Food as control...Feeling down about it.

Don't look to the future do what needs to be done in the here and now. Do you sit and eat with them? I don't eat with Little M as it just becomes one long battle of control. He just gets Slower and slower or will mess on. He can take 50 mins to eat the smallest bowl Of rice crispies. A bowl that I could demolish in 30 secs flat! So I busy myself with jobs around the Kitchen that require me to disappear every so often. Now after 41/2 years he can eat breakfast in less than 15 mins and tea in about 40 mins. I sit with him when we eat out( which is often) or when away in van. I had statements that I said repetitively, such as 'as a parent who cares about you I have prepared this food according to the laws of nutrition. It is your choice whether to eat or not but I will not be preparing anything else'. On many Occasions food has gone in the bin after two or three warnings. I saw it all as control, in his case, and now, on the whole, he has given up trying to control. I even get 'this is lovely' and 'you know just what I like'' which are worlds away from 'I'm not eating this rubbish' whilst he tipped up the plate! See
If you can separate out why you are
Stressing about it and whether you can let food just happen whilst you
Put your energies into other things.

maybe its a battle you don't need to fight right now. If they find it hard to still, do you really have to sit down together?

Not an issue we have now, but in the early days mealtimes were dreadful. I remember him taking an hour to eat an apple. In the end I started leaving him to it.

This is one of the control things that has sneaked up on us in the last few months...I thought I was "choosing my battles" as I eased up on some things but I know that dread of making the food, mine comes when they say "What's for tea?". Increasingly I get a, "I'm not really hungry" or "Do I have to eat it" (grrr, how cruel of me to cook you a delicious and nutritious meal and ask you to eat it) and lots of fuss over things that weren't a problem a year ago.

At his most stressed Brains was really only eating breakfast and that is mercifully one thing that has improved since Christmas. However, I have decided to have a set weekly menu of just 7 meals, or sort of 5 with a couple of variations. I'm hoping this will take away my own stress of deciding what to buy or cook and they will spot the pattern and get on with it through sheer boredom.

BB was always a slow eater and she will still make a snack last till the next meal time but our spell of more family eating helped I think. (This has reduced quite a bit recently as DH and I have lost our appetite).

I should say I've told myself to chill out on the eating front given everything else at the mo - as Esty says, deal with the here and now and our best social worker said to us, somehow they rarely actually starve. I was boosting Brains' calorie intake with muller corner yogurts and nutella before Christmas. I will also do things like "a picky tea" which is basically all sorts on the table they can just help themselves to and eat anywhere - under the table, in a den, etc etc. Oh and I resorted to a kind of party food with cheese on sticks at one point, basically anything on cocktail sticks went down extremely well! We have a couple of Heinz soup regulars and if there's anything I'm not sure they'll eat much of, and I'm bothered, I make sure there's bread and butter to fill up on.

Maybe set one meal time when they need to sit still and 'do it properly' and go with the flow with the others.

DD at 13 almost never eats with a knife and fork. And we eat in front of the television as a matter of course. There's only the two of us; at first I tried to serve meals in the kitchen, but they were just too intense.

Getting her to eat a vaguely healthy meal is almost impossible, but I keep trying. I have found that she will always refuse to eat all of whatever vegetable is on her plate, but may agree to eat a proportion of it. So if I increase the portion size accordingly, I can sometimes win that battle without her ever knowing it!

She regularly refuses food that she actually likes for reasons of control. I reckon that's her problem, not mine.

There is hope! Your post takes me back.

My two are a strange cross between human hoovers and very controlling eaters. Never really picky with the food (although Hurricane won't touch anything he sees as similar to the food their main Foster Carers gave them (so no Mc Donalds, no fried food, nothing in breadcrumbs/batter...)

I remember mealtimes where my stress levels used to be through the roof - with deliberate wetting, food thrown, food smeared, chairs broken... and yet actually now, mealtimes are rarely stressful.

One of the things that worked for us strangely was a lot of eating out (bad habit and certainly not cheap - don't think social workers would have approved if they knew that's where most of our adoption allowance used to go!) When out though, my children would miraculously transform into these well behaved little people who ate their food, used cutlery (well, tried to - they had never sat at a table or seen cutlery before they came home) and generally were much better behaved than at home. We ate out after school probably two or three days a week - and possibly even every day at times of stress.

Another was to have a shared plate of food rather than separate plates. Started off with a child either side, me with a spoon/fork and us all taking turns at having a mouthful - with me in charge of the cutlery. They would just open their mouths like baby birds and if they hadn't finished by the time it was their turn again I simply had an extra mouthful. Reduced my stress instantly (but not my waistline). I no longer knew exactly how much they were eating and somehow that really helped me. We progressed to each having cutlery and all diving into the same plate - but with me still doing top up mouthfuls for them, then finally onto their own plates. We had a LOT of pasta based meals as Tsunami had a real issue with chewing and would struggle to swallow food unless it had been chewed a thousand times. I went through a stage of blending all his food and at times of stress I still think very carefully what to feed them so he doesn't have to chew much.

Another major thing that helped was writing up a weekly menu (including what school lunch/packed food they would be having each day that week). This reduced their stress hugely - helped even more by them then helping me to shop for the bits needed. I used to stick to a fairly small rotation of menus as they liked knowing that Tuesday was pasta night etc. Fridays after school or any other stressful day was always soft, simple finger food.

I don't offer alternatives. If they don't like or won't eat a food that's fine - but there is nothing until the next meal. We also had a rule that if they hadn't started eating by the time the rest of us had finished then it was them saying they weren't hungry and didn't want to eat anything (so the food was taken away). I used to cry over this as I knew mine had been deprived of food in their birth family but my social worker was insistent that hungry children will eat and that there should be reasonable time limits set.

Staggered mealtimes worked for us. Getting my more compliant child to start eating first while the other was still playing, then having the other child sit at the table too - amazing how that child always wanted to play catch up and finish at the same time!

Also, bit of a wild card this one and you may not approve ... what about letting them start with a small sugary snack before their main meal? As an appetiser almost? Sugary food releases all those feel good hormones - maybe with some of those already in their body, they would then be less resistant to a more healthy plate of food?

watching in front of the tele works and continues to work for us. At first they had a time to eat and if they were not finished the tv went off. I planned meals for just before a favourite programme on CBBC wherever possible and the need to watch the favourite programme helped. At the table we still get stupid behaviour so I try not to do it unless there are visitors when they will behave and they will also behave when we are out. If plates aren't clear there is no pudding which also works.

to be honest if they will eat cereal and fruit and take supplements I'd not battle too much and they'll get fed up

Cale
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