Whether you have a teen or a toddler with unique learning needs, using video modeling to teach healthy eating habits is a great way to get your child eating healthy foods – and save your sanity in the process.
Video modeling can help you avoid battles over food and get your child involved in the process, two strategies that are crucial when it comes to implementing an everyday wellness routine.
If you aren’t already using this tactic to convince your child to eat a healthier diet, here are some tips you can follow to get started.
What is Video Modeling?
Video modeling is just as simple as it sounds. It is a teaching method that occurs by watching a video of a person modeling a specific skill ro behavior. Then, the child can imitate that skill or behavior.
It sounds pretty basic but video modeling is an effective teaching strategy that can motivate a child with unique learning needs to learn just about any kind of skill or behavior. It’s fun and enticing, and when done correctly, can be one of the fastest ways to get a child from point A to point B.
To use video modeling, you will have a child watch a model demonstrate a skill. Then, your child will imitate skills from the video with your guiding and monitoring. He can then utilize that skill in a normal environment.
Of course, you’ll likely have to provide some hands-on support while your child is first learning these skills. He won’t adopt the behaviors automatically but may need several repetitions and reinforcements.
However, it has proven to be an effective way of teaching students with diverse learning needs because it is highly visual. When the videos are thoughtfully created and curated, it can also be helpful to children with these learning needs because it can offer instruction in a clear, concise, and step-by-step fashion.
It includes visually-cued instruction and lets children avoid direct, face-to-face instruction, which can be a disadvantage of many other types of therapies and teaching strategies.
Not only that, but it lets children learn through play. Watching videos can be fun while also allowing children to learn in a more natural way. It’s cost-effective and not labor-intensive, making it a great option for just about any family.
10 Ways to Use Video Modeling to Teach Healthy Eating
If you’re ready to give video modeling a try as you teach your child how to eat a healthier diet, here are some tips you can follow.
1. Get Your Kid Involved!
No matter what kind of instructional strategies you rely upon in working with your child, one of the best tips you can follow is to get your child involved no matter what.
By getting your kid involved in creating videos – just as you would if you were coming up with social stories to use together – you will get a lot more buy-in from your child. He will feel like a more active participant in his own life and be more willing to continue with future tasks.
You can have your child come up with videos with you, or you can simply ask them what sorts of foods they’d like to include in their new healthy eating plan – or both! Whichever you choose, make sure you include your child as an active participant rather than just throwing the plan you come up with at them when it’s done.
2. Tailor the Tasks to Your Child
Depending on your child’s learning level, age, and personality, not all healthy eating plans and video models will be appropriate. You will need to think carefully about the tasks included in the videos to make sure they are developmentally sound.
For example, many people find it helpful to use videos of them cooking and then eating healthy foods to encourage their children to engage in similar behaviors. That’s a wonderful idea – but if your child is not able to operate a stove safely, this probably isn’t something you’ll want to do in the video.
Make sure the tasks are appropriate and remember that even for children with very specific learning needs, there are still plenty of things that can be done to encourage healthy eating.
You could model things like:
- Tossing a salad
- Selecting a piece of fruit from a variety of choices in the refrigerator
- Making a smoothie
- Microwaving healthy leftover foods for lunch
3. Include Step by Step Instructions
Even if a task seems simple to you, it’s important to remember that for your child, it might seem brand-new. To that end, it’s important to break things down as clearly as possible.
Approach the task with the mindset of someone from another planet – if it were your first day on Earth, what sorts of things would you need to know about this task in order to be able to successfully complete it?
Be as explicit as possible in your instructions to make sure your video is as clear as it can be.
4. Be Repetitive
Repetition is important when you are teaching a child with unique learning needs any kind of new skill. Show the video often – depending on your schedule and how quickly you want your child to master a skill, a daily viewing might be appropriate.
5. Vary it Up
Include a variety of tasks and healthy foods in your video modeling. Don’t stick to one task repeated again and again and again. Repetition is important when it comes to teaching a child with unique learning needs – but too much repetition of the same task, especially when your child has already mastered the skill, won’t be effective.
Vary up the tasks and switch out videos once your child has mastered a certain skill. This will help to keep things fresh!
