Eating Problems

[SmileyPR]

Please, I need your help. I have a 5 1/2 year-old child in my classroom who has eating problems. He had been fed by his mum until the beginning of this school year. She said it was an emotional compensation for her son and herself! She knew it was wrong, but was working on it and would stop doing so then. Well, that was in September, after I had spoken with her because it took 'ages' for the boy to eat his lunch and he disliked eating his fruits, no problems with any other type of unhealthy snacks. He is an only child. We have an allotted time for these periods, so 15 minutes for morning/afternoon snack and 30 minutes for lunch. The rest of the children in the class don't have problems, some slow... but within reasonable time. He even has less lunch (they bring it from home) than others. I have praised him a lot every time he finishes on time and emphasize the big benefits of healthy food, especially fruits and vegetables. He was doing 'ok' for a while. He and I agreed that if he had not finished his fruits during morning snack time, then he could finish it after lunch. That made him happy and it seemed to work... until a couple of weeks ago.

 

He has become slower again. I did not want to put pressure on him, so I just told him that if he did not finish his fruit in the morning, he could do so in the afternoon (instead of lunch) because that way it would not take him an hour during lunch time. He started to cry about this. Then, yesterday, I aksed him to just leave what was left of his lunch and that he could finish it in the afternoon. Oh! While I was supervising some children painting t-shirts for our Christmas Concert, he kept on pacing around me with watery eyes. Later on he asked if he could eat his fruits then. I said for him not to worry. That he did not have to eat them then nor in the afternoon, that he only had to finish his lunch at 1:40 pm. This did not comfort him. While the others were eating their free afternoon snack (no chocolates or crisps allowed), he was eating his lunch, but... as he has tried lately... from the beginning he would immediately say he was going to vomit! I told him to take it easy and breath calmly, that he would be okay and that he had time. That didn't work and he threw up again. When I had spoken with him some days ago, he confessed his mum still fed him a traditional bread at home because he still didn't know how to grab it with his hands, even when we had asked her to let him do so by himself.

 

The boy also used to go to sleep late at night because, as he said himself, his mum would force him to stay up late watching TV with her even when he was tired or did not like the program. The effects were seen the next days at school. He would be grumpy and cry because he felt tired. I had a conversation with his mum about this and she was 'interested' in working with a sleeping chart which recommended hours of sleep for each age. Lots of times, because she had kept him up late, then she would bring him late to school.

 

Now I wonder what is happening at home that is causing him this eating stress disorder. Do you have any suggestions that could guide me to help this child and his mum? Thanks in advance !

[Sue R]

Oh dear! What a difficult situation for you - I wish I had some real advice for you. For now I just send best thoughts while I try to think of something!

 

Sue x

[Guest]

hmmm- we would probably seek outside support in this; sounds to me that help and support may be needed at home.

[sunnyday]

Hi Smiley

I couldn't just 'read and run'..........don't have any words of wisdom........sorry.......

Hope someone far more helpful comes along soon......

[Cait]

Well I don't know that I can be of much help here, but it sounds really worrying to me. I think you should ask for some support from the Psychology team or a Health Visitor or something. It doesn't sound as if Mum knows what she's doing 'forcing' him to stay up and feeding him etc. It doesn't sound a very healthy situation for the child to be in.

 

Without wanting to sound stereotypical, is she a first time, young, single Mum without close family? It may be that she needs a lot of support and 'educating' herself

[HappyMaz]

Oh Smiley it sounds heartbreaking. I don't think you should tackle this on your own - there are so many issues here to deal with that with the best possible intentions you may end up doing more harm than good.

 

As others have said you need sound professional help here both for mum and her child. I'm not sure what services you have access to, but an Educational Psychologist who has experience of these kinds of eating disorders is really your best bet.

 

I know that high profile people like Tanya Byron and Jo Frost have done work with difficult and fussy eaters by using food in messy play scenarios to take the fear out of food but again I think you'd need professional advice to do this successfully.

 

I feel so sorry for this mum - she knows what she's doing isn't helping but it sounds as if she just doesn't know what to do to get them out of this situation.

