Food Issues & Fostering

When I heard that today was National Pancake Day I laughed.  You see, our current foster placement, 2 year old Ty, has some food issues and pancakes (or "ba-bates" as he refers to them) are his favorite food obsession- so much so that he asks for them at least 17 times a day- even if it's been ten minutes since we've last eaten.  Basically, every day is National Pancake Day at our house.

 

 

Food issues in foster children (or anyone else for that matter) aren't just about food being a source of fuel- although children coming from an environment of neglect or abuse certainly are at a greater risk of suffering from malnourishment.  In cases where food is used (or abused) and eating or one's relationship with food is used for anything other than it's intended purpose, food becomes something much more than physical nourishment; it can be equated with a reward or punishment and it can represent LOVE, SECURITY, and CONTROL.  Is it any wonder then, that as foster parents it's not uncommon for us to see hoarding behaviors and overeating or undereating in the children in our care?

 

When I first went through the training to be a foster parent I heard about "hoarders"- that is, children who would sneak or steal food, even when they weren't necesarilly hungry, and even go so far as to hide it under their mattresses or in toilet tanks or anywhere else they could stash it away for safe-keeping.  The cause of this behavior was explained to us as a survival technique: these children may be coming from a place where they honestly didn't know where their next meal was coming from or perhaps they feared that they would never eat again and were thus simply acting out of self-preservation.  Sure, I've been guilty of using food as a diversion or of having an occasional secret stash of chocolate, but I've never been faced with a real fear of starvation, so although I tried to understand it, this kind of behavior seemed foreign and bizarre to me.  Now I just nod my head whenever I hear such accounts from caseworkers or other foster parents. 

 

I would estimate that roughly a third of our foster placements have had issues with food.  I remember my first encounter with this and how sad I was the day I caught Justin, just three years old and our first placement, scavenging through the garbage can for an almost empty can of yogurt.  The key word here is almost- there was still some yogurty residue left behind and he started using his fingers as a spoon.  I was shocked but tried to conceal my surprise so as not to shame him.    "You don't have to eat that."  I told him.  " I can get you a new one if you're still hungry."    I then tried to be reassuring and and told him that we would always have food in our house and that if he was still hungry he could always ask for more.

 

Our most difficult case with hoarding was a couple of years ago when 2 year old George was in our care.  The first night we brought him home he scarfed down more pieces of pizza than my husband.  The first couple of days I gave in to George's overeating because he was skin and bones and I thought "This kid is starving!"  But I had to limit his intake when he would eat so much that he would throw up afterwards.  He would immediately whine for "more" after meals even when I could tell that his small stomach couldn't possibly handle more.  It got to the point that we had to put a plastic doorknob lock on the pantry door which made me feel like a mean Food Nazi.  I have since learned from other seasoned foster parents that the best way to deal with hoarding is  NOT  to restrict food accessibility altogether, otherwise it will become a power struggle, but to reassure the child that there will always be food by having  healthy snacks available to them at all times- like in a basket or on a designated shelf. 

 

As for Ty, he didn't overeat the first week he was with us- quite the contrary- he would pick at his plate and we would have to practically beg him to get him to eat.  I wouldn't have worried about it so much if it weren't for the fact that, like George, Ty is skin and bones, measuring in at only the third precentile for weight at his last doctor's check-up.  We felt the need to fatten him up but to complicate matters he has some food allergies, including lactose intolerance, so letting him snack on cheese sticks or yogurt or even ice cream, (as we've done with other children in our care who needed the extra calories) was out of the question as it would just give him diahrhea and make him sick.  

 

Now, seven weeks after being in our care, I don't know if it's because he feels more comfortable with us (the honeymoon period is over) or if it's because he's going through a growth spurt or if  he's dealing with some emotional issues and feels the need to "fill up" the lack he feels in another aspect of his life, but Ty has made a 360 degree turn and seems to be hungry ALL THE TIME- even when he's just gorged himself.  And I'll be the first to admit that it can be really annoying when I've just fed him and five minutes later he asks, "Bek-bust?"(breakfast) or "Bunch?" (lunch) and I have to remind him that we just ate.  Equally annoying is when after a meal my daughter will have a couple of bites left on her plate and Ty will have allready cleaned his plate of seconds.  As soon as my daughter leaves the table (and in a few instances even before she's left the table) Ty will jump over to her spot or grab my daughter's plate and start scarfing it all down like a ravenous wolf. 