6. Provide Positive Reinforcement
Most new skills are going to be tough for your child to pick up on his own or her own without lots of positive reinforcement. While the goal here is to make healthy eating a built-in, ingrained habit, it’s not going to happen overnight – and it’s not going to happen without your support.
Do your best to encourage your child to eat healthy foods but try to avoid using unhealthy foods or “treats” as a method of reinforcement. This can be confusing and can backfire.
Rather than saying, “You can have dessert once you do ‘x, y, or x’,” you might instead offer tokens such as time spent on a fun activity or playing a game. Try not to link the reward to anything that might disrupt a routine such as getting out of a chore.
7. Get Cross-Curricular
It’s important for your child to have a clear understanding of why it is important to eat a healthy diet before you even jump into video modeling.
Take a cross-curricular approach to this new instructional technique that helps to develop an understanding of basic nutrition in your child.
Teach your child the importance of fruit and vegetable intake as it relates to helping her body function appropriately. Have her research healthy food options that she’d like to try for herself. Hone her math skills by having her learn about food labels and serving sizes.
Getting cross-curricular about nutrition and healthy eating can help your child engage more fully with the process while also building skills in other areas – something you might not have thought possible before!
8. Spread Lessons Out
Don’t try to cram everything into a week or two of video modeling. Instead, spread the lessons out. Focus on just one or two skills at a time and make sure your child has mastered those skills before you move on to the next. Trying to do too much at once can cause your child to become frustrated and fatigued with the process – instead of motivated to continue on by herself.
9. Don’t Sweat the Logistics
If you don’t know much about making videos – or are terrified to see yourself on camera! – try not to panic. Making a video that models healthy eating and related habits isn’t as complicated as it might seem.
You can use this storyboard for recording a healthy eating video – it will serve as a sort of template to help you teach your child the skills she needs in a more seamless way. It also doesn’t require a lot of technical savvy on your part!
Ultimately, though, don’t fret if your video has some weird camera angles or looks a little shaky. At the end of the day, does your video really need to be Oscar-ready? Probably not.
10. Be a Good Role Model
Finally, be sure to model healthy eating both in your video that you show to your child as well as in everyday life. It’s not going to be of any use to you if you work hard to engrain healthy eating habits via a video – only to find yourself not modeling those healthy behaviors by reaching for a bag of Cheetos every night.
Try to follow healthy eating habits yourself – this will make your child far more likely to follow your lead!
A Healthier Diet Starts By Following These Tips
Even if you ultimately decide that using video modeling isn’t the right choice for your family or your situation, there are plenty of other tips you can follow that will help you get your child’s diet on the right track.
For instance, you might consider serving a variety of healthy foods and snacks, tailoring the options available to your child’s preferences while incorporating foods from all of the food groups.
Further Reading
- Thunder Bay District Health Unit: Teaching Healthy Eating: Tips and Tricks for Educators
- Philip M. Kanfush: Using Video Modeling to Teach a Meal Preparation Task to Individuals with a Moderate Intellectual Disability
- Rebecca MacDonald and Shelly Sacramone: Using Video Modeling to Teach Reciprocal Pretend Play to Children with Autism
- Rebekah Pierce: How to Deal with Changes to a Routine
- Rebekah Pierce: How to Use Positive Reinforcement to Get a Routine to Stick
Hi. I enjoy reading your articles. I find them to be of high-quality content but most are geared toward parents/caregivers. I do have a question and/or suggestion. Do you have any content that speaks directly toward teens and young adults?
Hi Lilly, thanks for your question. The majority of our content is written to the parent, teacher and caregiver target audience. This is because, in our experience, most teens and adults either aren’t aware they have a specific challenge (less common), know they have a challenge but aren’t sure what to search for (most common), or know WHAT to do to address their challenge but don’t know HOW. This is where parents, teachers and caregivers can come in and hopefully use our content to help bridge the gap.
That being said, regardless of the voice and phraseology, a lot of our content can be generalized and implemented by anyone. For individuals, this may require ignoring phrasing like “your child”. To make it a bit easier, we’ve also begun using more phasing like “you or your child”, most recently in our ongoing How to Make Stuff EF Friendly series.
Thanks!
Chris