By Tracy Jane Gomez
I am a mother to 3 delightful boys – two teenagers, and a seven-year-old we call Bing.
Bing was diagnosed autistic 15 months ago at the age of six. By most yardsticks, it was a late diagnosis.
With little time to lose, our family plunged head-on into finding ways to help Bing become a better and happier version of himself. He has had regular occupational, speech, and music therapy since his diagnosis. As with all children, he is a work in progress. I, too, am a work in progress, with a steep learning curve to boot, learning to undo many of my past behaviours and to re-parent a neurodivergent child in a different way.
Here, I would like to share some tips that have helped Bing overcome some of his sensory differences and eat better. To put things into perspective, from the age of two until six, he consumed only congee, formula milk, plain toast, Oreos, Indomie, potato chips, french fries and ice cream.



Ask your therapist or someone fun to help
When Bing’s occupational therapist told us that she wanted to help him to try fruits, I doubted she would succeed. After all, our family had spent years cajoling and encouraging him to try new types of food. Fruits were a big no-no for him.
The first such session was in January this year. The therapist spent some time talking to Bing about mandarin oranges, smelling it, playing with it, peeling off the skin, separating the segments, licking it, squeezing the juice out, and finally eating it. He ate 3 segments that day! I couldn’t believe it.
She gave him some oranges to try at home and encouraged him to send her a video of him eating oranges during the week. A few days later, he happily peeled an orange, sniffed it, and ate half of it!
Since then, his wonderful therapists has helped him eat mangoes, bananas, and grapes. Moving on to rice, they used messy play to acclimatize him to the sticky texture.. Occasionally, they placed a mirror in front of him so he could observe himself chewing and swallowing, and to slowly learn that eating isn’t that scary. He has also tried strawberries, blueberries, apples, pumpkin, yogurt during these sessions – all of which he disliked and even gagged on. The wins outweigh the losses.
As parents, we are indoctrinated with the mantra that children learn through play but sadly, my play was limited to “an airplane is going to land in your mouth” variety. When Bing didn’t want to open his mouth, I didn’t push myself to think of better ways to play. I would sigh impatiently and ask him why it was so difficult for him to try. Now, when I put myself in his shoes, I see a mean lady forcing a child with sensory differences to eat food that he couldn’t “brain.” Mealtimes were anything but fun.
If your child is anything like Bing, seek help from a therapist or someone fun and neutral to get past that first step of trying and tolerating new tastes and textures – this made a world of difference in his food journey.
Play games. If the food gets wasted, so be it. Don’t tell stories about hungry children around the world without food – it has nothing to do with your child’s sensory differences.
We changed the strategy and Bing now regularly eats fruit, rice, fish, eggs for dinner – more than I believed possible just a few months ago.

Serve only a small portion of new food
During his second food session, his therapist asked me to bring a new fruit for Bing to try. Motivated by the success with mandarin oranges, I brought a reasonably sized Dole banana – about 20 cm in length. Bing consumed about 2 cm of the banana.
At the end of the session, his therapist told me to offer Bing bananas at home that week, but suggested pisang emas instead – small and cute – and it would give him a sense of achievement if he finishes most of it. She told me something obvious, something I failed to see, that seeing a large Dole banana would only scare him.
Why had this not crossed my mind before? Why was I offering him portions of food that I felt a child his age should consume instead of an amount he could tolerate comfortably? Why did I not stop to think that for a child that found eating difficult, putting a plateful of noodles in front of him, while getting his brothers to keep repeating how delicious it is, was setting us up for failure?
I now offer new food in small saucers – the type we use for soya sauce. A sliver of jackfruit, three peas, 5 pieces of macaroni. You get the picture. His main meal is on a separate plate. We have progressed from one sliver of jackfruit to four, macaroni as a main meal, and an entire pisang emas every other day.

Don’t break the trust
Bing did not always trust me around food because I liked to sneak things in when he wasn’t looking (spinach! broccoli!). This made mealtimes and trying new food even harder.
Every time I suggested something new, he would say NO!
Now, I show him exactly what it is I would like him to try. If he doesn’t like it, I praise him and say “good job for trying”. It took time to build that trust back. He is much more willing to try now that he knows I am not a con.
I also stopped nagging – you try, you don’t like, we move on.

Don’t surprise your child
When I packed lunch boxes for my older two, I used to pack a small container of the same food for Bing to try at school. I thought that he may experiment with new food when he sees his friends at school eating a variety of things. I would also pack his safe food (bread and butter, cut into triangles) in another container.
As expected, the “new food” was always untouched, and worse, he was consuming less and less of his safe food.
When I confided in a psychologist friend, she asked me how I would like it if I opened my lunch box everyday to see food I do not like? Would I lose my appetite? Would it not be better to let him have his safe food during the long school hours and save my experiments for another time?

Do whatever it takes to make mealtime enjoyable
I often feel judged by people when they see me pass my phone to Bing during mealtimes. While Bing is a much better eater these days, he will not just sit there and gleefully consume a well-balanced meal like some kids do. He can eat ice cream or a packet of Mamee Monster without a phone, but he needs a distraction for “healthy” food. For him, this means playing games on a phone.
Perhaps I need to find a better solution but now is not the time. It took nearly five years to get him to sit at the table and finish a small plate of rice, fish, and fruit. He is underweight, he needs the nutrients, and the phone makes it manageable.
If your child needs to watch tv during mealtimes, so be it. If he needs to eat alone because he is sensitive to noise and chaos, so be it. If he needs to eat a different meal from everyone else, so be it.

What works for you and your child at mealtimes is all that matters.
Recently, a good friend reminded me that Bing is just a little boy trying his best. New therapies, new routines, new food – he takes it in stride. It is a lot for a seven-year-old, and overwhelming him could backfire and push him away.
Acknowledging that Bing gives his best shot framed matters into different perspective for me. There is no need to step on the accelerator all the time. Not eating vegetables this year does not mean that he will never eat vegetables. It is not a race. It is a journey and when he is ready, he will cross the finish line
Pictures are from the writers personal collection