THE SENSORY MADE SIMPLE PODCAST

Transcript

Welcome to Sensory 303 for Parents, part three of our sensory series.

So far, you have learned what sensory processing is, the eight senses, all about our sensory thermometer, all about self-regulation, and the three types of sensory processing difficulties.

If you are just joining us for the first time and haven't listened to Sensory 101 and Sensory 202 for Parents, episodes 14 and 15 of the Food Explorers Podcast, I really suggest you go back and start there before listening to this episode.

Today, we are going even deeper into the sensory system to talk specifically about the senses and how they affect eating.

I mentioned this many times in the past couple episodes, but eating is one of only two, only two things we do in life that require all eight of our senses to work together.

Think about that for a second.

Every single sensory system is used for the task of eating, and our brain needs to take in all of that information at once, understand it, and respond accordingly.

That is a lot of work for our brain to do.

For those of us without sensory processing challenges, our brain does this relatively easily, and our eating isn't impacted.

But for children, teens, and adults with sensory processing challenges, their brain can feel like it is being flooded with sensory information.

Or even though they should be getting that sensory information, they're not.

Or it isn't interpreting everything coming in from all those eight senses well enough.

So if that's happening, it's really hard to use all that information from the senses to happily eat and sit at the table.

When it comes to sensory processing and eating, there's three big components I like to consider.

Number one, your child's or your personal sensory system and how it's working.

For example, are there certain textures they avoid?

Is the sound of crunching hard for them, et cetera?

Number two, the sensory characteristics of the food you are eating.

For example, an apple is green, it is crunchy, it is slightly wet.

And number three, the sensory characteristics of the environment you are eating in.

For example, is it bright?

Is it loud, et cetera?

Eating is influenced by all three of these components.

And so they, and the interactions between them, are necessary to consider when talking about meal time and your child's eating habits.

In my Making Sense of Eating program, I focus a lot on these three components and give you tips for each as we go through the modules.

I know that sensory challenges at the table can be so frustrating for parents, because what you see is that you are just trying to feed your child nutritious food for their body, and you spent a lot of time making it, and you just want them to eat it and be healthy.

But when a child is having sensory challenges at the table, it is a biological response of their body, and it is most often out of their control.

Something most parents don't realize is that the main job of the senses is to protect us.

It alerts us when we feel a spider crawling up our leg, a car coming in our direction, or when we step on something sharp.

Only after our senses determine we are safe can it focus on interacting and enjoying the world.

For example, eating.

Often, your child's sensory system may be interpreting that piece of meat or broccoli as threatening to their body.

Although you or I, or even your child, may know that logically that piece of food should not harm them, their sensory system isn't recognizing it the same way.

And so it sends the message to their body to avoid that food.

As I mentioned before, this can feel very frustrating when it comes to eating.

And many of you have even confided in me that you just wanna tell your child to eat the food, they will be fine.

But when you try to ignore the message the sensory system is sending and just push past it, their fight or flight response likely kicks in to protect them.

And you will either see them scream, yell, hit, throw as in fight, or cry, shut down, run away from the table as in flight.

And that my friends is a very big part of mealtime battles.

Sure, you've probably met people who've told you, I just tell my kid they need to have one or two bites, or they can't get up from the table until they had their veggies, or you're the parent, you tell them what to do.

My disclaimer before I tell you the next part is to say that if you are worried about the amount of nutrition or food your child is getting, make sure to talk to your doctor or a dietician.

Many children do need additional medical support to make sure they are getting what they need.

Okay, back to it.

In my personal experience, forcing doesn't work well with sensational children.

Because their sensory system is kicking in to protect them, they will often fight you, refuse to eat, gag, throw up, et cetera, and mealtime becomes even more unpleasant.

So instead, I personally believe in working with their sensory system at the table instead of against it, finding out exactly what makes your child's body tick and making small changes to support their body and help them thrive instead of cry at the table.

And that's why I created the Making Sense of Eating program to help you finally understand your child's personal sensory system and their sensory quirks.

So you can finally start to create a strategy of how to work with their body and finally begin to end those mealtime battles.

And during the month of March, I am giving you an extra bonus.

When you sign up today using the code sensory, all caps, you will get an additional $100 off the program.

Plus you will also get two live Q&A sessions with me to ask all of your pressing questions.

I know you are exhausted.

I know you are tired, but this entire course is only about five hours long.

So you could complete this in one day if you wanted to.

And I really believe that when you take the sleep and get to know your child's sensory system, you will be so happy you did because you will finally understand what's going on in their body and how you can connect with your child at the table again.

So go to www.drsamgoldman.com/makingsense of eating, all lowercase, and don't forget to use the code sensory to join us today.

I'll see you inside.