My experience w/ special "diets" and special needs (Was Re: Unfooding myself)
flhomeschooling
I'd just like to say that no offense to the person who invented the term "unfooding" but I don't like it. I don't want to unfood. I like food. I want to be fooding. :)
So since I started learning about unschooling, I have had to unsubscribe from virtually every other homeschooling list/ discussion/ message forum I've been reading, because I find it so toxic to deal with so many people's overwhelming control issues.
The food thing is a pervasive one. I guess since it's such a basic need, it's a basic starting point for control. For me this has been very evident in online and RL circles of parents with special needs. My 11yo son is moderately autistic and it seems like everyone who homeschools a kid with autism is obsessed with controlling the autism (or more accurately, the autistic child) via controlling their kids' food.
When my son was very small, I tried the Gluten Free, Casein Free diet prescribed to many parents of autistic kids. I saw my son suffering and connected it to his being very different from other kids; I didn't blame it on the fact that *I* was the one struggling because his personality and needs don't fall in line with cliche child development expectations but because he was autistic and hyper and THAT NEEDED FIXING and this diet claimed to do that.
I tried the GFCF for 9 months. It was hell. I am a single parent who works from home and though Dad is supportive and contributes, we are on a very tight budget and I have limited amounts of time. GFCF cooking and eating was expensive and time consuming. AND DISGUSTING. All the GFCF substitutes for the real things are gross, y'all. Fake bread and pasta and cookies - all gross. Real Oreos are good, GFCF "oreos" are nasty (my son and I have a joke now - any food whose name includes quotes is probably inedible). Some things are edible, but edible isn't the same as enjoyable.
I hated the diet the whole time we adhered to it. I felt like a horrible person snatching cookies out of my kid's hands at birthday parties, naysaying all his food preferences, nagging him to drink soymilk (which neither of us, we can now admit, really likes) instead of cow's milk, etc etc. etc. And the more you find out about it, the longer the list of foods you cannot eat gets. And worst of all, when I really started questioning and reading the scant research there is out there, I discovered there is NO SCIENTIFIC PROOF that it helps make autistic kids happier or more well-functioning (whatever that even means) at all. And yet there are autism treatment centers who won't even see you for a consultation if you are unwilling to absolutely control everything your kid eats.
I am not saying there is no such thing as a gluten intolerance or allergy to artificial ingredients or whatever. Obviously there are. There are tests for that. I now tell parents, if you think your kid is celiac, or allergic to anything else, this is a serious thing that is permanently and radically life-altering. Get him tested and make sure there are solid medical reasons for controlling his food to that degree. Don't start eliminating all your kids' preferred food just because you hope, based on frantic Internet anecdotes, that it'll make your 5yo less hyper. (God forbid a 5yo should be hyper.) That is a recipe for sure-fire misery all around and *probably won't do anything but perpetuate misery*.
I now think it's easier to blame a slice of bread for your unhappy but otherwise perfectly normal-for-him 5yo than it is to blame your own parenting. I'm not saying that to be unkind to other parents; I'm saying that out of my own experiences. It was easier for me to blame wheat and milk for the unhappiness in our home than it was for me to blame my attempts at control and my lack of understanding toward my son.
I read so much about autism and diets now and parents' massive control issues and pain seem so transparent, it hurts me to read it. "You've heard apples cause problems? My son loves apples. He eats apples every day. Maybe it's making him more autistic. What about apples is bad? Maybe I should throw out all his apples." And I just hurt for that poor little child who already takes so little joy in eating, and now he won't get his apples either!
In fact, a big part of the GFCF autism cult is the idea that if a child strongly prefers a food, it is because they're "addicted" to it and causes serotonin levels to spike "like an opiate" (again, there is no scientific basis for this at all, it is almost entirely anecdotal that I can see) and that preferred food should automatically be SUSPECT and possibly eliminated in a radical way. It seems so obvious now. I feel like thousands of autistic kids must be living lives of quiet food-related desperation because of this, because they are told that what they love to eat makes them SICK. And sadly, SICK mostly means "more authentically themselves".
