Spooky Food Experiment

🎃 SPOOKY FOOD EXPERIMENT 🎃

I was delighted to be featured in an article by Marie Claire UK this month on ideas for Halloween activities, with my suggestion being a ‘spooky food experiment’. When thinking about mealtimes and wanting our kids to eat a variety of food, don’t underestimate the power of sensory play and how it can desensitise our kids to new smells and textures. One mum I spoke to recently in a 1:1 coaching session expressed her disappointment at her child not eating a carrot after he had peeled it, but I leapt for joy! Kids might spend weeks or months experimenting with new food by being freely allowed to squish, smell and squeeze it and this is all seen as a win and the perfect building blocks for later on for whenever (or if) they do wish to taste it!

If you’re feeling particularly stressed with your child’s food refusal at the moment, here are some thoughts:

🎃 Suggest they play around with new tastes or textures with zero pressure to try

🎃 Offer both familiar and unfamiliar food on their plate so there is no pressure to eat everything

🎃 Try to time your meal with them when you can, so you can role model the kind of food you’d like them to eat (this also takes the focus off them too)

In this ‘spooky food experiment’ I’ll be doing with my kids over Halloween, we will be covering up all the different food to feel or blindfold the kids if they are keen or maybe do in the dark! So far, I have pumpkin flesh and seeds, jelly, wiggly worm sweets, apple/fruit puree ….and they can guess what they all are by feeling/tasting and just have fun with it.

Don’t forget to join in too!

Any other fun food textures I could also include?

Link to article: Halloween Ideas For Kids