Food Issues

For children who live in institutional settings, their reality is that there are very few adults and many children. (Picture 30-40 toddlers and two adults.) These institutionalized children do not receive the attention they NEED to develop into physically, socially and emotionally healthy children. These institutions also have limited financial resources, and so often ~ and it is so hard to imagine ~ these children are not fed an adequate amount. Day after day. Like for years. Babies might receive two or three bottles a day, propped on a pillow, for example. This is not uncommon. It is heartbreaking.

common orphanage sleeping room

And even though our kid was in a really "good" orphanage as far as those things go, we have a child with food issues. We believe he knew hunger.

Not our fatty-McFatfat American wah-wah-wah-I'm-HUNGRY-Ineedanotherfastfoodhamburger hungry.

36 chairs to feed these 2 year old children in one little room and one nanny to supervise

More like a painful am-I-ever-going-to-see-food-again desperation hungry. Day in and day out. Maybe other children fought him and took his food away. I suspect that sometimes. He eats really slooooooowly and he can be kind of passive so the other kids would have had the opportunity. I know him now, and I know what his eyes look like when he is hungry. And I think back to the pictures we have of him when he lived at the orphanage and I see those hungry eyes.

All the unknowns. Trying to figure out the puzzle pieces to heal our kids.

Perhaps his food issues are all a need for control in his little world. Because he had absolutely positively zero control (and zero value for that matter) before we met him.

I am sad because I have not been helping our son with his food issues very well. I have my own food issues, and this is a tough one for me. Me, the Mama, I have not been doing a good job with our son in this area. Would our bonding have gone much better had I been a good Mama around the food issues? Probably. So I feel pretty crummy about this.

But I can't go back...

So we go forward and are going to make some changes around our house, and we are praying that it creates a better healing home for our munchkins.

Healthy food will be available. All the time. This is what you read and hear about in Attachment 101, and we haven't done a great job of it. We have tried and WE the adults have gotten discouraged when meals are not eaten because they have snacked too much. The always-available-food may not be the most desirable, but it will be something they like. For example, if we always have yogurt available (definitely a most desirable food in our house - in fact we have to limit the number of yogurts each of them eats a day), our munchkins would choose yogurt all day long and never eat anything else :)

So we choose Cheerios. In a little baggie if anyone needs a snack between snack & mealtime, and with milk if someone doesn't like the meal. A friend used to let her kids make their own peanut butter & jelly sandwiches if they didn't like a meal which is a totally awesome idea, but our kids don't like PB&Js. Cheerios with milk = carbs+protein+fiber+low sugar. And not something they will prefer before anything else. I think it might work. Jas and I feel hopeful that this may decrease the stress issues that center around food in our house.

And create a more loving, healing home for all of us.

the boys with Baba after his half-marathon

(((hugs))),
chris

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
                         Matthew 25:40