About 9 months into the GFCF diet, I gave up and announced we we would start eating whatever we wanted. My kid is now 11 and eats whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. I am a single mom on a limited budget and can't afford EVERYTHING, so each week we make a list of stuff we feel like eating, way more than we could eat that week. We include stuff I like and stuff he likes - they don't always overlap, but neither of us censor ourselves. Then we check on the local grocery ads and, being fiscally responsible sorts, we try to buy food for the week based on what's on sale from our list.
We then have a list of stuff we can make from what we bought posted on our fridge. It's a list of about 25 different meal ideas. They are suggestions. Every mealtime, he checks out the list and picks out what he wants and I make it. Sometimes we have breakfast for dinner or vice versa. Sometimes I make new things as "sides;" sometimes he tries them and sometimes he doesn't. He's incredibly healthy; he hasn't been sick in forever and he's shooting up like a weed, so I don't worry.
Annnnd. He's still "hyper" and high-energy (when did we decide this was an illness?). He's also still autistic. But taking ice cream and chocolate milk away isn't going to change that for him. So if he wants ice cream, he eats ice cream.
It is interesting to me that despite his school-psychologist diagnosis of "worst case scenario ADHD" my son has a great capacity for attention - to things in which he is interested. I just no longer classify his interests as dysfunctional and no longer try to coercively change them with food.
Of course I cannot say this on any autism-homeschool list without being flayed alive. When I expressed doubts about the GFCF racket (it is a racket, there are whole companies devoted to marketing vitamins, nasty bread substitutes, etc. to adherents of the diet) on these lists, I was told I was a bad parent who didn't try hard enough and who sought after my own convenience over the "needs" of my child. I have even been called abusive because people believe giving wheat to a kid with autism is the same as giving sugar by the spoonfuls to a child with diabetes. But the reality is that my child didn't "need" to have cookies snatched out of his hand at birthday parties to be happy. My child just needs to be loved and encouraged exactly as he is.
--
Andrea in Miami
So since I started learning about unschooling, I have had to unsubscribe from virtually every other homeschooling list/ discussion/ message forum I've been reading, because I find it so toxic to deal with so many people's overwhelming control issues.
The food thing is a pervasive one. I guess since it's such a basic need, it's a basic starting point for control. For me this has been very evident in online and RL circles of parents with special needs. My 11yo son is moderately autistic and it seems like everyone who homeschools a kid with autism is obsessed with controlling the autism (or more accurately, the autistic child) via controlling their kids' food.
When my son was very small, I tried the Gluten Free, Casein Free diet prescribed to many parents of autistic kids. I saw my son suffering and connected it to his being very different from other kids; I didn't blame it on the fact that *I* was the one struggling because his personality and needs don't fall in line with cliche child development expectations but because he was autistic and hyper and THAT NEEDED FIXING and this diet claimed to do that.
I tried the GFCF for 9 months. It was hell. I am a single parent who works from home and though Dad is supportive and contributes, we are on a very tight budget and I have limited amounts of time. GFCF cooking and eating was expensive and time consuming. AND DISGUSTING. All the GFCF substitutes for the real things are gross, y'all. Fake bread and pasta and cookies - all gross. Real Oreos are good, GFCF "oreos" are nasty (my son and I have a joke now - any food whose name includes quotes is probably inedible). Some things are edible, but edible isn't the same as enjoyable.
I hated the diet the whole time we adhered to it. I felt like a horrible person snatching cookies out of my kid's hands at birthday parties, naysaying all his food preferences, nagging him to drink soymilk (which neither of us, we can now admit, really likes) instead of cow's milk, etc etc. etc. And the more you find out about it, the longer the list of foods you cannot eat gets. And worst of all, when I really started questioning and reading the scant research there is out there, I discovered there is NO SCIENTIFIC PROOF that it helps make autistic kids happier or more well-functioning (whatever that even means) at all. And yet there are autism treatment centers who won't even see you for a consultation if you are unwilling to absolutely control everything your kid eats.
