Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Exercise, food and other supports
Try swapping the word picky for particular. A fair number of people with ADHD have more densely packed taste buds, so the bitterness in a sprout arrives at full volume.
That changes what is going on at the table. A child is not refusing in order to be difficult, they are tasting something stronger than you are. Cooking that softens bitterness, choosing from the milder vegetables, and dropping the coercion tend to get more eaten than pressure ever does. The word matters too, since picky is heard as an accusation and closes the conversation before it opens.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Let man consider the food he eats (Quran 80:24). Considering it includes how it actually tastes to the person doing the eating.
فَلۡيَنظُرِ ٱلۡإِنسَٰنُ إِلَىٰ طَعَامِهِۦٓ
Let man consider the food he eats
Qur’an 80:24read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
What gets eaten matters more than it might look. A review of marine omega-3 fatty acids reports that most people take in far less of them than is thought optimal for brain function, and it summarises the mixed trial evidence for supplementing in behaviour and mood problems. Mixed is the honest word for the supplement side, while the gap in ordinary intake is the sturdier part of the finding.
DiNicolantonio JJ, O'Keefe JH. (2020). The Importance of Marine Omega-3s for Brain Development and the Prevention and Treatment of Behavior, Mood, and Other Brain Disorders.. Nutrients doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
When a refusal is understood as a difference in perception rather than defiance, the fight goes out of the meal.
When not to
If eating has narrowed to very few foods, or weight and growth are affected, that needs proper assessment rather than a change of vocabulary.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Play therapy and insight based psychotherapy do not treat ADHD. There is no buried, unexpressed feeling driving it that talking will let out.
Being told you are too sensitive is usually someone else's comfort talking. Feeling things strongly is not the problem to solve; what to do once the feeling has arrived is.
If you are thinking about a weighted blanket or vest for a child, let an occupational therapist set the weight. It is a specific number for a specific body, not something to guess at in a shop.