 

Good luck.

[Guest]

may be worth conatcting the nearest children's centre for support.

[HappyMaz]

Smiley doesn't work in this country so I don't think she has the luxury of a children's centre.

[finleysmaid]

can i ask a couple of questions.....? why is mum using this as emotional support (is dad around?) and is the child undernourished? It does sound from what you say that this is not the childs problem but the mothers and so outside help may be the only way to go unless you are able to offer her help

[SmileyPR]

Thank you very much, everyone! You can't imagine how much your words of wisdom mean to me.

 

As HappyMaz says, I don't work in the U.K., so our children don't enjoy the benefits you are blessed to get for your students. The country does provide good services, similar to those you mention, to public schools... but I work in a private International School in continental Europe. The disadvantage we have is that, because of it being a private school, parents are seen as 'clients' we serve and we need to be very careful on how things are presented to them. We have had students who clearly needed Special Needs support and yet parents would deny it and not want their child/ren tested. So you can imagine it is not that easy to tackle this kind of situation.

 

In this case, this child's parents seem to be in an advanced age... so I would not be surprised if he is their most expected and wished desire. Even with my over 20 years of teaching experience, I feel impotent to find more solutions within my hands and I agree with you in that I should probably have to redirect them to some type of psychological help for their child.

 

I was not able to contact his mum by phone last Friday afternoon, so I will have to ask her on Monday morning to see if we can dialogue with her a bit more about this situation. I had been thinking of asking her how does she work this out at home and how would she want it to be worked out in school, taking into account the prescribed times we have for the snacks and lunch. Then she would have to write it down and, once we have found an acceptable agreement, we could both sign it and start it as soon as possible. Sometimes children are asked to 'sign behavioural contracts'. Maybe we would make him aware of this too?

 

He is a very verbal boy, quite 'mature' for his age, probably because of the type of vocabulary used by his parents and the type of things he is exposed to. Something that I have also had to help him realise is that he does have many talents, but that other children do so to (he tends to say he knows more than the others or he interrupts me during whole class saying 'I knew it', sort of things like that).

Edited December 11, 2010 by SmileyPR

[Guest]

I agree with everyone else's comments about this sounding more like mum's problem than the child's. Are there any basic parenting courses nearby? We run one at our school regularly for any parents who want it and we teach about things like things like bedtime routines but there is also a strong message in the course which is that parents need to be happy and confident in order to set a good example for their child and this includes going out and leaving the child with a babysitter occasionally, going out and doing things together as a family etc. I know our parents have found the course really helpful, especially those who weren't very confident and who were quite clingy with their children. We see such a huge difference in the children and parents when they have attended these courses and it sounds to me like maybe the mum of your little boy might need something similar to build up her own confidence and self esteem.

As for the eating issues, these will probably sort themselves out if mum can sort herself out but for now I'd suggest that you try not to make a huge deal out of it. Try and get him onto school dinners so he's having the same as everyone else and give him a very small portion so that he doesn't feel overfaced by a huge plateful. If (when?? ) he starts to be able to eat this in a reasonable time, gradually put a little bit more on his plate. Don't tell him you're doing this, just add a bit more as the weeks go on until he has a normal sized portion.

I teach autistic kids and so have had to deal with all sorts of eating issues but I generally find that keeping it as low key as possible is the best approach.

I hope this is useful, good luck xxx

[SmileyPR]

Hi Miss Blinxi! Thanks for your advice. Many parents of our school don't learn the language spoken in this country, so any outside parent's courses would be very difficult for them. We also don't have school diner. Every child brings his/her own meal based on the fact of his/her cultural difference. It is nice this way, because the children get to notice different types of food and relate them to a country or culture. They get to accept the fact that Indians eat with their hands and not a fork-knife-spoon, that Oriental children eat with chopsticks or that some people eat meat and others don't. We take advantage of these moments to talk about this aspect, which is presented in the developmental matters aspect.

