Bring food
A full plate and a few steps across the floor can feel like a balancing act when your child is afraid of dropping everything. The visual support below breaks the walk from counter to table into calm steps that steady the hands.
♀Bring food
A girl carries a tray of food including chicken, a bowl and bread.
About this visual support
Carrying food to the table is as much about balance as it is about setting places. A tray or a heaped plate tightens many children across the shoulders, and the fear of spilling can freeze the whole movement before the first step is even taken. When the route from counter to table is laid out in pictures, your child knows what is coming and can loosen the grip.
Visual support splits the carry into parts that otherwise blur together: hold with both hands, keep the tray close to the body, walk slowly, and set it down before letting go. One concrete trick is to let your child rest the plate on each chair along the way when the distance is long, instead of carrying the whole stretch in one go. Each short leg then feels manageable, and a spill stops feeling like a failure.
The pictures below can be downloaded and put up where food usually travels. To follow the whole mealtime routine on screen, you can try Routined free for fourteen days.
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