Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to the Raising Autistic Disciples podcast.
Speaker: raising autistic apples podcast My name is
Speaker: Cue the music. Survive the holidays, friends. Our journey from October 31st through the end of December, where we attempt to enjoy all the wonderful things this season has to offer while occasionally asking, are you kidding me Whose idea was this?
Speaker: Who designed this activity and have they ever met an autistic person? But more importantly, Where we are making, we are making our way through the holidays by asking this one very important question when it comes to what we're stressing about or whatever it is. Is that thing necessary?
Speaker: Or is just how I pictured it? How I pictured it going kind of thing. So far we've survived the October 31st, right? You know, that one night of the year when we willingly send our autistic kids up to a complete stranger's home, knock on their doors and hope for the best.
Speaker: Now we're moving on. We're moving from strangers' homes to our family members' homes. And friends, apparently for the next 60 days, we cannot go anywhere or do anything without this one thing.
Speaker: We actually can't go but a couple days, theoretically, without this one thing. Or you would, you know. Yeah. One said thing is, you've guessed it, food. Food.
Speaker: geez louise we gotta to eat we gotta talk about food thanksgiving dinner christmas dinner christmas eve dinner church potlucks family gatherings cookie exchanges class parties holiday baking traditions good grief there's a lot of food in the next 60 days can we do one holiday activity that doesn't require a plate of fork in somebody's great mother great grandmother's casserole you know The one with the green like stuff that makes you sneeze or makes you, you know, what is that? Uh, what's that thing on the internet now? They're like saying it's soap, uh, cilantro. I don't know if you use a lot cilantro.
Speaker: I'm going rogue. Anyway, back to the episode. Um, Listen, I love food. I'm not complaining about the food. Like I said in the previous episode, I don't make sweet potato casserole but one time a year and I'm going to like it and love it.
Speaker: This is Thanksgiving. One of America's beloved traditions, gathering around a table with people we love, giving thanks to God for his abundant provision and becoming personally offended by what children choose to put on their plates to eat or not eat.
Speaker: Somewhere in America, a grandmother is currently looking at an autistic kid's plate and saying, that's all he's going to eat? Yep, that's it. Six chicken nuggets in a row.
Speaker: Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Okay, friends, let's talk about food. And I want to begin with one simple observation. You ready for this? Actually, it's more like a confession or a PSA announcement.
Speaker: Right? it's It's like all rolled into one. Here it is. you Ready? Thanksgiving is a bizarre time to suddenly get brave about feeding goals.
Speaker: For most of the year, we feed our families relatively predictable things. We have the meals everybody eats. We know who likes what. We know who won't touch what.
Speaker: We know which child considers a vegetable an act of aggression. We have systems. We have established peace when it comes to food all year round. We're trying to, some of us, you know, when you're dealing with with kids with taste aversion to different things, we're trying to establish peace, but here we go. This one holiday year, it's going blow that out in the water we're not sure. So this is why I'm, you know, I was like, I got to put a food episode in here because surviving the holidays means we got to survive the food that we have tried all year long to establish a good rhythm. Okay.
Speaker: And then Thanksgiving arrives and we say, you know what? Let's make 12 things nobody eats the other 364 days a year. Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole. Although I do do sometimes green bean casserole because I love it so much. Anyway, sweet potato casserole, is some mysterious gelatin-based item depending on where you live. And then there's this always that one casserole your aunt has been making since 1984.
Speaker: eighty four Nobody actually likes it. Nobody knows exactly what's in it, but nobody has the courage to remove it from the menu because apparently that would dishonor the family. And then we put all of this, all of the spread in front of our autistic kid who eats approximately seven things already. And just, then we say, just try a bite.
Speaker: Just try, just try a bite. Why? Why today of all days, Make that make sense. Why have we selected Thanksgiving Day at 1.17 in the afternoon, surrounded by 27 relatives or strangers, after a completely different morning routine in an unfamiliar house with 17 smells happening simultaneously, and then we decide to launch our feeding intervention?
Speaker: that Sister, this ain't this is not the time. It ain't the time. And then somebody says, but Graham likes chicken. Yeah, he he does like chicken.
Speaker: Oh, but turkey is basically chicken. No, Aunt Thamla, no, it's not. It has a completely different taste and a different texture. We are using the word like very differently.
Speaker: You mean they are both poultry. And if you know, you know what i'm talking about Because autistic kids can be astonishingly specific about food.
Speaker: Not chicken nuggets, those chicken nuggets. Not yogurt, that yogurt. Not crackers, the crackers from the blue box. Not the crackers from the new blue box after the company decided to improve the recipe. Why? Why do you need to improve it?
