I have a seven year old with learning disabilities. She’s a cute kid, and I love her tons, but she has a small problem that challenges me on a daily basis: She’s mentally a five year old with the reach and appetite of a seven year old.
Case in point, I have sugar cubes I like to add to my tea. No matter where I store them, she’ll invariably find them and eat themâ€â€every single one. At this point, I may never drink tea again. It’s quite difficult to get out the ladder and climb to the eaves where I’m currently hiding them.
Yesterday, she was on the prowl for some cookies my wife had picked up. When I told my girl that not only had I hid the cookies, but that she couldn’t have them until after dinner, I was met with a classic tempersulktrum. First her spine seemed to liquefy as her body collapsed in upon itself while she simultaneously threw her arms upwards. Then they came down in a masterfully timed descent with the crumpling of her legs. Before hitting the floor she sprung back up while wailing, then repeated the process a few times. It was quite the spectacle.
I usually send her to her room and tell her she can come back when she’s ready to behave. This time, however, I was struck with a sudden idea. Grabbing a discarded candy bag, I told her it represented her stomach. Then I took a sponge and told her it represented a cookie. (Ew! A sponge‽) Then I put the sponge inside the bag and asked her if there was any room left in the bag. When she saw there was none, I told her that’s why we want her to eat dinner firstâ€â€so there’d be room in her stomach for it. The light went on in her eyes and I knew I had won a decisive battle.
I personally know a handful of ladies who can sew up fluffy, colorful, cloth stomachs with insert-able, stuffed snack and dinner dolls faster than I can scratch my armpit, but lacking said skills I did the best I could. Even after some thought, however, I couldn’t come up with a better visual aid. Using real cookies and dinner in a ziplock baggie would look disgusting. For the time being this was one tempersulktrum I managed to simply blot up with a sponge.
How do you teach your children to not snitch treats before dinner? Please share your tips.
Douglas Cootey is a married, full time dad raising four girls in the Salt Lake Valley of Utah who has long ago overcome his aversion to the color Pink. Douglas blogs about overcoming AD/HD & Depression with humor & pluck over at the award winning A Splintered Mind. He also co-produces a podcast with his 17 year old daughter. The random thoughts of his addled mind can be found at DouglasCootey and SplinteredMind over on Twitter.
Photo credit: Look What I Found
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I love it. Visual aids are very effective sometimes. 🙂
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I love it. Visual aids are very effective sometimes. 🙂
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I love visual aids. But, once, against my better judgement, I allowed my son–at the suggestion of my husband–to each as much junk as he wanted. He didn’t eat as much I thought but it worked. Hubs recorded him eating the food and complaining of a tummy ache afterwards. Now, whenever he throws fits like the one your daughter had, we pull out the video. It reminds him that he needs to be a healthy eater.
We also use social stories to help with the tantrums since he has Sensory Processing Disorder.
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I love visual aids. But, once, against my better judgement, I allowed my son–at the suggestion of my husband–to each as much junk as he wanted. He didn’t eat as much I thought but it worked. Hubs recorded him eating the food and complaining of a tummy ache afterwards. Now, whenever he throws fits like the one your daughter had, we pull out the video. It reminds him that he needs to be a healthy eater.
We also use social stories to help with the tantrums since he has Sensory Processing Disorder.
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My wife’s a genius, and I have to tell you she came up with a solution that ROCKS. What we do at our house is prepare a veggie tray of cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, etc. with ranch dressing for dipping. The tray is kept in the fridge, but brought out between meals and whenever the kids want it. It’s almost always fair game.
The nice thing about it is that kids won’t overdo the veggies like they would junk food. The other nice thing is that it keeps their blood sugar consistent throughout the day. Sugary candy puts kids on an insulin roller-coaster that feeds blood sugar problems. If kids get low blood sugar, they’ll want foodâ€â€specifically the sugary stuff. And if they have low blood sugar they’re MUCH more likely to throw a tantrum when someone stands in their way.
That’s why we try to avoid low blood sugar in the first place, by giving them as many vegetables as they want. And I was surprised to see that they’ll eat it (and how much they’ll eat) when it’s there. But if they’re starving (ironically) they WON’T eat it. It’s like they only want sugar because their little bellies know that’s what’s going to bring their blood sugar and insulin levels back up again.
I hope this helps. It’s a long comment and might seem complicated, but the main point is that healthy vegetables on a regular basis is the best prevention for sugar tantrums. I keep a blog with my wife on these topics at wholefamilynutrition.com, so please come over there if you’d like and read more about it.
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My wife’s a genius, and I have to tell you she came up with a solution that ROCKS. What we do at our house is prepare a veggie tray of cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, etc. with ranch dressing for dipping. The tray is kept in the fridge, but brought out between meals and whenever the kids want it. It’s almost always fair game.
The nice thing about it is that kids won’t overdo the veggies like they would junk food. The other nice thing is that it keeps their blood sugar consistent throughout the day. Sugary candy puts kids on an insulin roller-coaster that feeds blood sugar problems. If kids get low blood sugar, they’ll want foodâ€â€specifically the sugary stuff. And if they have low blood sugar they’re MUCH more likely to throw a tantrum when someone stands in their way.
That’s why we try to avoid low blood sugar in the first place, by giving them as many vegetables as they want. And I was surprised to see that they’ll eat it (and how much they’ll eat) when it’s there. But if they’re starving (ironically) they WON’T eat it. It’s like they only want sugar because their little bellies know that’s what’s going to bring their blood sugar and insulin levels back up again.
I hope this helps. It’s a long comment and might seem complicated, but the main point is that healthy vegetables on a regular basis is the best prevention for sugar tantrums. I keep a blog with my wife on these topics at wholefamilynutrition.com, so please come over there if you’d like and read more about it.
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I miss the comments that were originally here. This site has some fantastic readers.
I can’t believe this worked. If only everything I did was so clever…
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I miss the comments that were originally here. This site has some fantastic readers.
I can't believe this worked. If only everything I did was so clever…
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I miss the comments that were originally here. This site has some fantastic readers.
I can't believe this worked. If only everything I did was so clever…
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This is brilliant- and as someone who also has kids with LD, I can tell you, visuals often go a long way. We use this also to look at “bad choices” and get them to think about what other choices they could have made and possible results- kids need to know what decisions are on and off the table so to speak, and then they can handle it better the next time around.
great job!
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This is brilliant- and as someone who also has kids with LD, I can tell you, visuals often go a long way. We use this also to look at “bad choices” and get them to think about what other choices they could have made and possible results- kids need to know what decisions are on and off the table so to speak, and then they can handle it better the next time around.
great job!
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This is brilliant- and as someone who also has kids with LD, I can tell you, visuals often go a long way. We use this also to look at “bad choices” and get them to think about what other choices they could have made and possible results- kids need to know what decisions are on and off the table so to speak, and then they can handle it better the next time around.
great job!
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This is brilliant- and as someone who also has kids with LD, I can tell you, visuals often go a long way. We use this also to look at “bad choices” and get them to think about what other choices they could have made and possible results- kids need to know what decisions are on and off the table so to speak, and then they can handle it better the next time around.
great job!
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This is brilliant- and as someone who also has kids with LD, I can tell you, visuals often go a long way. We use this also to look at “bad choices” and get them to think about what other choices they could have made and possible results- kids need to know what decisions are on and off the table so to speak, and then they can handle it better the next time around.
great job!