 

I've tried to "pace" Ty with his food at meals or snacktime so he feels fuller longer.  For example, cutting up his pancakes into tiny pieces and not putting the whole thing in front of him all at once- but reminding him to "slow down" and  that after he's done if he's still hungry then he can have a little bit more. 

 

Yes, it can be frustrating to parent someone else's child when you have to deal with the repercussions of neglect- including but certainly not limited to food issues.  But as with all caregiving you have to take a step back and remember, "This isn't about what's convenient for me- it's about meeting the needs of the child and making them feel safe, loved, and secure."   It's also good to try to see things from their perspective which is why I both benefitted from and felt saddened by reading the insights of a former foster child and his experiences with hoarding.  I had a similar reaction when I recently read this perceptive statement by an experienced foster mother: "Children should not have to vomit to make themselves heard."

 

If you'd like to be a more patient and loving foster parent or gain a better understanding of food issues (because despite it being National Pancake Day, if I hear a request for "ba-bakes" one more time today I just might pull out my hair!) there is  going to be an upcoming  Q & A Webinar sponsored by Adoptive Families Magazine on the topic of food issues by a "feeding expert" (I didn't even know there was such a thing!) which is appropriately titled "Love Me, Feed Me."  This couldn't have come at a better time for me.

 

Foster Parents or Current and Former Foster Children:  What food issues have you encountered or struggled with and what is the best way to approach these difficulties?

My Les Mis Adoption PSA

THE ADOPTION/FOSTER CARE WORLD NEEDS A LOT LESS THENARDIERS . . .

AND A LOT MORE JEAN VALJEANS.

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Thanks to finding a babysitter, we {finally} got around to seeing the screen version of Les Miserables; Hugh Jackman gave a superb performance as Jean Valjean and Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter were a riot to watch as the Thenardiers! Incidentally, I saw Les Mis on Broadway back in 1996 and Ricky Martin was cast as Marius.

Trivia Question:  What do Hugh Jackman and Ricky Martin have in common?

Answer:  Hugh Jackman is an adoptive father and Ricky Martin is a prospective adoptive father.

Hugh Jackman on adoption:

"If you have got parents who want to adopt and there are children who need a home, it seems like a no-brainer."

"I don’t think of them as adopted – they’re our children. Deb and I are believers in … I suppose you could call it destiny. We feel things happened the way they are meant to. Obviously, biologically wasn’t the way we were meant to have children. Now, as we go through life together, sure there are challenges, but everyone’s in the right place with the right people. It sounds airy-fairy, but it’s something we feel very deeply.”

Orphans

I've always been a sucker for demographics & inferential statistics (one of my majors in college was Sociology) and I also appreciate when things are put together in a visually pleasing manner (as in subway art or commercial graphics) so I thought the following infographic on Adoption in America, compiled by graduate students in Social Work at USC this fall, was very interesting:

 

However, as well designed and researched as this infographic is, there was one word used in the infographic which recieved a lot of criticism from members of all sides of the adoption triad in the adoption community- and that was the word "orphan" which was used to describe all children who are adopted.

I don't know about you, but when I hear the word "orphan" I associate it with children in third-world countries who have lost their families or been abandoned because of tragedy- namely, natural disasters, epidemics, wars, and extreme poverty.

As for my own experiences with adoption (thus far), we adopted our daughter as a newborn through a private domestic adoption when her mother voluntarily relinquished her parental rights and chose us to be her parents. Although our daughter is adopted, I've never considered my daughter to be an "orphan" because she was never abandoned by her parents or lost them through death- rather, she was placed with us out of love. And we have never felt that her birthmother placed her with us because she didn't have the desire to take care of the child. (See the second criteria in the infographic "WHY ARE THEY ORPHANS?")

