4 years – Selective Eating
Linda’s mother took part in a Kids’ Skills workshop. When coming home, she told Linda about KS and asked her, if she’d like to try the method. Linda agreed but was unable to say right away what skill she wanted to learn with the help of KS. Later that day, as she was having her evening meal, she told her mom, that she wanted to learn to taste new foods. Linda was very selective with foods and was very suspicious about new foods.
Name and benefits
Linda named her skill yum-yum-skill. She thought this was an important skill for her to learn, because she remembered, that she had often felt sad, when she had not dared to taste some new food, that others had said was delicious.
Confidence
Linda remembered a few times, when she had been brave enough to taste something new and then found it to be good.
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Supporters and power creature
As her supporters Linda chose her parents, brothers and nurse. As her power creature she wanted to have Sniff from Moomin valley. Sniff is fond of treats and always hungry. At home there were various dishes with Moomin figures. Linda was given plate, a mug and a spoon with a image of Sniff on all of them.
Practice
Linda was keen to tell about her skill to any guests that visited the family and demonstrated her training by tasting whatever new flavors were served at the table. She also wanted her parents to buy products from the supermarket, that she had not previously tasted, such as new varieties of yogurt flavors and new fruits.
Reminding
In order for Linda’s parents to help her not to forget her skill it was agreed that they would use the code word “yum-yum”. Linda was very motivated to learn her skill and showed courageously tasted new flavours.
There were no real setbacks, but the code word “yum-yum” worked well when tasting a new taste felt very scary. Sweet flavors were easier. With savory flavors Linda needed more encouragement. Yet, Linda acquired dozens of new flavors during her training period. Pear yogurt, mandarins and spinach soup became her new favorites. Olives, blue cheese and cabbage soup remained no-go, but even these Linda tasted a number of times.
Celebration
Learning the skill went smoothly and in a month the family celebrated Linda’s success with a delicacy party. In the party Linda served her supporters various delicacies, some of which were new. As a token of thanks she drew each of her supporters a picture of their favorite delicacy.
Linda’s brothers, who had been supporting her, they too learned to taste new foods, because Linda had encouraged them too to taste and try the new and unfamiliar flavors. When tasting olives Linda succeeded to get her mother to taste them too. When they tasted olives together, they had some laughs at each other’s grimaces.
Having learned the “yum-yum” skill Linda wanted to start learning another skill. She had already decided, that when she has learned her next skill, she wants to have a princess party.