Child Neglect and Hoarding Food
Food hoarding is a common issue displayed by foster-adoptive children. Food hoarding can be central in a child’s world and resistant to change. Additionally, hoarding food behavior can bedevil and bewilder parents. So why does a child hoard food? Often food hoarding is directly connected to significant neglect that the child has experienced in consistently having their basic needs for life sustaining food denied or inadequately met. As a result, the child is forced to become prematurely self-reliant in meeting their own basic needs. For example, in a situation where the parent is chemically dependent resulting in inconsistency in providing and having food available, it would be reasonable that when food is available that a child would view this as an opportunity. It would be logical that a “survival mentality” would be for the child to respond to the availability of food in self-reliant ways which could include over-eating and hoarding food in secretive ways. In neglectful situations, food hoarding is a wise alternative to ongoing food deprivation.
What can be confusing and frustrating to foster-adoptive parents is why food hoarding continues when the child is being properly cared for and has no apparent reason to continue to hoard food? Unfortunately, child neglect often leaves a child insecure, seeing themselves as unworthy of care and lacking in a sense of partnership with foster-adoptive parents. They may not feel that their foster-adoptive parents are available and sensitive drawing this false conclusion from their previous “blueprint” of being victimized by negligent parenting.
When trying to positively impact food hoarding, we hope to move the child from solitary and secret self-parenting behavior to a world of meeting his/her needs within a healthy parent-child relationship. We want to avoid drawing battle lines around food. If we lock the pantry, the refrigerator, the kitchen, we create a “mine and yours’ mentality, one the child is very familiar with from the past.
Designing family interventions should be preceded by a close look at the child’s function of hoarding food which is, at all costs, to avoid food deprivation caused by neglect.
Several examples of interventions that are designed to focus on the function of neglect based food hoarding include:
Food baskets:
Provide food baskets in the home that incorporate the child’s input in creation and consist of snacks that are healthy and appealing to the child. The child should be told the food baskets will be re-filled and are a “better alternative” than hoarding. If the child hoards the food basket; set limits but do not discontinue. Some schools will also cooperate with food baskets; especially if the child is prone to take other student’s snacks.
Backpacks:
When packing lunches for school or events, pack a “special container” of food that can be removed and is with the child. This provides a traveling sense of food security and food availability for the child.
Coupling nurturing with food:
Always positively reinforce any progress the child makes on hoarding behavior. If the child utilizes a food basket, nurture the child when they seek items from the food basket. Positively comment on how all family members are always fed. Weave this message into mealtimes and have this message commented on by various family members.
Teach food regulation:
If child has a tendency to gorge, set a “food time out” after a complete meal is consumed. Make certain this applies to all family members. The goal is to assist the child in learning to experience a sense of “fullness”. The “food time out” should not be presented as denying food but rather delaying additional eating for a prescribed period of time. Describe how the physical sensation of “fullness” feels. Fifteen minutes, after the completion of a meal, is an estimate of the time before fullness will be experienced.
As with all behavior and emotional challenges, a child’s special needs and individual circumstances should be
considered when designing interventions. Additionally, professional therapeutic assistance can offer help in the
assessment and treatment of food issues. In an effort to understand the function of food hoarding, the following
questions can assist in a parent’s understanding of their child’s food hoarding.
- Could there be psychiatric or biological issues contributing to the hoarding?
- Does the child’s history reveal reasons for fixation on eating?
- Does the child substitute a food fixation for a loving relationship with parents?
- Are there things that trigger eating problems in the child?
- Is the child displaying an emotional neediness in the way they eat?
It is important to understand how the child’s food issues impact you as a parent. Become aware of your own food issues and explore if they influence your ability or willingness to look at the child’s problem with an open mind and creative flexibility. Also study yourself to determine if the child’s food hoarding personally threatens your role as a provider/nurturer.