Almost all children are picky eaters at times, and this can frustrate parents. Many children who are on the autism spectrum develop complex eating issues and pickiness patterns that can be ten times more difficult to handle than those of children who are not on the spectrum. However, there are many strategies to use with these picky eaters in order to relieve some stress and ensure that your child receives the proper nutrition.

Children like to eat foods that taste good, though these may not necessarily be the healthiest choices on their plates. So, what is a parent to do? The most forceful and probably best option is to only serve healthy food! Explain to your child that the food being served is the only food he or she will get. Soon enough, hunger will take over, and you child will be eagerly eating his or her veggies. Once the child has learned to tolerate eating the healthy food, you can gradually re-incorporate some of the foods that your child prefers to eat as a way to balance out meals and reward him/her for eating the unwanted food.

Another sneaky, but creative option is to hide particular nutrients or vitamins inside the food that your child enjoys. In order for this to be done properly, get the advice of a nutritionist, and learn the best way to approach dieting their child with this method. Many vitamins taste bitter, and thus, aren’t so easy to hide in food.

A separate but related issue is eating habits and manners. As with all aspects of Autism spectrum disorders, children on the spectrum have difficulty learning unspoken rules, such as what is and is not proper to do at a dinner table. For example, children should remain at the table and eat with the rest of the family and learn to use their utensils properly. Many children have the tendency to get anxious during a structured, family meal time and may often run to and from the dinner table, carrying out their own activities away from the table. This should not be allowed. In this case, you should tell your child that whatever activity he/she is doing away from the table needs to be continued after he or she has finished the entire meal. This may be difficult, and it may take some time to get a child to sit down for an entire meal period. If so, you can require that your child gradually consume more and more food before being allowed to get up from the dinner table and play. As the child is forced to eat more and more of the food on their plate before getting up from the table, the longer he or she will be forced to remain at the table during dinner time. Eventually the child will reach the point of eating his/her entire meal before leaving the table.

You should also be sure that you teach your children proper eating etiquette, such as utensil use. Many children like to think that their fingers are the sole tools in the universe necessary to consume food. This is clearly not a productive or socially acceptable idea. A good training technique to try is to put a piece of food on your child’s plate and require him/her to use either a spoon or fork (whichever is appropriate for the type of food) to get the food into your child’s mouth. If the teaching of this is not going as well as planned, give the child a little help and put the food on his or her spoon or fork. Mirror the activity for your child and show him/her the proper way in which to use each particular utensil.

Taking a child out to eat may seem like an insane idea, but in actuality it is not much different from dinner training at home. In the beginning, it will probably be a good idea to take the child to a more laid-back or fast food restaurant before going to a nicer upscale restaurant where a disturbance might be less tolerated. Get the child comfortable with the rules for eating in these types of environments first before experimenting with more upscale restaurants.

[Koegel, Lynn Kern Ph.D. and Lazebnik, Claire. Overcoming Autism. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. pp. 253-259]