Tayden was attending a charter school as his food problems started to surface. During a routine parent teacher conference we were discussing his work. He was a good student and always did well and worked hard. But she did mention that he had one assignment that he just refused to do. It was a graph and he loved math. He kept saying he would just do it at home. His teacher was so confused with why he wouldn't complete the assignment at school. She offered many times to help him with it and explain it to him, but he insisted on doing it at home. Finally I asked what he was supposed to graph. His group was supposed to each carve a small pumpkin, count the seeds, and graph it. I chuckled a bit as it was immediately obvious to me that it wasn't that he didn't understand the worksheet, he refused to touch the pumpkin! This gave me the opportunity to explain to his teacher what he was dealing with. I didn't have a name for it at the time, but luckily she was understanding and willing to work with him. It also answered some other questions she had. There was another time the students had to do a project where they counted the different items in a handful of trail mix and graph it as well. As she was cleaning up for the day she noticed there was one table that had a small pile of raisins on it. She was so confused as to why a kid would clean up his place, but leave the raisins. Sure enough, it was Tayden spot. He was okay to touch, not eat, mind you, but touch the peanuts, cereal, and M&M's, but wouldn't touch the raisins.
While at the charter school, the school ate lunch in the classrooms. His lunch consisted of a bag of goldfish, 5 saltine crackers, bag of pretzels, bag of potato chips. But after a couple of years in that school, we felt it was time to move back into the public schools based on some differences of opinion. We were looking for more structure and opportunities for our children that the charter school couldn't provide. This move had some challenges but for the most part, Tayden did well. There was just one area that really stood out as a struggle. Lunch. Now, instead of eating in the classroom, he had to eat in the cafeteria. From the first day, he was so upset. His lunch hour was not the first lunch hour of the day and so the cafeteria was already a mess when he got there. Not knowing this, he couldn't believe no one had cleaned up after the day before. He thought the janitors should be fired! He would come home so upset that the table had crumbs all over it and the floor was sticky. It was almost too much to bear. Not to mention that now hot lunch was an option. Of course not for Tayden, but it meant that weird smells were coming out of the kitchen. I kept an open mind and continued to talk to him about it and found that he was willing to tolerate the cafeteria. I asked him how he was able to sit with friends who were eating "gross" foods and he said he would just do his best to sit as far away as he could, about 6" was the most he could get in a crowded cafeteria.
He never told anyone about his fear of food because as kids go, they would tease him and put food in his face to see his reaction. Fruit snacks have been and will always be his nemesis. So he mostly dealt with this in silence. Some days were tougher than others. As he got older, he would do his best to find a table in the corner, hoping he could eat alone. Sometimes he would try to eat at the nut free table because there were fewer kids and so it was quieter. In one of his schools, he would sit on the steps to the stage, but he usually got told to go back to a table. He stood for about 3 months at one school because he couldn't handle sitting on the bench that had food on it. One day I picked him up to see him in tears. Apparently the teacher over lunch that day was angry about how loud and out of control the lunch had gotten that day, so she said they would assign seating from now on and the kids would have to sit in alphabetical order. Tayden knew the two kids that would be on either side and he just knew he couldn't stand the idea of sitting next to them. They were loud and obnoxious and ate gross food. He begged for me to pick him up everyday for lunch. I arranged to pick him up the next day and we ate pizza in the car in the parking lot until I could sort it out. I was finally able to get a hold of the principal. She said she was just mad and it was only a threat. She wasn't really planning on doing a seating chart. Relieved, I told Tayden. He was so angry. He couldn't believe she would just make an empty threat that caused him so much anxiety.
As he got into middle school he made a discovery. One day he forgot to turn in his homework. His punishment... not getting to go to lunch! He found out that the kids who got in trouble had to eat lunch in the classroom. This was a major dilemma for Tayden. He was a good student that thrived on getting good grades and NOT getting in trouble. Lucky "bad" kids! They got to eat alone!! He contemplated that for a day or so but couldn't bring himself to act out. But every time he would find a quiet, out of the way, place to eat, a teacher would make him go sit at the table again. Another trick that he learned was there weren't enough seats at the tables for all the kids to sit. So if you got there late, you'd HAVE to eat at the benches on the sides of the cafeteria. Ah ha! He would hang back just long enough for the seats to be taken. This worked until they actually did decide to make seating assignments. Luckily, the kids got to choose who they wanted to sit with. But then they always had to sit there. He chose a friend he could mostly trust so it wasn't too bad, but over time it just got harder as they were eating foods with strong smells.
Finally, one day I was in the office for something else and saw the assistant principal. I mentioned that my son had an eating disorder (by now I was aware of ARFID) and wondered if there was a place he could eat lunch that wasn't the cafeteria. She was very kind and mentioned that they had a homework hall where kids could go get work done during lunch and eat there. At first Tayden wasn't sure about this option because he knew that homework hall was also for the slacker kids who weren't always well behaved. But after a fews days of thinking this over, he tried it. He felt a little weird, but he came home saying that for the first time in months he was able to finish is lunch (still goldfish, crackers, pretzels, chips). I hadn't known that he wasn't eating because the smells and environment was making him sick to his stomach and he would finish his lunch on his way home from school.
Now that is his routine. He eats lunch at a desk by himself in homework hall. But he's at peace.
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