Holiday Meals: How to Help a Child with Sensory Processing Disorder

If you have a child struggling with sensory processing disorder, the holidays can feel like a minefield of triggers. 

There’s a culmination of factors that might make it challenging for your child to eat, especially in situations where the sensory stimulus might be overwhelming. 

Let’s think about a typical holiday gathering.

Generally, holiday gatherings include multiple people, a plethora of noises, and a variety of foods with many different tastes and textures. 

For a child dealing with sensory processing disorder, here are some of the senses that can quickly become overloaded as they try to manage at a holiday meal: 

• Smells: Holiday meals can be pleasing to the smell, but for a child with sensory processing disorder, the combination of many different smells can be overwhelming, especially at mealtimes. 

• Sights: The combination of people, potentially being in a new environment, taking in multiple foods that may be unfamiliar can all contribute to sensory overload for a child. 

• Tastes: New flavors or multiple foods with unfamiliar flavors and textures can lend to overwhelm in a child with sensory sensitivities. 

• Sounds: Sounds from around the holiday table can include multiple conversations among family and friends, noises around dinnerware, electronics, etc. 

• Touch: Physical touch from many different loved ones can cause sensory overwhelm, as can various tactile textures in a child’s environment. 

For some children who are dealing with sensory processing disorder, the sheer overwhelm of their senses at holiday meals or large gatherings around the table can be enough to put them into a “flight-or-fight” situation, in which their bodies may potentially shut down as a defense mechanism. 

This can translate to a child not having an appetite at mealtimes, a child refusing to eat, or a child being unwilling to even sit at the table. When a child’s senses are overwhelmed, it can become difficult to engage with themselves and others around them.

On the surface, this can feel frustrating for any parent, or like an act of defiance from the child. But in reality, this is a protective mechanism, in which a child who is overstimulated is trying to ground themselves. 

The good news is that there are many ways you can support your child around holiday meals to help them feel safe to engage with others and confident in eating. 

The first step in helping children who are dealing with sensory processing disorder at holiday meals is to first be aware and understanding of the situation and stimuli that could be overwhelming to their senses. Again, holiday meals are often the culmination of many different triggers, working together to create the perfect storm. Things that we might not be aware of or that may not seem like a big deal can be much harder for a child with sensory processing disorder to manage.

Identifying these triggers can help you come up with a game plan to better support your child in these situations, to help prevent an experience where they might shut down, and to help them feel safe to listen to their bodies and eat as needed. 

A second key point to supporting your child is TRUST - trust that your child is doing the best they can under the circumstances they’re in. TRUST in yourself as the best advocate for your child’s needs. TRUST that your child is capable of eating and self-regulating what is needed to best support their body, growth and development. 

How to Help a Child With Sensory Processing Disorder

With that said, here are some tips to help support you and your child, particularly around holiday meals, so that you can bring joy back to eating and focus on making memories together during the holiday season. 

1, Adjust expectations of what your child needs to eat

By default, holiday meals come with a lot of pressure to eat. There’s a lot of hype and build up to family meals that inadvertently create expectations around what should be eaten. There may have been a lot of prep work involved to put together a special meal for the family.

You may be part of a family meal that someone else has cooked, or have several dishes included that are traditional and once-in-a-year types of foods. Knowing this, it’s important to understand what your own expectations are around family meals and how these expectations may be projected on your kids. For most kids, the hype around the big, traditional holiday meals doesn’t register.

Children are more likely to be excited about playing or being together with other family members and friends. While there may be a ton of foods you’re excited about eating, your kids may not feel the same way. Be aware how your expectations are playing a role in the holiday meal.

Do you feel like your child needs to eat certain foods or amounts of foods? Remember that this is just one meal in the spectrum of multiple meals your child will eat. Any added pressure to eat at meal times can overwhelm your child’s senses and be a prime trigger for power struggles that make food much more difficult.

Instead, be sure your child has had regular meals and snacks leading up the big holiday meal and lower your expectations around what they should eat at the actual meal. You can offer but don’t pressure or force your child to eat, as pressure can create added anxiety that can cause them to shut-down. 

2. Talk to them about it ahead of time

Generally, many kids do better when they can understand what’s coming and when things feel more predictable. This creates a sense of stability, which is particularly important for children who are dealing with sensory processing disorder.

Knowing what’s coming, especially around the food aspect of meals, can also be helpful in that it decreases anxiety around mealtimes. Have an honest, age-appropriate conversation with your child about an upcoming holiday meal.