Speaker: Nobody asked you to improve it. Keep the same packaging for crying out loud. Nabisco, keep the same packaging. Forget the marketing and trims. Just do not touch the recipe. Don't redesign the packaging. Do not make new and improved. We have spent the last three years establishing this cracker as an acceptable food group for our autistic kid.
Speaker: And somebody in product development walked into a meeting and said, oh, you know what this needs? A slightly different texture. And oh, it's going come with a new box too. No! so no it does not it doesn't it's not necessary we have finally established peace in our house and and the cracker company or or the or the who does goldfish is that is that the goldfish like has to decide to pursue pursue innovation and ruin our lives stop Goodness gracious and all the autistic parents said Amen stop changing the color of the boxes Because If it comes in Certain packaging he will know it And he won't eat it do you get what I'm saying
Speaker: Let me take a breath before I go any further because my watch just reminded me again about my heart rate. Man, I don't get you every single time. Okay, so because sometimes familiarity with food isn't merely preference.
Speaker: Familiarity can be part of what makes food feel safe for all autistic kids. The texture is predictable. The smell is predictable. The appearance is predictable. The temperature is predictable. The brand is predictable. The experience is predictable.
Speaker: And then grandma... looks at all of that neurological predictability and says well my mashed potatoes are basically the same thing so no i'm sorry no they're they're not he knows we know the potatoes know and and and they are not offended let's all be like potatoes right Now, I do want to get slightly serious here because this match. There can be a difference between ordinary picky eating and slightly food selectivity. Autistic people can have sensory differences that affect eating like texture, temperature, smell, color, to food touching, other food consistency, the amount of chewing required, even tiny differences in preparation. um
Speaker: There can be other factors involved here too. So I want to be careful about looking at every autistic kid with a limited diet and reducing it to he's just being picky. Um, that doesn't mean autistic kids can never expand what they eat. Of course they can. Nutrition matters here. And we're trying to teach skills and growth. we can and need to need to introduce new foods as how we, you know, nutrition matters.
Speaker: Some families may need professional help with this when it comes to feeding support. Um, There can absolutely be good goals around food. I'm simply suggesting that Thanksgiving lunch or dinner at grandma's house surrounded by cousins while Aunt Carol watches with the greatest intent and interest.
Speaker: may not be the ideal therapeutic environment. Can we all just understand that? That's all. That's all I'm suggesting. Just don't, don't, yeah, don't do it. Which brings me to the official thesis statement of this episode.
Speaker: Friend, we are not turning Thanksgiving dinner into a feeding clinic. Can we agree? Because you know how this goes. The kid sits down. Mom strategically places three food on the three foods on the plate that the child might actually tolerate.
Speaker: Everything is going to be fine. Then somebody notices. Is that all he's going to eat? Here we go. He doesn't want turkey. No. Not even mashed potatoes?
Speaker: Apparently not. What about the corn? Still a no. Have you tried putting gravy on it? Barbara, back off. Back off, Aunt Barbara. We are not introducing another texture.
Speaker: We are barely holding this operation together. Just give him one little a more bite. No! He might like it. He might. He might also immediately spit it onto your heirloom tablecloth that smells like the attic. Okay? Okay.
Speaker: How adventurous are we feeling now? Auntie, right? Because if you want to run this experiment, I need you to understand the risk that that we're running here. So here's something i want families raising autistic kids to feel completely free to do during the holidays.
Speaker: Bring the food. Bring it. Bring the pizza rolls. Bring all of the pizza rolls that minivan can fit. I do not care if it matches the the rest of the Thanksgiving spread. I don't care if grandma thinks it's weird or or gets offended. I don't care if everybody else is eating turkey and your child is eating a peanut butter sandwich. Bring something your kid will eat. This is not ruining Thanksgiving.
Speaker: It's food for crying out loud. Your kid needs to eat, friend. You need to eat. Because I love Thanksgiving food. want to enjoy it without someone pestering me or my kid. Leave me alone while I eat my sweet potato casserole.
Speaker: And I think sometimes we feel embarrassed because family meals come with unwritten rules. Again, we're talking about them all this this series. Everybody should eat the same thing. Everybody should at the same table. Everybody should try everything. Everybody should eat grandma's cooking. Why?
Speaker: Is that a biblical mandate? tell Find it. find Chapter, verse, find it. Did Paul address this? Brothers and sisters, I urge you, therefore, to eat the green bean casserole once a year within with each other. No, he did not.
Speaker: That is not in there. I have not found it, and you won't either. If your family values trying foods, wonderful. Work toward it. But the measure of successful Thanksgiving is not did the autistic kid consume culturally appropriate quantity of stuffing.
