Coin Contract Bravery

                                    This was a fantastic first week of helping David learn to be able to eat more foods. There were lots of ups and a few downs but I am soooo very grateful for the triumphs. This gave me such HOPE!!!!  My boy will be able to conquer some of his eating issues and fears. David has been in some type of therapy for eating since he was 16 months old. Now 7 years later we are still in the battle but for the first time in seven years I feel like I can breath. I can let go of the fear that David will not eat more foods. For the last 7 years he has eaten only 1 vegetable.... green beans. His diet for the last 4 years has been green beans, scalloped potatoes, a specific chicken noodle, spaghetti with no meat, yogurt, apple sauce, gold fish and animal crackers, peanut butter sandwhich (that actually was his first sandwich that we JUST got him to eat this last summer). He did not eat any of his birthday cakes until his 6th birthday and now the big thing he loves is chocolate cake and ice cream.  :)  We have tried several different techniques in the last year or two that have not been extremely successful. However, we have finally found something that is motivating him and helping him be brave.
                                  David has been in ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) Therapy for the last 2 years. He has been able to conquer so many things in the last 2 years. Now, we are working on conquering the sensory food mountain! I believe we will conquer it! David and I talk a lot about being brave. He loves to talk about being brave and he loves being brave. I always tell him though that yes. He is brave. But it is Jesus who helps him be brave. So we pray each morning and thank Jesus for helping him be brave to try new things. So now whenever we talk about eating he usually says, "are we going to practice being brave with food today Mom". I love it! I have a sign in our kitchen that I made for him that says I AM BRAVE!   

     
                                  I would like to share with you what we are doing with David to help him. We are using a kind of token economy system. Each token represents a bit or even bites of food depending on degree of difficulty. At the beginning of the week we sit down with David and set up his goals for the week WITH him. We let him decide what reward he would like to work towards. We then tell him how many tokens he needs to earn in order to get each reward. At the end of the week he can trade his tokens in to us for the prize listed on what we call The Coin Contract. He has to sign the contract as well. 

            Once we establish what the rewards will be and he has signed the contract we then can start. The goal is to get him to taste and eat it. Then we decide the size of the bite he has to eat. Then we decide how many tokens he gets for each bite based on difficulty. At the beginning of the meal we write out on a sheet the food he is going to try, the amount of bites he has to eat and how many coins he gets for that bite. It also has circles of different sizes that represent the sizes of the bites that he would need to eat. Each meal can be different. Each food can be different. This can also encourage the child to eat bigger bites if the food is tolerable the first time. That gives room to increase the amount of tokens to give them. Then at the bottom of the page we say how many bites were eaten and how many tokens were earned as well as any comments on behavior, reaction to food etc. It has made it so much less stressful for me as well. It makes it so much more fun even with the challenge of those foods that have not been tolerable. This week he has tried and eaten hot dogs (HIS VERY FIRST MEAT HE HAS EVER EATEN), a few different types of chicken, apples, jelly candy and hotdog bun. The hotdog bun and one type of chicken made him gag but the others accepted pretty well. This week we will be working on increasing the amount of bites and increasing the token challenge.
                         

              So this week we continue the journey!  I know it will not always be as easy as this week but I am thankful to the Lord that He has given us this tool to help us and has given me courage to keep going and know that no matter what we can push through one bite at a time. Thank you Jesus for this gift!  :)