Vacation dinner
An unfamiliar kitchen, food you do not recognise on the plate and dinner at a time that does not match home. On vacation the control sits outside the child, and the visual support below hands back a piece of predictability.
Vacation dinner
A plate of fish and vegetables with a palm tree and sunset over the sea in the background.
About this visual support
At home a child roughly knows what dinner will be, where it is eaten and when. On vacation all of those footholds fall away at once: the kitchen belongs to someone else, the food on the plate may be a fish never seen before, and the time shifts to suit the restaurant or the sun. It is not the meal itself that grates, but how little can be foreseen.
Visual support puts some structure back without forcing an exact routine. A picture of washing hands, sitting down, looking at the food, tasting a little and saying so if something does not suit gives a child a map even in an unfamiliar dining room. The familiar in the form softens the unknown in the content.
One practical tip: bring a picture of a safe backup food the child always likes, and show that it exists as an option. Knowing there is a way out often makes it easier to dare the new thing first.
To prepare every meal of the trip with your own pictures, you can assemble them in the Routined app and try fourteen days at no cost.