Hi, Heather. I was wondering how long this child has been enrolled in your program? What is his demeanor throughout the day? Is he connected with the teachers or children? I just wonder if part of his hesitation to eat is because of anxiety with the transition to a new school with a new language or if it is more in regards to the need to develop self-help skills. Helping him to eat will happen more easily if he is connected with the person teaching him.
I teach at a school that serves a large percentage of children with special needs, and often we find that they are extremely particular about food. We have several children on food plans. Also, I recently took a very helpful course on the development of dual language learners. While taking the course, I realized some of the strategies that were suggested for DLL children were strategies that I was already using at my school with other children in my care.
I would make it a priority to learn the words "eat" and "drink" in Vietnamese and pair them with the English phrases when communicating with him at meal time. Will he at least pick up and hold the food that is served? If not, since he is not accustomed to feeding himself at home, I would gently teach him hand over hand, how to hold the food, if he would be comfortable with that. He will need to be comfortable holding the food before he can eat independently. This might be made easier by asking for the sandwich and apples to be cut into smaller pieces while he learns.
If this child is not eating anything at all, I would definitely feed him in the beginning and phase him into feeding himself. I would do this in correlation with teaching him to hold the food. So, he would practice holding a piece of the sandwich and I would feed him a bite. If he will eat with you feeding him, over a few days, I would give him a bite, then encourage him to eat a piece from his own hand, even if I needed to teach him hand over hand how move the food to his mouth. Last year, I had a little girl who would hardly eat anything at lunch, besides starchy foods and bananas. I had to slice the banana and feed it to her with a fork, while also teaching her how to do it on her own. I fed her at first to be sure she was getting food, but then I did "my turn, your turn" until she ate independently, giving her the occasional reminder to "take a bite". She even sliced it with her fork independently and then used the fork to eat it.
My other consideration would be the food that is being served. Does he actually eat those foods at home or are they only sending that to school? We serve all of the meals at our school, so when we have a child with a meal plan, we make sure to keep some easy, highly preferred foods on hand. I would ask the family if he has any highly preferred, healthy snacks or foods, and ask them to send those with his lunch. The most popular items that we keep are crackers, bananas and cheese sticks. In the past, we've even kept yogurt around when necessary. We use these foods carefully, so that they do not prevent children from ever eating the food that is served. Depending on the child's tolerance and their food plan, we serve the preferred foods at a different time of day or we pair it with their meal. Extremely particular children will start by only eating the highly preferred food, then over time we transition them by saying, "First try that, then you can have some of this." Even if "trying" a new food means that they touch it with the tip of their tongue, and then over time, move into taking very small bites.
Sometimes, we just anticipate a child's need for food. Right now, I have a little boy in my class who only eats a few of the foods that we serve and he is prone to meltdowns at lunch time because he is both tired and hungry. We give him a banana and a cup of milk, both highly preferred, about 45 minutes to an hour before meal time. Then, if he only eats a few bites at lunch or is too emotional to participate, we know that he has some food in his tummy, which is the most important thing.
I don't know what your meal time looks like. We serve family-style meals at our school, where the teachers sit and eat with the children. So any time I have a child that needs assistance with food, they sit right next to me. Helping children to develop healthy eating habits and self-help skills is time consuming and takes extreme consistency, so I hope that you have the support that you need in your classroom. Good luck to you and your little friend!
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Ashley
Teacher; Curriculum Coordinator
First Discoveries Academy
Brandon, FL
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-24-2020 08:17 AM
From: Heather Schmitz
Subject: 3 year old needing to be fed
I have a new student this year who is Vietnamese. He is an English learner with Vietnamese the home language. I'm looking for help on teaching him to feed himself.
We've just asked the parents to share his eating habits at home and learned they are still feeding him. We've also asked them to send his favorite foods, as parents provide lunch from home in our program. He has been bringing a sandwich, apple slices, and raw broccoli which he doesn't eat. We provide milk or water to drink in a small 4 oz cup and he doesn't drink it either.
Any suggestions or resources would be appreciated. Thanks
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Heather Schmitz
Johnston IA
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