Have a snack
A snack is not a full meal, it is a drift. Hunger shows up without a clear signal, and when you ask what they want the answer freezes between the options. The visual support below cuts the choices down to what is actually in the kitchen right now.
♀Have a snack
A person with long hair eats a small round snack from a bowl.
♀Have a snack
A person holds and eats a small round snack.
About this visual support
It takes a while before the child notices that the body wants food. Often it does not show up as hunger but as bad mood, clinginess, complaints about things that should not be bothering anyone. The time signal is faint, so the snack moment tends to be pushed back until the child is already in affect.
A picture showing it is snack time gives the moment a visible marker. Then comes the next difficulty: the choice. Asking openly what do you want forces the child to hold several options in mind at once and pick, which is exactly what the decision-making part cannot do when blood sugar is low. Two pictures to choose from almost always work better than the same question without pictures.
A concrete tip: lay two cards side by side on the table with what is actually available – the fruit you have, the sandwich you can make. Nothing else. The choice becomes manageable and the decision can land in seconds. The Routined app can show today the two options as a small card to point at, which saves you from listing them out loud several times.