Speaker: That is not in the syllabus. friend bring the safe food and if you're hosting an adult kid if you're listening i hope i hope some of you know if you're hosting an adult kid or an adult autistic adult at thanksgiving one of the kindest things you can do is ask actually no let me rephrase that don't just ask is there something that we can have that they can eat don't don't just ask that question get specific what brand of pizza rolls does he eat Better yet, send me a link, mom. Send me a picture of the box because if you buy the great value kind and he will only eat the Tostino's kind, the packaging, he no trust me, we did we did an experiment on Graham. We put pizza rolls. He no longer eats pizza rolls, by the way, but this is winter, roll season.
Speaker: We put a whole, whole plate of great value pizza rolls on the plate and then put one Tostino's pizza rolls in the like in the midst of a Dude picked it out. Dude, hat um ti it was incredible.
Speaker: And also very annoying at the same time. But anyway, friend that is hosting and all to like send, like ask for a screenshot from, from the Walmart app, target at whatever of the actual brand packaging.
Speaker: Tell me exactly what yogurt to get. Tell me exactly what, what goldfish to get. Because we just covered this. Pizza rolls does not mean pizza rolls. It means those pizza rolls.
Speaker: And nothing says i tried quite like presenting the wrong brand and watching the autistic kid immediately identify that you bought the imposter into the home.
Speaker: But look, they look exactly the same. And I'm sorry to tell you, they don't. We've been through this, right? So send the picture. and And I promise you, the friend will buy the right ones.
Speaker: I will cook them the way you tell me to cook them. That's what you ask. I'll put them on the plate they need to be on. i will not let the gravy spoon anywhere near them so they don't touch. Let me tell you something. That's love. That's a family member. and That's a friend that loves and that wants to serve you best, right?
Speaker: Anyway, ah the question communicates something much bigger than food. It says, I didn't just remember that you were coming. I thought about what would help you to stay here, to be here. I cared enough to learn the details instead of assuming close enough was good enough.
Speaker: We thought about you. We want you here. we want we want you to be family here. We want there to be something at this table for you too. That's gospel hospital hospitality, friends. Yeah, I'm praying for that for you.
Speaker: Now, while we're here, can we address the phrase, he'll eat when he gets hungry? ah Maybe not. Maybe, maybe not. But I'm not particularly interested in testing that theory at Thanksgiving. Because hunger doesn't necessarily make sensory aversion disappear.
Speaker: And even if he eventually, even if eventual hunger did change the equation, I'm not sure why we've decided extreme hunger is our strategy. It sounds ridiculous. Imagine applying that logic to adults. Lara doesn't like mashed potatoes. It's a true story. I don't like mashed potatoes. Well, don't give her anything else. Excuse me? You better pass that sweet potato casserole.
Speaker: She'll eat when she gets hungry. Or, stay with me here, I could eat something else. Revolutionary. At 40, you better watch out. I'm going to eat what I want to eat.
Speaker: And again, I'm not talking about a kid who says, I don't want dinner. I want cookies. That's parenting. and probably a different podcast altogether. But I'm talking about the autistic individual whom eating itself may involve sensory and neurological complexity. Those things deserve a little bit more thought than, quote, eventually he'll eat when he gets hungry enough.
Speaker: And while we're trying to create a little bit of peace around the Thanksgiving table, I have one more request for Extend Family Everywhere. Please stop making an autistic person's plate to dinner conversation. Okay, can you please not draw attention to it? Imagine sitting down to eat and six people immediately begin evaluating your eating choices.
Speaker: That's all you're going to eat. You don't like that. You need more protein. Try this. You used to eat that. Why aren't you eating? Are you sure? Just one more bite. i would leave.
Speaker: If someone did that to me as an adult, I would i would i would get up and go and not return. Actually, that's not true. I would stay and become increasingly sarcastic and probably not Christ-like.
Speaker: But you get my point, right? Meals are already sensory experiences. There are smells, sounds, people talking, silverware clanging, chairs scraping on the floor, food textures, multiple conversations going on at the same time. And now we're adding everyone is monitoring what enters your mouth for the autistic kid.
Speaker: No thank you. Listen, grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, if mom and dad are managing it, let them manage it. You do not need to deputize yourself as his assistant director to the kids Thanksgiving nutrition.
Speaker: Your position has been filled. Thank you for your interest. Back away, Jean.
