“I don’t want, I won’t, chew it yourself!” Familiar situation? You try to feed this fidget, but he doesn’t want to and starts acting up. What to do if the child refuses to eat? Elena Shpundra, our permanent expert psychologist, told us about this.
Today, when most of us are stuck at home in quarantine, the topic of relationships has become especially relevant.
In a limited space, two or even three generations of families gathered at once in full force. And those sharp moments that we simply didn’t notice or noticed in a glimpse before now crawled out to the surface, and we stumble upon them every day.
One of those highlights is food . And not only in terms of our personal relationship with her.
In the crisis and quarantine, compulsive overeating has resumed, when food carries not only the direct function of saturating the body, but also compensates for the unsatisfied need for security, warmth, or closeness. The crisis also shows us how we feel about the food of our loved ones, what role it plays in our relationship with them
In the usual working rhythm, at home, we had breakfast at best, and then, separately from the household, or together, but on the run, and on weekends we went to a cafe, where everyone ordered dishes of their own preference.
Now that the family is at home, you may find that the husband avoids our cooking and cooks something of his own. Or the child refuses to eat. He used to be capricious and sorted out grubs, but when part of the time he ate away from home, it is somehow not obvious how much. And now, she screams “I don’t want” and “I won’t” at every mom’s menu and this lasts three times a day every day.
So what to do? Forcing, negotiating or acting on the principle of “does not eat means you are not hungry”? Let’s figure it out.
It is important to understand what is the reason for his refusals, and what is our purpose when we feed.
It is no secret that almost all of us come from an environment in which for many years it was customary to show love and care through food. Even if according to the year of birth you were born after the collapse of the USSR, you were brought up by mothers, fathers, and grandmothers who are used to doing this. And, therefore, they could absorb this approach more than you would like to believe.
In the USSR, telling your loved ones, even children, “I love you”, “I am proud of you”, “you are my good one” was not accepted. Tactile forms of manifestations of feelings were not particularly common. Therefore, food remained such a legal way to express your care and love for a person.
And who is the most beloved and dear in the family? Basically, it is a child or children. Here they were treated to the freshest, most delicious dishes. And jealously watched that everything was eaten. When food was such a substitute for love, many mothers were offended by the refusal of the child to eat, because they perceived the refusal of food as a rejection of the mother’s love. Hence all these seemingly affectionate, but forced feedings “a spoon for mom, a spoon for dad”, “mom tried, cooked, you need to eat a little more.”
In addition, the USSR left us another aspect of the relationship with food as a legacy. After the war, famine, scarcity, food became almost sacred. Many families practiced the approach of eating everything to the last drop, to the last spoonful. Therefore, a child who does not want to eat often heard “until you finish eating, you won’t get up from the table.” So the children were sitting, smearing tasteless porridge on plates, and snot on their faces. For refusing to eat, they could also be spanked or put in a corner. Of course, everyone ate as a result. Who wants to be punished?
In psychology, there is such a thing as “ memory of generations ” – this is some message, extracted from the tragic or dangerous events that the family has experienced over the course of many times, about how to survive.
The experience of surviving hunger has translated for many families into a message of “eat everything” or “food should not be thrown away.” Therefore, I often see compulsively overeating mothers who still allow their children not to finish eating or refuse, but at the same time finish eating for them themselves. Or they finish eating after the whole family, because, for example, there is still soup, the whole family wants something new, but the old soup cannot be thrown away, which means they eat it themselves. They don’t want to, but they eat, thus unconsciously keeping the memory of the great-great-grandmother, who ate everything and survived the famine.
Therefore, before forcing a child to eat, it would be good to think about what kind of relationship with food was adopted in childhood, in my parental family:
- Is there a desire to take care of him or show my love behind my idea to feed the child?
- Can I do it in another way?
- Do I allow myself to undereat and how do I deal with spoiled food: do I give it to the dog or frantically start a pizza from the leftovers?
- Am I ready to change my attitude towards products?
If you do not find any of the above, and the child still does not want to eat, you need to analyze what the reasons might be.
- If a child, for example, spends a lot of time with a grandmother or a nanny and is used to her cooking, perhaps your food is unusual for him. Then you should cook something close to what the child ate before quarantine.
- If a child has a lot of irregular snacks, he may not be really hungry. And then it is worth reconsidering the diet as a whole.
There are children, and now there are quite a lot of them, with a high level of anxiety. But anxiety is not expressed in them like in adults: the child will not go to the supermarket and buy in a panic 20 kg of cereals and 10 liters of butter. On the other hand, an anxious child will containerize his anxiety by eating strictly certain foods or dishes and not eating all others.
For example, a child only eats mashed potatoes, a baguette, a boiled egg, and a cue ball. And categorically refuses to eat fried potatoes with a cutlet or scrambled eggs.
The higher the anxiety, the more compulsive eating will be exacerbated in order to maintain a sense of security – “I only eat the usual and I’m calmer.”
Also, compulsion can manifest itself in wearing certain things, when a child has one favorite pajamas, two pairs of tights, raglan, he only wears them, they cannot be removed from him for washing or replaced by others. Any attempts are immediately stopped by shouting and hysteria.
If everything is exactly the same with food or clothes, then this is a signal that the child should immediately be shown to a psychologist.
The kid carries a burden of insecurity so overwhelming for him that he has already created rituals or amulets for himself, in the form of products or things that help him survive.
If you do not turn to a psychologist and do not help the child find security and reduce anxiety, then his future life will not become safer for him. The output is an adult with panic attacks or anxiety disorders.
Also, refusal to eat can be one of the ways to manipulate mom. But then the whims of the child will manifest themselves in other aspects of interaction with her, because the mother does not know how to set boundaries and keep them. Then to the psychologist, it is necessary to mum.
The desire to force the child to eat whatever the adult wants, especially force-feeding, can be a manifestation of the power and control of the adult himself. Then an adult also needs to see a psychologist, but he is unlikely to go because he will never admit it.
In any case, you can’t force anyone to eat , just like doing good by force. But you can negotiate about food. Just like everything else.
In general, the older the child becomes, the more agreements should be built with him. For example, “you don’t have to eat now if you don’t want to, but just keep in mind that I’m going to cook the next meal in three hours and I won’t buy you any sweets on the way if you last three hours – great, but if not, then eat a little”.
Children, people like you and me, would you like someone to force you to eat?