 

I did tell him mum last Friday that he was able to finish eating his lunch by breaking his chiapati/puri/naan/roti into small pieces, eat one slowly and completely and only then he could take another piece once the previous had been eaten up. I had noticed on Friday that he would gobble up a big piece and, certainly enough, you can't breath or chew properly if your mouth is so full. But his concern is to eat as fast as possible to finish on time and that's why he thought doing it like that would make it faster. I explained to him that makes it even slower, that it is better to eat smaller pieces and chew/bite them well. He did so and finished faster! He was happy and also said that he would prefer to eat his lunch with yogurt instead of ketchup. So I also told that to his mum. I asked her to please keep an eye that he had really takes smaller pieces and to take into account his yogurt suggestion. Let's see what happens tomorrow.

 

Again, thanks for your advice.

Edited December 12, 2010 by SmileyPR

[Guest]

Just to put a different slant on this, it sounds to me a bit like this boy is using the whole food issue as a way to get lots of adult attention. Perhaps not consciously, but even so his behaviour is causing the adults to all fuss around him.

 

I wonder if it might help just to ignore the whole thing for a while? He must feel a lot of pressure at school meal times and that will only cause his behaviour to worsen.

 

Just a thought. Good luck, I hope you get it sorted out. I think a child psychologist (not necessarily and educational one) might be his best bet in the long term.

[Guest]

I thought that too suzie, that's why I suggested not making a fuss about it.

 

Smiley, your dinnertimes sound lovely. I misunderstood when you said that his mum brought dinner from home and thought he was the only one. As it is, he's already having the same as everyone else by having different from everyone else!! So that's good.

 

Its a shame that parenting courses aren't possible. Is there anything you can do to help build mum's confidence, e.g. having a coffee morning for parents where they can all get together and chat. Maybe have some sort of structured activity for the parents to do, e.g. fun activity with the children but with a rule that they are not allowed to work with their own child. Also give them chance to just sit and chat to each other, intervening yourself if need be to help her to join in. I might be way off the mark with this but the image I imagine of this mum from what you've told us is that she is very quiet, shy and not very confident so anything that brings her out of herself a bit has got to be beneficial to the child. If she doesn't work you could ask her to come in once a week to read with the children or something like that. Basically make her feel useful.

[HappyMaz]

There's no doubting that for some children (and adults) food is the only measure they can use to maintain some control in their lives and as SuzieC8 says, this little chap may well be using food as a way of getting good quality adult attention, even if he doesn't realise that's what he's doing.

 

It sounds as if you made a bit of a breakthrough by explaining to him how to eat, Smiley. If his mum is always feeding him then he won't have been able to develop the skills other children do when they play with their food and experiment with it between their fingers.

 

I think the key will be developing strategies that are used consistently at home and at school - and without having mum completely on board you're going to have such an uphill battle on your hands. Hopefully she'll agree to your getting the professional help to set you on the right path.

[SmileyPR]

Hum... I never thought of her as a shy woman, she doesn't seem so. Nevertheless, she once said that she had not been working phonics with her child before entering Reception (our Kindergarten) since they taught it differently in her native country. I greatly appreciated that she respected that, acknowledging that he would make more progress if not put into confusion. I then took the advantage to introduce her on how we start teaching phonics at our school. He is doing well in the other areas, but guesses a lot when the ORT Songbirds. If you know this reading scheme, it is one of the easiest ones. We are in Stage 1+.

 

Lots of times she asks me what can be done on this or that, but I sometimes feel it is too much pressure. I don't have all the answers nor am I a professional counselor. That is why I was thinking of those questions I said I might ask her to answer... I have the feeling she is a very bright woman. Maybe I should recommend her to share with other parents on how they deal with their children in this eating aspect... another mother from her own culture .

 

Thanks everyone for your words of wisdom. I am so grateful to belong to his forum .