I am not saying there is no such thing as a gluten intolerance or allergy to artificial ingredients or whatever. Obviously there are. There are tests for that. I now tell parents, if you think your kid is celiac, or allergic to anything else, this is a serious thing that is permanently and radically life-altering. Get him tested and make sure there are solid medical reasons for controlling his food to that degree. Don't start eliminating all your kids' preferred food just because you hope, based on frantic Internet anecdotes, that it'll make your 5yo less hyper. (God forbid a 5yo should be hyper.) That is a recipe for sure-fire misery all around and *probably won't do anything but perpetuate misery*.
I now think it's easier to blame a slice of bread for your unhappy but otherwise perfectly normal-for-him 5yo than it is to blame your own parenting. I'm not saying that to be unkind to other parents; I'm saying that out of my own experiences. It was easier for me to blame wheat and milk for the unhappiness in our home than it was for me to blame my attempts at control and my lack of understanding toward my son.
I read so much about autism and diets now and parents' massive control issues and pain seem so transparent, it hurts me to read it. "You've heard apples cause problems? My son loves apples. He eats apples every day. Maybe it's making him more autistic. What about apples is bad? Maybe I should throw out all his apples." And I just hurt for that poor little child who already takes so little joy in eating, and now he won't get his apples either!
In fact, a big part of the GFCF autism cult is the idea that if a child strongly prefers a food, it is because they're "addicted" to it and causes serotonin levels to spike "like an opiate" (again, there is no scientific basis for this at all, it is almost entirely anecdotal that I can see) and that preferred food should automatically be SUSPECT and possibly eliminated in a radical way. It seems so obvious now. I feel like thousands of autistic kids must be living lives of quiet food-related desperation because of this, because they are told that what they love to eat makes them SICK. And sadly, SICK mostly means "more authentically themselves".
About 9 months into the GFCF diet, I gave up and announced we we would start eating whatever we wanted. My kid is now 11 and eats whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. I am a single mom on a limited budget and can't afford EVERYTHING, so each week we make a list of stuff we feel like eating, way more than we could eat that week. We include stuff I like and stuff he likes - they don't always overlap, but neither of us censor ourselves. Then we check on the local grocery ads and, being fiscally responsible sorts, we try to buy food for the week based on what's on sale from our list.
We then have a list of stuff we can make from what we bought posted on our fridge. It's a list of about 25 different meal ideas. They are suggestions. Every mealtime, he checks out the list and picks out what he wants and I make it. Sometimes we have breakfast for dinner or vice versa. Sometimes I make new things as "sides;" sometimes he tries them and sometimes he doesn't. He's incredibly healthy; he hasn't been sick in forever and he's shooting up like a weed, so I don't worry.
Annnnd. He's still "hyper" and high-energy (when did we decide this was an illness?). He's also still autistic. But taking ice cream and chocolate milk away isn't going to change that for him. So if he wants ice cream, he eats ice cream.
It is interesting to me that despite his school-psychologist diagnosis of "worst case scenario ADHD" my son has a great capacity for attention - to things in which he is interested. I just no longer classify his interests as dysfunctional and no longer try to coercively change them with food.
Of course I cannot say this on any autism-homeschool list without being flayed alive. When I expressed doubts about the GFCF racket (it is a racket, there are whole companies devoted to marketing vitamins, nasty bread substitutes, etc. to adherents of the diet) on these lists, I was told I was a bad parent who didn't try hard enough and who sought after my own convenience over the "needs" of my child. I have even been called abusive because people believe giving wheat to a kid with autism is the same as giving sugar by the spoonfuls to a child with diabetes. But the reality is that my child didn't "need" to have cookies snatched out of his hand at birthday parties to be happy. My child just needs to be loved and encouraged exactly as he is.
--
Andrea in Miami
Sandra Dodd
-=-I'd just like to say that no offense to the person who invented the
term "unfooding" but I don't like it. I don't want to unfood. I like
food. I want to be fooding. :)-=-
I agree with the first part. It's just one of those terms of the
moment, not a real word.
