Like many young people with abuse and neglect backgrounds, our son Shane came to us with issues surrounding food. He was malnourished. He couldn’t understand bodily sensations such as hunger, satiety and thirst. Shane was unable to wait for food, became very anxious if food wasn’t present, hoarded, gorged, stole and would only eat what became known in our household as the ‘Beige Diet’ – chicken nuggets, chips, crisps etc.
Twelve years later and the story is very different. During this period of lockdown Shane has been working hard in a local bakery. Having volunteered there for over 2 years, he has gone on to be a member of the staff team since he turned 18. Shane never complains about work. He truly enjoys every moment of helping out their head chef. Food, which was once one of his greatest sources of fear is now his greatest love.
How To Therapeutically Support A Child With Food Issues.
In those early days we had to work very sensitively with Shane’s food issues. Here are some of the things that helped him and might help your child:
- He had a snack pack. This was a bumbag that he carried around with him fully of nutritious snacks. Whilst I’m sure he would have preferred it had sweets and cake in there, the message was ‘this is food for when you are hungry’. We ensured it was kept topped up.
- We had a snack tray. None of our boys could manage going into our fridge (we would never have had any food left to eat!). Neither could they ask for food because their distrust of adults was too great. So we had a tray that they could help themselves to. Eventually Shane stopped using his snack pack in favour of the tray. This happened once he trusted we would refill it and that his brothers wouldn’t eat it all!
- Food stealing was dealt with sensitively and not consequenced. We understood it to be a trauma response and something that (certainly in the early days) he was unable to control.
- I introduced Tasting Tuesdays where we sampled lots of different foods to increase his food perferences.
- We developed to have ‘Boys Night’ on a Friday. If they ate what we provided for them during the week then they got to pick whatever they wanted on a Friday evening for dinner. This also worked well for us as the boys would eat together and then we had a ‘date night’ later that night…… where we got to eat food without it going cold or the countless conversations about table manners!
- We spent time educating them about different food groups and how they worked in our bodies.
- We recognised the regulatory effect of food. It truly was their only comfort when they were very young. Consequently, we ensured that the food we provided met their pleasure needs. We used different flavours, textures, smells etc to appeal to their senses.
- We didn’t take them food shopping. It was too overwhelming and caused too many issues. Instead we did internet shopping and set a time for when they were in the house. Every Wednesday evening they knew the food shop was going to arrive and they got to help us put it away. This created predictability that felt safe for them and showed them that there was plenty of food to meet their needs.
- We never discussed running out of food in front of them. I would never ask my wife to pick up more milk in front of them because at that time it was important they saw food as always being available to them. They ate a lot so there were many late night trips to the shops once they were in bed!
- We got all of them involved with the cooking but Shane was particularly keen on this. We worked a lot on developing his pride in his cooking achievements. This helped him to learn to share food with others so they could be impressed by his latest recipe.
- We would stop during meals as a family and do a ‘body check in’. We would always leave food on our plates (which went completely against how we were raised!) and in time the boys came to do the same.
We know that food is a big issue for many of your young people. Might some of these ideas work for you? Do you have any other ideas that might help someone else?
As ever, please do pop a comment below.
Love Fi and Shane x