Speaker: The parents and his parents. this is This is the part for us. Because i can feel myself wanting to explain everything. Oh, he's got sensory issues. He's autistic. he He doesn't normally eat that texture we've tried it before. he he eats plenty of other things. He's had protein earlier. And suddenly I'm giving a TED talk over Thanksgiving dinner.
Speaker: I don't have to. Write these sentences down. Or rather, write these replies down. Okay, here's your first one. He's good. Complete sentence.
Speaker: He's good, period. She's good, period. Done. Or here's your second one. we We brought something he'll eat. Also complete sentence. Don't have to say anything else after this.
Speaker: Here's your last one. You ready for this? We're not worried about it today.
Speaker: When you get a response about, why why is it we're not worried about it today. Done. Pass the rolls, please. Because the longer i sit there and explain, the more I accidentally communicate that my autistic kid's food requires everybody else's approval.
Speaker: And it doesn't. So if you're heading into Thanksgiving with an autistic kid or an autistic adult who has a limited diet, here's the plan. Bring the safe food. Prepare them for what the meal may look like when they get there.
Speaker: If food touching matters, separate it. If sitting through a long meal is difficult, think ahead about meaningful what meaningful participation could look like. They don't have to sit at the table. They can stand too. That's also totally okay.
Speaker: don't turn the meal into feeding therapy. Don't let everybody else interrogate the plate. Don't confuse food refusal with and not being thankful. And please do not make Thanksgiving day the final examination of every feeding goal you've ever worked on all year long.
Speaker: There are 364 other days. Today, eat, give thanks the Lord, and enjoy your people. And enjoy your autistic kid participating meaningfully with your family.
Speaker: And if you're hosting an autistic person this Thanksgiving, ask that person or the family, what can I have here that I know that you will eat, that you will you will enjoy eating? Then, and this is important, don't be offended by the answer.
Speaker: But we're going to have plenty of food. ah Yeah, we know that wasn't the question. Ask what they eat. Have it there if you can. Don't make a big announcement when they arrive.
Speaker: Look what we bought the special chicken nuggets for you. Listen, I know you mean well, but just please don't make the accommodation an opening ceremony. Just put the food there and then talk about literally anything else.
Speaker: Football, the weather, family, Jesus, your uncle's political opinions. Actually, no, don't talk about that. Abort. But back to football. Back to football. Don't talk about that. Back to football. Okay? Because 20 years from now, I don't think I'm going to look back and think, you know what was really mattered? Graham ate stuffing in 2026. No. what i What I'm going to remember is whether he belonged.
Speaker: Whether family gatherings felt safe. Whether the people who loved him learned from him. Whether we made room for him and and how he navigates the situation. Whether he grew and he tried something new.
Speaker: When he prayed, when he had an opportunity to pray at the the dinner table and and our family was able to hear him in his own way, give thanks to the Lord. That's what I'm going to remember. In the middle of all the other traditions, we remembered what the tradition was supposed to point toward in the first place.
Speaker: God has been good to us. He has provided. He has sustained us. He has given us people to love. He has given us another year. So we'll gather. We'll give thanks. We'll eat.
Speaker: Some of us will eat turkey. Some of us will eat green bean casserole. Some of us will just eat a roll. Some autistic person somewhere will sit at a Thanksgiving table table eating six chicken nuggets from home while an extended family member stares at the plate wondering whether they should say something.
Speaker: Don't. He's eating. We did it. Right? We're here.
Speaker: It's November, friends. Happy Thanksgiving coming up in a couple of weeks or wherever you whenever you're listening to this episode. Listen.
Speaker: we're surviving the holidays friends yeah we are one episode at a time now pass the rolls
Speaker: hey there friends thanks so much for listening to this episode of the raising autistic disciples podcast i was asked a question the other day by a friend and she asked hey is it cost a lot to be on social media which i replied with a resounding yes yes it does things like this podcast and other areas of social media and email list and all the things it does cost. So here I am unashamedly putting a plug in for you, asking you, would you please hit that subscribe button to follow? Would you please leave a rating or review on this podcast if you enjoyed it? Hey, would you also jump over on Amazon?
Speaker: I got a few books over there, How to Advocate and Stay Christian and the three volumes of Letter to Lindsay. Man, it would be i'd I'd really appreciate it if you grabbed one of those and hey, give it to a friend. But most importantly, friend, thanks for spending your time listening to this podcast and just spending a part of your day with me.
Speaker: Keep learning how your autistic kid learns best for the sake of the gospel. Keep opening your Bible so that you're a disciple before you can raise an autistic disciple. And of course, keep sharing the gospel both to yourself and to those around you.
Speaker: I'm so grateful to be on this journey with you. To God be the glory. He's doing great things for his glory and our good.
