I have had a brain dump that I wanted to write about, but have not had the time or energy to do so. So, here we go. It's mostly for myself in hindsight, but maybe it will be interesting to another parent.
My son, who is 4.5, is just starting weekly feeding therapy with an SLP. That's a statement that probably requires a lot of unpacking, but basically he is so averse to trying new foods, that we decided to get him help. When he was about 1.5, he started skipping lunches at school on a daily basis. My husband recommended that we offer him frozen-food entrees every night, after we offered him something else to eat off of our plates. Sounds reasonable, right? If you have a kid who is a picky eater, you might guess what happened next. Soon, the frozen foods were all that he would eat. Fast-forward three years, he was becoming more and more choosy. He started to refuse things like pizza, or Mac n Cheese that is not a particular brand. I decided one night to say to him, that if he refused to eat any of the pizza his dad had made especially to his taste, then from that night on, we would stop offering him any frozen foods. He would just have to eat our food everyday. My child and I are similarly stubborn. That night, he refused to eat. For the next five nights, he skipped five dinners in a row because he did not want to eat the same food as us. On the 6th day, I weighed him to get a baseline weight, and I called the pediatrician, worried that all of this food protesting was going to cause permanent issues. The nurse at our pediatrician's office advised us to stay on course. She said, "Don't offer him a separate dinner. Keep dinner conversations light, and don't talk about who is eating how many bites. Call us back if he starts to lose weight, or if things have not gotten better in a month, but it should sort itself out." Over the next month, things did get better... until they got worse again. He started to eat parts of our dinner, until he started to skip entire dinners again, several times in one week. We tried to keep dinner conversations light, but "how many bites" and "I definitely won't eat" were the only things our son wanted to talk about. Desperate, I looked up feeding therapy help and got connected with an SLP who does virtual sessions within our insurance network. Well, we are only one week in. I really have no idea how well it will or will not work, but I will say that it has already alleviated my own anxiety to have someone who is qualified guiding us through this tricky transition. From the time when we stopped offering frozen food until now, our son has made some progress (small in my eyes, but probably huge to him). He will now eat parts of most of the dishes that I cook, even though it's just a few bites some nights (more on other nights). The SLP diagnosed him with an oral-motor delay as well, that may be impacting his eating of complex foods. She is optimistic about being able to help him make improvements in eating; I am optimistic as well, because after the first session with her, his attitude towards new foods has already shown a small positive improvement. (I could be wrong about this, but it's my maternal intuition, anyway.) But, this post isn't about the feeding therapy. It's actually about something that I have been thinking about, related to being a parent. A friend said to me at some point, that her child (like my big kid) struggles with taking risks and growth mindset, and she struggles between letting him be himself and trying to help him improve. I have been thinking a lot about this in the context of L starting therapy. It is incredibly emotional for a child to start and receive therapy at this age, because at a deep level, we all want to be loved for who we are, and requiring on-going therapy seems to suggest that who we are needs to change / is not enough as it is. (My younger child has also received a variety of therapy services, but because she is so young, she does not experience those complex emotions.) It helped me to reflect upon the fact that they are really not mutually exclusive -- I can both love someone (including my child) unconditionally and want to actively help them grow as a person. My husband and I have had a similar discussion before. One time, he gave me some feedback about the way I communicated, in the middle of an argument. To which I said, "Well, that's just how I am! You were okay with that about me before, and now you are not okay with it?" He replied, "That's not who you are. That's what you have always done, it's not constructive, and it does not have to be what you do, moving forward." His statement was hard to take at the time, but it's true -- what we have always done/been, does not have to define who we are/what we do moving forward. I can both love my child unconditionally, and help him to see that he is risk-averse and that he needs to practice taking small risks everyday. I can love my child unconditionally, and help him to get the therapy that he needs. Just writing this down for my later self. PS. I was quickly talking about this with my husband in the car yesterday. My husband goes a step further and says, "I think because we are their parents and we love them unconditionally, our role is to help them to become better versions of themselves." I also agree with that. To help someone make a fundamental shift in their natural inclination (like helping my big kid become more of a risk-taker) is a really tough task; you have to leverage a ton of relationship with that person, and who better to do it than a parent?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About MeBorn in Asia, I have spent more than a third of my life living outside of the U.S. thus far. I currently reside in the Pacific Northwest with my techie husband and two biracial children. Categories
All
Archives
July 2021
|