Edited December 12, 2010 by SmileyPR

[Guest]

I don't know if it helps but I have quite a few Asian mum's who because of their diets in India find coming to this country quite difficult because our food is more nutricious (vitamins in everything). one mum said to me that she was giving her child at 3yr old 3 to 4 8oz baby bottles of milk a day because her mum in India had said that children need the calcium. I explained that alot of our food had extra vitamins and minerals in the food, so that they didn't need that much milk. All it was doing was making a very chubby and solid child. The child was very heavy.

Could you give her some leaflets or downloads from the internet on foods and what the child needs. Most things are common sense on food.

 

I personally would let him eat what he feels comfortable with and then that would be it. I have alot of children who will sit for hours with food infront of them and just pick at it. I always remember a doctor telling me because i had a very faddy eater for a son and she said they will not starve themselves. Her advise was take the pressure away and let them regulate themselves. We do try and get the children into a routine of what they eat and what order they eat it in. We don't let them eat anything sweet until the savory is finished. sometimes parents overload their lunchboxes with such an assortment. I have 2 children at the moment whose parents still feed them and they are very lazy eaters to begin with but one mum said if she didn't feed him he wouldn't eat!!!!. I told her he eats fine on his own! she said she couldn't understand why he was like it at home?? I'm still trying to get over to her that while she's feeding him he can still play and doesn't have to concentrate on doing it himself. Have you tried showing her that he can do it himself. Could she come and watch him from afar to see him eat!!!

 

Don't know what else to suggest but keep coming on the forum, eventually we will help you crack the problem. xx

[SmileyPR]

Just a short update... wanted to do so before, but I have had just some few minutes now and then to jump into the forum. Well, Mum could not come in on Monday nor Tuesday, so we had our meeting. It went well. She understood that this had to stop because he had been having the same problem since 3 yrs of age and that he had to work this out so he could focus on other aspects (e.g. more academic ones). Mum recognised it was mainly her fault, but that he also had to do his part. She explained to him (he was having lunch at a nearby table) why it was important. Well, the thing is that we ended up creating an "eating chart" and he will enjoy special activities (e.g. going to a park) during the weekend. There was a moment when she said that a reward could be for her to feed him something on a Saturday or Sunday! Really feed him with a spoon/fork! I immediately said no, that this had to stop because it would only contraindicate any progress made, he would only be treated like a baby and that would keep damaging his self-image. So, she promised she would do so. I just hope so, especially now during the holidays. I made a chart for school and another one for school, but told her I was not going to be tracking hers because I had to trust her as an adult and she understood how important this was for her child. For the first days it seemed to go well, then 2 days sort of and the Christmas break came. So, let's see how it goes when we start again on the 10th of January.

[Guest]

I think you have approached this situation well, the mum is beginning to acknowledge her part to play, and you've done this in a way that doesn't lay blame or guilt ( which are negatives that don't help in such situations).

 

Reward charts, I feel are ok, in the short term, but the 'motivation' for success needs to come from within, and the measure of 'success' can only be done if all are clear of what the actual goals are. The boy appears to be able to understand concepts of acceptable behaviour, but his emotions / habits and mums needs as well will impact on reaching the goals.

 

I recently attended some training led by a phycotherapist who's expertise is in eating disorders. This is his website

Here

 

He told us about 'core beliefs' and it is these that need changing to enable change in behaviour, so to try and find out what the boys beliefs are about eating, they could be;

If I eat faster I won't get attention

If I don't need help with eating then mum won't need me

If I eat fast I will be sick

 

or the core belief could be something completely different. Core beliefs can be subconscious so he may not even know what his is, that's why it's not always useful to ask the 'why' question.

We use 'sabotage' behaviours for many unconscious (core belief) reasons,often based on self esteem / worth etc.

 

Try and involve this boy in his own problem solving, ask him ways in which he thinks eating times can be improved, what he can do and what support he would need from others. Is he very clear about what he is aiming for? what are the goals? will they be easier to achieve step by step?

 

I think you are doing really well with both child and parent, keep the thinking positive, try not to expect failure and hopefully this situation will improve in time. Let us know how it goes.

 

Peggy

[SmileyPR]

Thanks a million, Peggy! I wills surely enough take your great suggestions in consideration and I will keep you updated.