials have you encountered and how have you resolved them?
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‘all of us sitting and eating together instead of one of us constantly asking if he can be excused before we’ve even started eating – or even have made it to the table!’ Oh yes. I know exactly what you mean. I listened to an article about children and table manners the other day – if they only knew of how things were over here they’d throw their hands up in horror, a different order of magnitude.
Perfect Jen! I’m going to use this with Ethan. We are still working on even using utensils, but when he does the bites are about 4 times too large.
I still chuckle thinking about that peanut butter sandwich! Not much has changed since that day!! 
We still laugh about that too! I can’t believe they are both so grown! I barely recognize them in your Christmas card! Thanks by the way. I hope we get cards out this year (eventually) but it gets harder every year.
Let me know if it works for you! We’ve been doing sandwiches all week so I haven’t been able to retest this method yet.
Tonight’s dinner: some spillage of rice BUT spoonfuls were much more reasonable! This was with no prompting!
This is soooo horrible but quite often, I let the kids sit at their own table for meals. It’s the only way that Cameron will actually eat. I have no idea why he can’t eat at the big table but if sitting at a separate table means he actually ingests some food, then so be it.
I like the idea you came up. I’ll try that on Cam when he gets better at holding utensils.