I disagree with "fooding." To food is no verb. To food or not to
food, that's not even a question.
I like food. I like eating. <g>
http://sandradodd.com/food
http://sandradodd.com/eating
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
term "unfooding" but I don't like it. I don't want to unfood. I like
food. I want to be fooding. :)-=-
I agree with the first part. It's just one of those terms of the
moment, not a real word.
I disagree with "fooding." To food is no verb. To food or not to
food, that's not even a question.
I like food. I like eating. <g>
http://sandradodd.com/food
http://sandradodd.com/eating
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
flhomeschooling
> I disagree with "fooding." To food is no verb. To food or not toMe, too, I was being facetious/flippant, don't worry!
> food, that's not even a question.
>
> I like food. I like eating. <g>
Andrea
Martha
I was the one who started the unfooding thread, but I thought I had read that term on Sandra's website. Guess I was wrong. I don't mind being wrong. Sandra's right, it's not a real word. I've heard some people who unschool say they don't like the term unschooling. Sometimes communication gets lost when you put too much language around it. :)
I really wanted to respond and say I liked that you learned how to appreciate your wonderful son for who he is. I wish I could help my sister learn how to do that.
My nephew has been controlled and demeaned and punished and has had his feelings left unvalidated all of his life.
Then my sister decided that his anger and hyperactivity were because he had gluten sensitivities, so she started controlling his food.
That didn't work so she took him to a therapist who decided he has ADHD. So now he's on medication, which makes him lose weight because it is essentially speed, so he's never hungry. Now my sister has to convince him to eat. He is 11 and he also drinks coffee because he falls asleep all the time, probably because he is crashing after being high all day and not eating.
It's ff-ing insane what has been done to this poor child. The only thing wrong with him is that he has a bad mother who can't see that she has a bright energetic child who just wants some positive attention from her but doesn't know how to get it.
Best, Martha
www.momsoap.blogspot.com
I really wanted to respond and say I liked that you learned how to appreciate your wonderful son for who he is. I wish I could help my sister learn how to do that.
My nephew has been controlled and demeaned and punished and has had his feelings left unvalidated all of his life.
Then my sister decided that his anger and hyperactivity were because he had gluten sensitivities, so she started controlling his food.
That didn't work so she took him to a therapist who decided he has ADHD. So now he's on medication, which makes him lose weight because it is essentially speed, so he's never hungry. Now my sister has to convince him to eat. He is 11 and he also drinks coffee because he falls asleep all the time, probably because he is crashing after being high all day and not eating.
It's ff-ing insane what has been done to this poor child. The only thing wrong with him is that he has a bad mother who can't see that she has a bright energetic child who just wants some positive attention from her but doesn't know how to get it.
Best, Martha
www.momsoap.blogspot.com
--- In [email protected], "flhomeschooling" <andreavlarosa@...> wrote:
>
> I'd just like to say that no offense to the person who invented the term "unfooding" but I don't like it. I don't want to unfood. I like food. I want to be fooding. :)
>
> So since I started learning about unschooling, I have had to unsubscribe from virtually every other homeschooling list/ discussion/ message forum I've been reading, because I find it so toxic to deal with so many people's overwhelming control issues.
>
> The food thing is a pervasive one. I guess since it's such a basic need, it's a basic starting point for control. For me this has been very evident in online and RL circles of parents with special needs. My 11yo son is moderately autistic and it seems like everyone who homeschools a kid with autism is obsessed with controlling the autism (or more accurately, the autistic child) via controlling their kids' food.
>
> When my son was very small, I tried the Gluten Free, Casein Free diet prescribed to many parents of autistic kids. I saw my son suffering and connected it to his being very different from other kids; I didn't blame it on the fact that *I* was the one struggling because his personality and needs don't fall in line with cliche child development expectations but because he was autistic and hyper and THAT NEEDED FIXING and this diet claimed to do that.
