re: Food and Anxiety
Pam Sorooshian
I mixed up discussions on the UnschoolingDiscussion list and this list,
and so I'm copying this here because it is was really more intended for
this list. Sorry to those reading it twice - my mistake. It is the later
part that was more intended for this discussion.
-Pam
I put a fairly large amount of effort into finding toothpaste that Rosie
liked and I'm careful to buy the kind she likes, still. Roxana doesn't
take pills - she gags on them. So I buy her liquid tylenol from a
drugstore near "Leisure World" - a retirement community. And I bought a
pill crusher a long time ago and if she has to take something, she'll
crush it up and put it in applesauce or something. It really isn't a big
deal to do these things and life is much better for it. We can put that
kind of effort into finding foods our kids really like that don't hurt
them IF there is a real need for it.
We had visitors from out of the country, staying with us, once. The mom
was forcing a pill down her little girls' throat - the girl was probably
6 years old or so. And the mom was forcing the pill down - literally
holding the child's head back and shoving the pill down her throat. You
can guess what happened - the girl threw up all over the place, gagged
on THAT and choked and it was a huge mess with a hysterical child and
furious mom and it pretty much ruined our whole evening. It was awful.
Roya was about 3 and she was very very shocked and upset. There's just
no need - there are other ways to do things.
I think that we can kind of support our kids in eating pretty healthy
foods by just having the healthy foods they like around and offering
them. Slicing up fruit and serving it with bits of cheese and crackers
was always appreciated around my house. On cold days I'd make sliced
apples with some cinnamon sprinkled on them and heat them up in the
microwave. But, if they wanted something else - something "less healthy"
- I'd just provide that, too, without distinction.
It is interesting, sometimes what we grow up with is what we really
like. Sometimes what we didn't have as kids seems like a big treat. My
kids don't like whole milk, because we always had nonfat milk. To them,
whole milk is so thick and creamy that it only tastes good when just a
bit is poured over something, but they wouldn't drink a glass of it.
But, we also only ever had dense thick dark bread - because that's just
what "I" like and so, when they were little, it is what I bought and
that's what they thought of as "bread." Turns out Roxana loves that kind
of bread, too, and it is also what Roya prefers, but Rosie would much
rather have lighter, airier breads. We didn't eat fish at all, because
"I" don't like it - but Roya turns out to absolutely LOVE fish and eats
a lot of it, now, while Rox and Rosie don't like it, either.
I don't think we're shaping our kids food choices for life the way some
parents seem to think. They are going to end up to be individuals - they
will have their own tastes and preferences and those aren't really all
that predictable based on their childhoods.
But, there are parents who seem to actually have some kind of want or
need for their kids to have food issues. They seem to be looking for
those issues to exist. Beth, your kid already has all kinds of
food-related problems - why on earth would you want to add another one
to the list if it wasn't absolutely life-threateningly necessary? You
and your husband are worried about him getting fat, and your first
reaction is to find some additional food to restrict? Have you found
ways to get more active? Do you go out and do stuff together - run and
play? Do you have a Wii Fit? A mini-trampoline? Bikes, skates,
skateboards? Do you go skiing or swimming? I'm going to be blunt and say
that I think the two of you probably have food issues, yourselves, and
you're projecting those onto your son.
In fact, my recommendation would be to try your best to down-play the
other issues to the maximum extent possible. Try to ignore them. Try to
find other solutions to the problems he has. Question question question
whether the food is REALLY the culprit and whether restricting foods is
really doing more harm than good. My heart is going out to this poor kid
who has, in his his short life, already been experimented on so much
(which is what those rotation diets, etc. are - they are experiments on
a child). Let everything that isn't actually life-threatening go (and I
don't mean that he might have high cholesterol in 30 years if he eats
something now, I mean immediately life-threatening). OFFER foods that
are healthy for him, but don't deny him other things he wants, either.
