Reader of the Week

Each week we will award one child from Years 1-6 as most improved writer of the week. The award is for those who have shown a significant improvement in handwriting or writing throughout the week.

Year 1     Lucinda

Year 2   Cheyenne

Year 3    Finley

Year 4    Teddie

Year 5    Yusuf

Year 6    Katie

WAHM’s Wellbeing Newsletter 3- Difficulties with Eating 

Please see our monthly CAHM’s newsletter for our CAHM’s clinician.

My name is Alice and I am a clinical psychologist working in Hackney CAMHS. I work in Gainsborough Primary School as part of a project across Hackney called the Wellbeing and Mental Health in Schools (WAMHS) project. My role is to help parents and school staff to support children with their emotions, behaviours and mental health. I will be sharing some tips to help parents support their children’s wellbeing and mental health, covering a range of different topics.

If you are struggling to get your child to eat at mealtimes
– Try to keep a consistent routine around mealtimes. You can create a visualtimetable so that it is clear to your child when they can expect meals and snacks throughout the day.
– When you are first trying to work on getting your child to eat at set mealtimes, use foods that your child really enjoys. This will make them more motivated to sit down and eat. Once they have become more used to this routine, you can then introduce a wider range of foods.
– Consider if there is something about mealtimes that your child dislikes and is trying to escape from. Is it very loud? Are there a lot of people around the table that may be overwhelming your child? Try and see if there is something about the environment you have your meals in that might be overstimulating them.
– Help your child to learn the consequences of their actions. The natural consequence of not eating at mealtimes is that your child will be hungry later.
If it feels okay to do so, try not to give them food or snacks outside of planned times, unless they sat down and ate their entire last meal and are still hungry. This will help them to learn the importance of eating at set mealtimes.

If your child eats a narrow range of foods when trying to introduce your child to new foods, we recommend an approach known as Food Chaining. Food Chaining is a way of taking a food that is liked and accepted by your child and slowly adding subtle variations to this food to allow your child to make the bridge to new foods. The idea behind food chaining is that you start with a food your child already likes and accepts and look for links between this food and the new food you are going to offer. These steps need to be small and the pace of the food chain needs to be led by the child. There is no hiding of food, switching packets or force feeding your child. It should all happen with your child’s knowledge and consent.

Here is an example of Food Chaining: If a child only eats McDonald’s chips, a food chain might look a little like this:
• McDonald’s chips
• Chips from other fast-food restaurants (Burger King, KFC)
• Chips cooked at home from a packet (McCain’s, Supermarket own brand, etc)
• Homemade chips
• Different shaped chips (potato smiles, potato waffles)
• Fried slices of potato
• Roast potato
• Mashed potato
Try to keep the steps small and try and link the new food to the existing accepted food as much as possible. Once the child is regularly eating a reasonable amount of this new food, it must become a regular part of their diet alongside the other foods. Continue to offer the old foods and the new foods regularly to ensure they remain in your child’s diet. If your child refuses a food, try not to comment and make a fuss. Simply offer the
food again another day and keep offering other preferred foods on rotation as well.

Other factors to consider:
– Some children dislike foods of certain colours or textures due to sensory differences. If this is the case for your child, you can still introduce them to new foods by using the colours or textures that your child is already more comfortable with to slowly increase the number of foods in their diet.
– Consider how you respond to your child refusing to eat. For example, if they refuse to eat what you give them, do you eventually give up and give them sweets? Or do you tell them they will get extra iPad time if they finish their food? This may reinforce your child’s behaviours as they learn that refusing to eat foods will get them something else that they want.

Want more support?
– Sign up to the ‘Food Explorers Workshop’, run by the Occupational Therapy service at Hackney Ark. This workshop is for parents of who are very selective about the food they will eat. For more information, visit https://www.hackneylocaloffer.co.uk/kb5/hackney/localoffer/service.page?id=ZYZj6Eb3OrQ
– Seek out support from First Steps. This is a service in Hackney CAMHS that offers support with mild-to-moderate difficulties relating to emotions and behaviour. You can make a self-referral by contacting the First Steps team on at huh-tr.FirstSteps@nhs.net or on 02070147135.
– Get more support within school. As part of my role at Gainsborough, I can meet with parents to discuss any concerns relating to your child’s wellbeing. If you would like to arrange a 1-1 parent consultation with me, you can let Miss Clark know. I work in Gainsborough one day per fortnight – this means that I am at the school every other Monday. I look forward to meeting some of you soon!