>
> I tried the GFCF for 9 months. It was hell. I am a single parent who works from home and though Dad is supportive and contributes, we are on a very tight budget and I have limited amounts of time. GFCF cooking and eating was expensive and time consuming. AND DISGUSTING. All the GFCF substitutes for the real things are gross, y'all. Fake bread and pasta and cookies - all gross. Real Oreos are good, GFCF "oreos" are nasty (my son and I have a joke now - any food whose name includes quotes is probably inedible). Some things are edible, but edible isn't the same as enjoyable.
>
> I hated the diet the whole time we adhered to it. I felt like a horrible person snatching cookies out of my kid's hands at birthday parties, naysaying all his food preferences, nagging him to drink soymilk (which neither of us, we can now admit, really likes) instead of cow's milk, etc etc. etc. And the more you find out about it, the longer the list of foods you cannot eat gets. And worst of all, when I really started questioning and reading the scant research there is out there, I discovered there is NO SCIENTIFIC PROOF that it helps make autistic kids happier or more well-functioning (whatever that even means) at all. And yet there are autism treatment centers who won't even see you for a consultation if you are unwilling to absolutely control everything your kid eats.
>
> I am not saying there is no such thing as a gluten intolerance or allergy to artificial ingredients or whatever. Obviously there are. There are tests for that. I now tell parents, if you think your kid is celiac, or allergic to anything else, this is a serious thing that is permanently and radically life-altering. Get him tested and make sure there are solid medical reasons for controlling his food to that degree. Don't start eliminating all your kids' preferred food just because you hope, based on frantic Internet anecdotes, that it'll make your 5yo less hyper. (God forbid a 5yo should be hyper.) That is a recipe for sure-fire misery all around and *probably won't do anything but perpetuate misery*.
>
> I now think it's easier to blame a slice of bread for your unhappy but otherwise perfectly normal-for-him 5yo than it is to blame your own parenting. I'm not saying that to be unkind to other parents; I'm saying that out of my own experiences. It was easier for me to blame wheat and milk for the unhappiness in our home than it was for me to blame my attempts at control and my lack of understanding toward my son.
>
> I read so much about autism and diets now and parents' massive control issues and pain seem so transparent, it hurts me to read it. "You've heard apples cause problems? My son loves apples. He eats apples every day. Maybe it's making him more autistic. What about apples is bad? Maybe I should throw out all his apples." And I just hurt for that poor little child who already takes so little joy in eating, and now he won't get his apples either!
>
> In fact, a big part of the GFCF autism cult is the idea that if a child strongly prefers a food, it is because they're "addicted" to it and causes serotonin levels to spike "like an opiate" (again, there is no scientific basis for this at all, it is almost entirely anecdotal that I can see) and that preferred food should automatically be SUSPECT and possibly eliminated in a radical way. It seems so obvious now. I feel like thousands of autistic kids must be living lives of quiet food-related desperation because of this, because they are told that what they love to eat makes them SICK. And sadly, SICK mostly means "more authentically themselves".
>
> About 9 months into the GFCF diet, I gave up and announced we we would start eating whatever we wanted. My kid is now 11 and eats whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. I am a single mom on a limited budget and can't afford EVERYTHING, so each week we make a list of stuff we feel like eating, way more than we could eat that week. We include stuff I like and stuff he likes - they don't always overlap, but neither of us censor ourselves. Then we check on the local grocery ads and, being fiscally responsible sorts, we try to buy food for the week based on what's on sale from our list.
>
> We then have a list of stuff we can make from what we bought posted on our fridge. It's a list of about 25 different meal ideas. They are suggestions. Every mealtime, he checks out the list and picks out what he wants and I make it. Sometimes we have breakfast for dinner or vice versa. Sometimes I make new things as "sides;" sometimes he tries them and sometimes he doesn't. He's incredibly healthy; he hasn't been sick in forever and he's shooting up like a weed, so I don't worry.