-pam
and so I'm copying this here because it is was really more intended for
this list. Sorry to those reading it twice - my mistake. It is the later
part that was more intended for this discussion.
-Pam
I put a fairly large amount of effort into finding toothpaste that Rosie
liked and I'm careful to buy the kind she likes, still. Roxana doesn't
take pills - she gags on them. So I buy her liquid tylenol from a
drugstore near "Leisure World" - a retirement community. And I bought a
pill crusher a long time ago and if she has to take something, she'll
crush it up and put it in applesauce or something. It really isn't a big
deal to do these things and life is much better for it. We can put that
kind of effort into finding foods our kids really like that don't hurt
them IF there is a real need for it.
We had visitors from out of the country, staying with us, once. The mom
was forcing a pill down her little girls' throat - the girl was probably
6 years old or so. And the mom was forcing the pill down - literally
holding the child's head back and shoving the pill down her throat. You
can guess what happened - the girl threw up all over the place, gagged
on THAT and choked and it was a huge mess with a hysterical child and
furious mom and it pretty much ruined our whole evening. It was awful.
Roya was about 3 and she was very very shocked and upset. There's just
no need - there are other ways to do things.
I think that we can kind of support our kids in eating pretty healthy
foods by just having the healthy foods they like around and offering
them. Slicing up fruit and serving it with bits of cheese and crackers
was always appreciated around my house. On cold days I'd make sliced
apples with some cinnamon sprinkled on them and heat them up in the
microwave. But, if they wanted something else - something "less healthy"
- I'd just provide that, too, without distinction.
It is interesting, sometimes what we grow up with is what we really
like. Sometimes what we didn't have as kids seems like a big treat. My
kids don't like whole milk, because we always had nonfat milk. To them,
whole milk is so thick and creamy that it only tastes good when just a
bit is poured over something, but they wouldn't drink a glass of it.
But, we also only ever had dense thick dark bread - because that's just
what "I" like and so, when they were little, it is what I bought and
that's what they thought of as "bread." Turns out Roxana loves that kind
of bread, too, and it is also what Roya prefers, but Rosie would much
rather have lighter, airier breads. We didn't eat fish at all, because
"I" don't like it - but Roya turns out to absolutely LOVE fish and eats
a lot of it, now, while Rox and Rosie don't like it, either.
I don't think we're shaping our kids food choices for life the way some
parents seem to think. They are going to end up to be individuals - they
will have their own tastes and preferences and those aren't really all
that predictable based on their childhoods.
But, there are parents who seem to actually have some kind of want or
need for their kids to have food issues. They seem to be looking for
those issues to exist. Beth, your kid already has all kinds of
food-related problems - why on earth would you want to add another one
to the list if it wasn't absolutely life-threateningly necessary? You
and your husband are worried about him getting fat, and your first
reaction is to find some additional food to restrict? Have you found
ways to get more active? Do you go out and do stuff together - run and
play? Do you have a Wii Fit? A mini-trampoline? Bikes, skates,
skateboards? Do you go skiing or swimming? I'm going to be blunt and say
that I think the two of you probably have food issues, yourselves, and
you're projecting those onto your son.
In fact, my recommendation would be to try your best to down-play the
other issues to the maximum extent possible. Try to ignore them. Try to
find other solutions to the problems he has. Question question question
whether the food is REALLY the culprit and whether restricting foods is
really doing more harm than good. My heart is going out to this poor kid
who has, in his his short life, already been experimented on so much
(which is what those rotation diets, etc. are - they are experiments on
a child). Let everything that isn't actually life-threatening go (and I
don't mean that he might have high cholesterol in 30 years if he eats
something now, I mean immediately life-threatening). OFFER foods that
are healthy for him, but don't deny him other things he wants, either.
