Published on 12, July, 2020
Does anyone else have this problem and how have you dealt with it, I'm going out of my mind!!
My daughter is 12 and her traits seem to be on a massive downward spiral just now, I hardly recognise her as my daughter these days.
Her traits are mostly sensory based and she struggles every day with many tasks. However recently her new trigger is around food and other people eating. Being too loud when they eat, or use there knife and fork, its causing so, so many issues in the house and upsetting my son and husband.
She will say that she is not hungry and would rather not eat than have to sit at the dining room table with us, which is our time to come together as a family, and has always been so.
Do I let her excuse herself, do I make her sit with us, do I let her put earplugs in or eat alone. I'm so worried that any of these options will cause further problems for us as a family, won't help her over come this sensory issue and make the whole thing a much bigger problem, one where she can't go out socially now or when she is older.
I'm literally at my wits end.
I've always avoided eating with others because of social anxiety. To have to eat as well as 'socialise' becomes so difficult that I just can't relax enough to swallow. As a child I was sometimes permitted to eat in another room, but I'm not sure anyone really understood my difficulty; Christmas dinner was always a nightmare.
I am now an OAP and still avoid taking meals with others.
Maybe you should let your daughter eat alone for a while and see how things go.
Ben
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. It so good to know that we're not alone and seeing how things have worked out for other people with the same sensory overload is so helpful. I have just read all the messages to her and I think for her it 'normalised' the feelings for her. Tonight, after asking her what she'd like to do, myself and my son sat at the table and she sat at the breakfast bar. She still chatted to us, but I think she felt more in control of her surroundings and what she could deal with. I know this might not be the case everytime, but tonight, for once, we had a nice relaxed meal time. I'll keep you guys posted and thank you so, so much.