This can help you gage where your child might need more support or potential areas they’re worried about. You can also help reassure your child that you’ll be there as a support, and you can talk about the positive aspects of the holiday meal you’re looking forward to sharing with your child.

Making your child part of this conversation can help empower your child for what’s ahead and again, subside any fears that may be culminating due to the unknown. 

3. Ensure there is at least one safe food

To piggyback on the last point, part of talking to your child ahead of time about an upcoming holiday meal can also include plans for bringing or having at least one safe and accepted food that your child is comfortable with eating.

When your child knows that there is something recognizable and safe in a sea of foods that may feel unfamiliar and overwhelming, you’re also creating stability for your child.

Bring your child into this by asking your child what is a preferred dish or food item they’d like to see at the meal.

It might be something as simple as bread rolls or a special dish they have in mind - but whatever it is, find ways to intentionally include that accepted food as part of the holiday meal.

If you’re going outside your home for a holiday meal, be sure to bring along a dish to share that your child is familiar with and enjoys eating. 

4. Let them help be part of food preparations 

One way to help diffuse tension or anxiety your child may be feeling leading up to or around holiday meals is to bring your child in with the food preparations.

Again, as I alluded to earlier, there’s often a lot of anxiety and build up to holiday meals, and kids often feel pressure to eat, simply by being at the table. To help our kids feel safe around food, we want them to be able to engage and interact with food without feeling any pressure to eat those foods.

Mealtimes are not always the most ideal place for these types of learning experiences because of the subtle, underlying pressure to eat. By allowing your child to help be part of mealtime preparations, you’re giving your child opportunities to interact with food without feeling pressure to eat those foods.

Especially for a child with sensory sensitivities, you want to allow them to engage their senses in a way that feels safe. Some ideas might include letting your child wash or scrub veggies (with a food scrubber), cut foods, scoop out ingredients, or set the table. You can even offer your child a small plate of different foods and tell them to create food art with it.

There are many possibilities, and you can pick what you think would resonate with your child. In doing this before the big holiday meal, you’re helping your child diffuse any anxiety they might be having around the mealtime itself.

This can make meals easier for them, especially if they see ingredients on the table they interacted with earlier in the day. For more information on how to intentionally create sensory food experiences for your child that build confident with eating, check out this post here: “Fear of Trying New Food? How to Get Picky Eaters to Try New Foods”

5. Have an escape route as back-up

Sometimes, kids just need a place to escape to when they’re feeling overloaded and stressed. In some cases, holiday meals may be too much for your child to process, and if you see they’re getting to a point of overwhelm, it may be helpful to remove them from the situation temporarily.

This can also be something you discuss with your child ahead of time. For example, you can say something along the lines of, “We can always take a break from the meal whenever you need to. Just let me know when you need help, and we can go outside and get some fresh air.”

Of course, you can adapt however you need to for your child, but the premise is that your child knows there’s a safe outlet available when the situation is feeling too overwhelming.

If you’re outside your normal home surroundings and environment, be sure to scope out where a safe, temporary escape route might be in the home or place you are visiting. This can be reassuring for a child with sensory processing disorder, especially around family meals, where the situation and sensory stimulations can escalate quickly. 

6. Advocate for your child as needed

Holiday meals can be a time of unsolicited comments and conversations around food, appearance, and many other things that can be unsettling for both caregivers and their children.

A common occurrence is getting outside comments about how your child may be eating or their body size. And while many individuals make these comments from a well-intended place, these can be devastating for your child to hear.

If you are anticipating any such comments from certain family members and friends, consider having a conversation with them ahead of the family gathering and holiday meal. Let them know your concerns or what you’re working on with your child.

Approach it from a place of asking for help, such as, “I really need your help with something. We’re working hard on helping {insert child’s name} feel more comfortable at mealtimes and with eating, and we’d love you to help us keep mealtimes positive for them by not making any comments about how they’re eating.”

Something like this is generally understood by caring adults and can help them get on the same team in support of your child. If this is an area that you feel stuck in, be sure to check out this post here: “4 Ways to Deal With People Who Food Police Your Kids”

Keeping the Big Picture in Mind

At the end of the day, you want your child to build confidence in themselves and their eating abilities.

Holiday meals can be overwhelming for many children, particularly those who may have sensory sensitivities or who are dealing with sensory processing disorder.

Putting some plans in place can help your child feel safer around holiday meals and ultimately, create an opportunity for building positive associations around food. This is key to helping your child build a healthy relationship with food, not just during the holidays, but all year round. 

What are some aspects of holiday meals that have been challenging for your child? 

Wishing you and your family a wonderful holiday season!