-pam
thecugals
--- In [email protected], Pam Sorooshian <pamsoroosh@...> wrote:
--Have you found
ways to get more active?--
I'm sure this contributed to our anxiety about his weight (ugh--always fear and anxiety). Most of his exercise comes from hopping around the house or the yard. We go on walks whenever the weather is nice enough, go to the park, sled when there's enough snow on the ground, and swim in the summer. But in general he is not very active. He doesn't have very good coordination or balance, doesn't care for sports, doesn't run, tires easily, not interested in Wii, except for bowling a little bit, can't ride a bike yet... You know, I'm getting tired of writing about what he doesn't do. He and I both love to walk. I'll try to do more of that.
--My heart is going out to this poor kid
who has, in his his short life, already been experimented on so much
(which is what those rotation diets, etc. are - they are experiments on
a child).--
Oh yeah, and I haven't yet mentioned that he has asthma and eczema. The asthma isn't too bad, but the eczema... basically he's been itchy for the past 12 years, which more than anything else has tormented him, and therefore us. He's aleady on the strongest conventional meds and ointments and creams, but they don't help enough, and they don't heal anything. When the elimination/rotation diet was first suggested to us, it was mainly to deal with allergies and eczema. Yeah, and autism symptoms too (we've been told they're all related), but whatever personality quirks he has are nothing compared to the itching, scratching, bleeding, doctors, frustration. Conventional medicine has come up short, so we've been looking for other ways to get relief. It's all been a big waste of time and LOTS of money. So yeah, I agree with you, they're just experiments.
--Let everything that isn't actually life-threatening go.--
OK. I'm exhausted. You know, our day-to-day lives are really pretty nice, but writing the above has focused all my attention on our difficulties. It makes me sad and tired, and it makes me not want to add to them.
Beth C.
Sandra Dodd
-=-
Oh yeah, and I haven't yet mentioned that he has asthma and eczema.
The asthma isn't too bad, but the eczema... basically he's been itchy
for the past 12 years, which more than anything else has tormented
him, and therefore us. He's aleady on the strongest conventional meds
and ointments and creams, but they don't help enough, and they don't
heal anything. When the elimination/rotation diet was first suggested
to us, it was mainly to deal with allergies and eczema. Yeah, and
autism symptoms too (we've been told they're all related), but
whatever personality quirks he has are nothing compared to the
itching, scratching, bleeding, doctors, frustration. Conventional
medicine has come up short, so we've been looking for other ways to
get relief. It's all been a big waste of time and LOTS of money. So
yeah, I agree with you, they're just experiments. -=-
I had itching, scratching, bleeding eczema as a kid, in the bends of
my arms and the backs of my knees. There's a photo of me at two or
three with my arms wrapped in gauze. I was taken to doctors, and they
told my mother I was allergic to nylon and chocolate, so I was
deprived and wore ugly cotton panties when the other girls had cute
nylon ones, and everyone else ate chocolate and I was given those
almond windmill cookies. Years of not-fun. Soap... no soap, the
doctor said. Only bath oil. So I had and liked Avon Skin-so-Soft.
As I got old enough to figure out more for myself what was and wasn't
helping, I noticed that it was worse in the summer, and in the coldest
parts of winter. WHY? After a few years of trying to pay attention
to what helped and didn't help, I have a theory. It might or might
not help in this or other cases.
I was allergic to my own sweat, basically. In summer I sweated and
broke out and the sweat made it worse and it couldn't get well.
In winter when it was really cold and I was bundled up, I sweated.
But worse than that, I didn't bathe enough. We had no shower. We had
one bathroom for six people, most of my life, and a bathtub, not a
shower. When I was really little and it all started, we didn't have
a tub OR a shower. `We bathed in a #2 washtub (round galvanized tub),
and not often enough.
If someone's not washing much and then the doctor says to stop using
soap, putting oil on the skin keeps in whatever bacteria was already
there.
If there's a child who doesn't love showers or baths, find water-play
opportunities somehow, maybe.
And it turned out chocolate was nothing at all to all that, but the
cotton/nylon stuff had merit. Cotton absorbed sweat; nylon created
and held sweat.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Oh yeah, and I haven't yet mentioned that he has asthma and eczema.