>
> Annnnd. He's still "hyper" and high-energy (when did we decide this was an illness?). He's also still autistic. But taking ice cream and chocolate milk away isn't going to change that for him. So if he wants ice cream, he eats ice cream.
>
> It is interesting to me that despite his school-psychologist diagnosis of "worst case scenario ADHD" my son has a great capacity for attention - to things in which he is interested. I just no longer classify his interests as dysfunctional and no longer try to coercively change them with food.
>
> Of course I cannot say this on any autism-homeschool list without being flayed alive. When I expressed doubts about the GFCF racket (it is a racket, there are whole companies devoted to marketing vitamins, nasty bread substitutes, etc. to adherents of the diet) on these lists, I was told I was a bad parent who didn't try hard enough and who sought after my own convenience over the "needs" of my child. I have even been called abusive because people believe giving wheat to a kid with autism is the same as giving sugar by the spoonfuls to a child with diabetes. But the reality is that my child didn't "need" to have cookies snatched out of his hand at birthday parties to be happy. My child just needs to be loved and encouraged exactly as he is.
>
> --
>
> Andrea in Miami
>
Sandra Dodd
-=-
It's ff-ing insane what has been done to this poor child. The only
thing wrong with him is that he has a bad mother who can't see that
she has a bright energetic child who just wants some positive
attention from her but doesn't know how to get it.-=-
Here's what your children need you to do, and what all our children
need us to do. Pay attention to your children the way you wish your
sister and sister in law and cousin and neighbor would pay attention
to theirs. Do for your child what you wish had been done for you.
Indignation doesn't make a person soft or thoughtful. It just makes a
person indignant, and pissed off, and self-righteous, and absent.
You can't be with your child while the inside of you is railing at
Nestle or Disney or Japanese fishermen or the Spanish Inquisition.
Of course things aren't always wonderful. Rather than becoming one of
the things that's not wonderful, be a wonderful thing. Be a soft,
still, quiet, happy attentive mother.
We can't fix all the lives in the world. If we're not careful we can
screw up our own and our families'.
Each moment you have a choice between better and worse, warm and cold,
focussed or scattered.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
It's ff-ing insane what has been done to this poor child. The only
thing wrong with him is that he has a bad mother who can't see that
she has a bright energetic child who just wants some positive
attention from her but doesn't know how to get it.-=-
Here's what your children need you to do, and what all our children
need us to do. Pay attention to your children the way you wish your
sister and sister in law and cousin and neighbor would pay attention
to theirs. Do for your child what you wish had been done for you.
Indignation doesn't make a person soft or thoughtful. It just makes a
person indignant, and pissed off, and self-righteous, and absent.
You can't be with your child while the inside of you is railing at
Nestle or Disney or Japanese fishermen or the Spanish Inquisition.
Of course things aren't always wonderful. Rather than becoming one of
the things that's not wonderful, be a wonderful thing. Be a soft,
still, quiet, happy attentive mother.
We can't fix all the lives in the world. If we're not careful we can
screw up our own and our families'.
Each moment you have a choice between better and worse, warm and cold,
focussed or scattered.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
flhomeschooling
Martha,
Yahoo! is being a hater today and not posting my stuff on my various groups, but I had meant the fooding/unfooding stuff facetiously. (Personally, I just call it... eating!) Definitely wasn't trying to pick on you, apologies to anyone who took that even a little bit seriously. My kiddo is a big jokester and I'm kinda used to kidding around/teasing all day long, one forgets that doesn't always translate well on the Internet. :)
Andrea in Miami
Yahoo! is being a hater today and not posting my stuff on my various groups, but I had meant the fooding/unfooding stuff facetiously. (Personally, I just call it... eating!) Definitely wasn't trying to pick on you, apologies to anyone who took that even a little bit seriously. My kiddo is a big jokester and I'm kinda used to kidding around/teasing all day long, one forgets that doesn't always translate well on the Internet. :)
Andrea in Miami
> I was the one who started the unfooding thread, but I thought I had read that term on Sandra's website. Guess I was wrong. I don't mind being wrong. Sandra's right, it's not a real word.