… Daniel ate a grilled chicken breast with a full side of mixed vegetables and cornbread for dinner last night. Wow. For 16 years his dietary preferences have ruled the roost, dominating the agenda of our lives, 3 times a day, every day. And our attempts to share this pain with others were rebuffed with unsympathetic comebacks like,”Well, just let him starve until he eats what you want him to eat.” (I didn’t ask for your advice, I wanted to vent.) We tried this when he was 4, and he wouldn’t eat for 3 days. So we “caved” and abandoned that tactic. After that, we just said, “We’re not working on that right now,” but did we therefore forfeit the right to talk about how hard it was? Maybe so, I don’t know. I just know that 2 college graduates had to go to therapy to learn how to get him to eat a different flavor than strawberry yogurt when he was 10!
Each step was so microscopically incremental. It’s just been in the last year that he’s started to order (breaded) chicken sandwiches instead of nuggets, but grilled chicken is new territory. The huge thing about the cornbread was that he changed his mind about it. He looked at it, declared he didn’t like cornbread, then actually ate it, then exclaimed “This is just like cake!” He usually perseverates in his rigidity, so this flexibility was amazing.
One thing we have been doing differently in introducing new foods is to put something he really likes on the table in full view, with a simple ”first this, then that” directive (repeated calmly, without escalation, ad infinitum). Or rather, that approach has only started working with the onset of his teenage years. He’s hungry all the time, so that has worked in our favor.
Or just maybe our Prodigal God (read the book by Tim Keller!) lavished grace and mercy on 2 discouraged parents, reminding us once again that as Daniel ages chronologically, so does his delayed self. He’s growing up.
I know what you mean about how other people don’t “get it”. It’s not a matter of being firm with your child, or knowing how to discipline them. If spanking your child works, great, but what do you do when a child doesn’t even respond to that? With our kids we often have to throw conventional wisdom right out the window, and other people just don’t understand.
I am starting now to feel more and more isolated from other parents. My whole life right now is taken up with my children’s additional diagnoses. My daughter, already autistic, was just diagnosed with GAD and possible ADD. My son, with ADHD and GAD, is now being evaluated for possible Asperger’s and OCD. I have meetings and appointments scheduled by the score for the next few months and more questions than answers. Very few of my friends want to hear about all that, but that is what my life is right now. They’re OK if I ask about their children, listen to their school complaints, discuss the new furniture they’re ordering, etc., etc. But if I start talking about how hard it is to have not one but two children now on the spectrum, they walk away. I guess it’s just too much for them to absorb, or maybe it’s boring to them. But it is my life right now!
I understand. I really think you are right. They just don’t get it. It isn’t that they have ill will or ill intent toward you or others dealing with these challenges. I just don’t think they know how to respond. It is like speaking a different language. It would be better if they said something like, “I really don’t understand those kinds of challenges, but boy, that sounds hard. I will pray for you.” Wouldn’t that be a breath of fresh air?
Peggy, the eating challenge has been with us since our son turned a year. At that point, like all good parents, we began to introduce table food instead of baby food. He ate any baby food you put in front of him and lots of it. When we introduced table food, he completely rejected meat, eggs, chicken and fish. Completely. We tried everything we could, including letting him go hungry. Nothing worked. I finally accepted that I was raising something of a vegetarian (alot to handle for a Texan raised, beef eating, Mama.) It certainly was not any kind of political statement about not eating animals. He was too young to understand that. All I can figure is that it had something to do with textures. The good news is that like Daniel, now that he is a hungry teenager, we are seeing him branch out and eat some of those items in small doses. A daily vitamin helps assure me he is getting what his body needs — even if he is a picky eater.
Rejoicing with you in this step in the right direction. (No one outside of such a special little world will get it, but I do!)
My son is not only extremely picky and self-limiting, but he absolutely can not bring himself to eat anything in which he can see a speck of spice. You have no idea how many specks there are in food until you’re around someone who psychologically can’t eat them!)