The asthma isn't too bad, but the eczema... basically he's been itchy
for the past 12 years, which more than anything else has tormented
him, and therefore us. He's aleady on the strongest conventional meds
and ointments and creams, but they don't help enough, and they don't
heal anything. When the elimination/rotation diet was first suggested
to us, it was mainly to deal with allergies and eczema. Yeah, and
autism symptoms too (we've been told they're all related), but
whatever personality quirks he has are nothing compared to the
itching, scratching, bleeding, doctors, frustration. Conventional
medicine has come up short, so we've been looking for other ways to
get relief. It's all been a big waste of time and LOTS of money. So
yeah, I agree with you, they're just experiments. -=-
I had itching, scratching, bleeding eczema as a kid, in the bends of
my arms and the backs of my knees. There's a photo of me at two or
three with my arms wrapped in gauze. I was taken to doctors, and they
told my mother I was allergic to nylon and chocolate, so I was
deprived and wore ugly cotton panties when the other girls had cute
nylon ones, and everyone else ate chocolate and I was given those
almond windmill cookies. Years of not-fun. Soap... no soap, the
doctor said. Only bath oil. So I had and liked Avon Skin-so-Soft.
As I got old enough to figure out more for myself what was and wasn't
helping, I noticed that it was worse in the summer, and in the coldest
parts of winter. WHY? After a few years of trying to pay attention
to what helped and didn't help, I have a theory. It might or might
not help in this or other cases.
I was allergic to my own sweat, basically. In summer I sweated and
broke out and the sweat made it worse and it couldn't get well.
In winter when it was really cold and I was bundled up, I sweated.
But worse than that, I didn't bathe enough. We had no shower. We had
one bathroom for six people, most of my life, and a bathtub, not a
shower. When I was really little and it all started, we didn't have
a tub OR a shower. `We bathed in a #2 washtub (round galvanized tub),
and not often enough.
If someone's not washing much and then the doctor says to stop using
soap, putting oil on the skin keeps in whatever bacteria was already
there.
If there's a child who doesn't love showers or baths, find water-play
opportunities somehow, maybe.
And it turned out chocolate was nothing at all to all that, but the
cotton/nylon stuff had merit. Cotton absorbed sweat; nylon created
and held sweat.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Jenny Cyphers
***Conventional medicine has come up short, so we've been looking for other ways to get relief. It's all been a big waste of time and LOTS of money. So yeah, I agree with you, they're just experiments. ***
--Let everything that isn't actually life-threatening go.--
***OK. I'm exhausted. You know, our day-to-day lives are really pretty nice, but writing the above has focused all my attention on our difficulties. It makes me sad and tired, and it makes me not want to add to them.***
Excema is really hard to deal with because of the pain and irritation! I can see why you'd want to try everything to get it to go away. I know from experience that diet DOES play a role in that. Here's the thing though... peace and calm play a part, probably a bigger part, in overall health. So, if he were my child, I'd let him eat what he wanted and have many alternatives around as well to choose from.
My youngest daughter is sensitive to the world in general, she just is. From the time she was tiny, I knew that dairy made everything more intense. That made sense to me since there is a huge genetic component to that. There are a lot of people in my family that can't eat dairy. When she was little, we just didn't offer it as a choice. That was easy to do, but as she grew and noticed differences, she wanted to try what sister had or what that other person had. She would try and eat and sometimes get sick and sometimes it wouldn't bother her as much. Over the years she's learned the limit her body can take through trial and error. She seems to be bothered by similar foods that bother my body, but she can freely avoid or partake in them. The key was to have many alternatives. We always have both corn and flour tortillas and both dairy and non dairy cheese and ice cream, etc. More often than not, she choose the alternative, with
only occasional tastes of the other, except for chocolate, she'll eat that in any form it comes in.
