Q&A: DAVID COLEMANanswers your parenting questions
Q Our two and a half year old seems greedy, always wanting what everyone else is eating regardless of what it is or what he has recently eaten. We feed him healthy food as we ourselves would have pretty good diets, but he still has a “belly” despite the fact that he is a very active child.
He eats incredibly quickly and keeps on stuffing food in to his mouth. I feel that this may be a throwback to my determination to get him fed as a baby. We have tried everything to get him to eat more slowly at meal times – distraction, conversation, etc – but to no avail. Everyone close to him seems to lay on a feast for him (home-made bread, cakes, biscuits, etc) when we visit which just adds fuel to the fire and makes it harder for us as his parents when he gets home.
Whenever he realises that I am watching him eating such foods he looks at me with a guilty face as he knows I am not happy. We do allow him to eat all these foods at home in moderation, as most parents would. The last thing in the world we want is for him to develop some sort of complex, but I am obsessing about his diet to such a degree that I feel like I should not be taking him anywhere – which is clearly the wrong approach.
He is our first child and gets so much attention and love from both his parents and close relatives that we do not feel his behaviour is a sign of attention seeking, but it is nevertheless causing us both a lot of concern. If one more person says, “It would be worse if he wasn’t eating”, I’ll scream. Should we just relent and just keep feeding him? Will he grow out of it?
A
Being a parent can be such an anxiety- provoking experience. Your description of your son seeming greedy is in stark contrast to the majority of food and feeding queries that I receive and yet your anxieties are nonetheless valid. Mind you, following on from a recent query about obesity, perhaps the tide is turning from worries about under-eating to worries about overeating.
A couple of things come to mind in relation to your son’s apparent eating habits. The first is the level or degree of obsession that you admit to having about what he consumes. It is good that you are aware of it, because it is also plain that your son is aware of it. It is also quite likely that if you are indeed obsessed with his eating that this will be a major contributing factor to prolonging any “problem”.
First, let’s consider the impact on your son of your intense focus on his eating. Patently, he seems to be very alert to your response to his eating. When he was smaller he probably got lots of positive reinforcement for eating everything that was put in front of him. As you say you were determined to “get him fed”.
From this he probably learned (albeit unconsciously) that eating food is associated with your positive love and attention. In contrast, not eating may have been associated with your disapproval. If so, then his current eating could be a habitual response in order to keep in your favour.
If indeed this is the case, then when he looks at you now and perceives disapproval for eating (because you now worry he is eating too much or too quickly) he is more likely to feel confused rather than guilty. He probably expects you to be pleased that he is gobbling what he is offered, and so doesn’t quite know what to make of your current response where you may appear disappointed or disapproving.
What is very likely to happen, however, because of your intense focus on his eating, is that he will use you to regulate his feelings about food, rather than developing his own feelings about the experience of eating. Over time, he may well become guilty about eating, and he could end up with some negative associations with, or feelings towards, food or eating which I know you are keen to help him avoid.
So, I would recommend that you try to put his eating back into a context, without over-analysing it. For example, most two year olds have lovely pot bellies as part of their natural body shape. Their body shapes and sizes will change so often at different developmental stages that we can’t afford to ever get hung up about how they look at any particular age.
If you worry about what he eats when he visits your friends and family, then it may help to talk to your hosts about their (possible) over-generosity rather than trying to stop your son eating what he is offered. In other words, if they don’t put out the plates of home-made goodies, then he won’t be tempted to eat them. Alternatively, since visiting is probably only an occasional pastime, you could just try to “let it go” when you are out and not attend to what he eats.
You say that you let him eat most foods in moderation at home and so, by dint of this, you are doing a good job. He is obviously getting variety in what he eats and so his diet is probably very well balanced.
Balance is a great goal to keep in mind for lots of aspects of parenting. Children need a balance of rest and activity, they need a balance of unconditional love and firm limits about certain behaviours, and they need a balance of occasional treats and otherwise healthy eating.
Try to withhold judgment (positive or negative) about his eating and instead make sure that he gets to see you and your husband eating by dining with him. That way you can make a role model of relaxed eating, enjoying food and stopping when you are full.
Be kind to yourself and start to recognise that you are doing so many things that are really helpful for your son. Then be kind to him too. Recognise that you can’t control everything in his life, and so it is okay to ease up on things like his eating, as long as you have an overall eye on achieving as much balance as possible.
** This is my final advice column with The Irish Timesfor the foreseeable future. I would like to thank the many readers who contacted me, either to ask for advice, to offer opinion or simply to say that they enjoyed the practicality and applicability of my advice over the past couple of years. I have really enjoyed writing and responding.
From next week, clinical psychologist and parenting expert John Sharry will answer parenting questions sent to: healthsupplement@irishtimes.com