My hope is that because she can freely choose, that she won't get to be old like me and not be able to eat any of those things at all without getting severly sick. Since she's never been forced to eat things she doesn't want and told that she can't eat things that she does want, she not going to be reactionary in her choices, she'll continue to eat just as much as her body will let her and not a bit more or less.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
--Let everything that isn't actually life-threatening go.--
***OK. I'm exhausted. You know, our day-to-day lives are really pretty nice, but writing the above has focused all my attention on our difficulties. It makes me sad and tired, and it makes me not want to add to them.***
Excema is really hard to deal with because of the pain and irritation! I can see why you'd want to try everything to get it to go away. I know from experience that diet DOES play a role in that. Here's the thing though... peace and calm play a part, probably a bigger part, in overall health. So, if he were my child, I'd let him eat what he wanted and have many alternatives around as well to choose from.
My youngest daughter is sensitive to the world in general, she just is. From the time she was tiny, I knew that dairy made everything more intense. That made sense to me since there is a huge genetic component to that. There are a lot of people in my family that can't eat dairy. When she was little, we just didn't offer it as a choice. That was easy to do, but as she grew and noticed differences, she wanted to try what sister had or what that other person had. She would try and eat and sometimes get sick and sometimes it wouldn't bother her as much. Over the years she's learned the limit her body can take through trial and error. She seems to be bothered by similar foods that bother my body, but she can freely avoid or partake in them. The key was to have many alternatives. We always have both corn and flour tortillas and both dairy and non dairy cheese and ice cream, etc. More often than not, she choose the alternative, with
only occasional tastes of the other, except for chocolate, she'll eat that in any form it comes in.
My hope is that because she can freely choose, that she won't get to be old like me and not be able to eat any of those things at all without getting severly sick. Since she's never been forced to eat things she doesn't want and told that she can't eat things that she does want, she not going to be reactionary in her choices, she'll continue to eat just as much as her body will let her and not a bit more or less.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Bernadette Lynn
On 24 January 2010 22:42, Jenny Cyphers <jenstarc4@...> wrote:
eczema was caused by the eczema treatments, and initially triggered by nappy
rash cream. I deprived myself of things when I was feeding her and was told
several times later to put her on an exclusion diet but didn't. I was glad,
once we realised her allergies weren't food related after all.
She also didn't seem to have much energy and wasn't interested in anything
involving sustained movement and wanted to eat and drink rich sweet food all
the time but that has all changed since her heart condition was fixed.
Sometimes (maybe usually?) a lack of available energy can be what prompts a
child to eat energy-rich food.
Bernadette
--
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/U15459
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> ***Conventional medicine has come up short, so we've been looking for otherDiet CAN play a part in that, but not necessarily - my daughters appalling
> ways to get relief. It's all been a big waste of time and LOTS of money. So
> yeah, I agree with you, they're just experiments. ***
>
> --Let everything that isn't actually life-threatening go.--
>
> Excema is really hard to deal with because of the pain and irritation! I
> can see why you'd want to try everything to get it to go away. I know from
> experience that diet DOES play a role in that.
eczema was caused by the eczema treatments, and initially triggered by nappy
rash cream. I deprived myself of things when I was feeding her and was told
several times later to put her on an exclusion diet but didn't. I was glad,
once we realised her allergies weren't food related after all.
She also didn't seem to have much energy and wasn't interested in anything
involving sustained movement and wanted to eat and drink rich sweet food all
the time but that has all changed since her heart condition was fixed.
Sometimes (maybe usually?) a lack of available energy can be what prompts a
child to eat energy-rich food.
Bernadette
--
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/U15459
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
BRIAN POLIKOWSKY
I really like the story about Bernadette's daughter and how she wanted to eat what she needed due to her condition and how the parents did not know about the condition.
Maybe worth repeting ??
or did Sandra save it somewhere??
Alex Polikowsky
http://polykow.blogspot.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unschoolingmn/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Maybe worth repeting ??
or did Sandra save it somewhere??
Alex Polikowsky
http://polykow.blogspot.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unschoolingmn/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]