Parents do not have the appropriate financial resources to support the child

Parents were young and/or did not feel ready or have the desire to take care of the child

Parents have died or have separated from the child

Assuming that all children who were adopted had parents who didn't have the desire to take care of them, and therefore, meet one of the definitions of an "orphan" does a disservice to both the adopted child and their birthparents. Furthermore, if all adopted children are labeled as "orphans" then it automatically turns adoptive parents into saints for "rescuing" them from a bad situation- which may or may not be true of their circumstances.

Our daughter happened to join our family in a not so typical way.  I consider how she came to us to be a technicality (although a miraculous one) because the question of how she got into our family has always come secondary to the fact that she is a part of our family. I don't consider us adopting her to be an act of charity or pity- so when people say something like "You're so great for adopting!" or "She's so lucky to have you" I think, "No, actually, we're the ones who are lucky to have her!" In my opinion, it's the selfless birthparents like her birth mother who make families like mine possible in the first place who deserve praise.

In the case of foster care, there are many birthparents out there who do have the desire to take care of their child, but who are unable to do so, and they don't have the choice or option of keeping their parental rights or choosing where their child ends up. This causes me to speculate (because I do that a lot, in case you haven't noticed) and I wonder: In the future if we are able to adopt one of our foster children after their parents' rights have been terminated or if we adopt a waiting child from the U.S. foster care system, would they be considered an "orphaned" child even though they didn't necessarily come from an orphanage or from a poverty-stricken country? Because, technically, a child in foster care pretty much fits the definition of a child who has lost their parents through tragedy- perhaps not the same kind of tragedy as a tsunami or civil war- but because of the tragedies of drug addiction, neglect, abuse, or even mental illness.

Other observations/ramblings about orphans:

1) MONEY (or rather lack of money) seems to be a big reason as to why children are orphaned, as the very first criteria of the Infographic stated in answer to the question "Why are they orphans?"

Parents do not have the appropriate financial resources to support the child.

Money is also a huge determining factor for adoptive and prospective adoptive parents in being able to adopt- especially internationally.  On that note, THANK GOODNESS for the extension of the Adoption Tax Credit.

2) As for the hundreds of thousands of orphans in Russia who have even less of a chance of being adopted now because of Putin's recent purely politically motivated ban on U.S. adoptions- WHAT A TRAGEDY! I can't even imagine what the prospective adoptive parents who have been matched and met with Russian children they plan on adopting must be going through right now.

Our First Sibling Group

Alternate Title:  My Excuse For Not Posting in Over a Month!

As if the holiday season isn’t busy enough, just five days before Christmas we got a call from DCFS about a sibling group: a 2 year old boy and his 9 month old baby brother.  (Technically they’re half-brothers which makes weekly visits and kinship options a bit more extensive).  Within an hour of the initial call and after talking things over with my husband and praying about it (because bringing two more children into your home certainly isn't a decision to be taken lightly!), we called our Resource Family Consultant back and said we would take the boys. Early that evening we picked them up.  This was the sixth Christmas we’ve had with foster children in our home and it makes the season much more meaningful to “make room in the inn” so to speak.

We've never parented more than two children at a time before so this is certainly a new adventure for us.  So far the transition is going relatively well for both the boys and for our family.  When I first heard the details of their case I expected them to be much more delayed and neglected than they seem, so I was pleasantly relieved not to find any obvious signs of neglect (diaper rashes, attachment issues).  I’m guessing the biggest challenge for them has been trying to adjust to their new environment and structured routines with regular mealtimes, bedtimes, naptimes, etc

As for us, the biggest challenge has been trying to decipher what the 2 year old (who I will be referring to as “Ty”) is saying as he is very speech delayed and a little behind in motor skills as well. I’m going to have to be very proactive with the State to advocate for his early intervention needs and get him the speech and occupational therapy he needs so that he doesn’t get overlooked and fall further behind.  We also have the challenge of putting some meat on Ty’s bones as he is skin and bones- his ribs stick out like an Auschwitz victim and many of his pants are constantly falling down since he is so skinny around the waist.  To complicate matters he has some food sensitivities and allergies which make it harder to fatten him up.  Thankfully, the baby (who I will refer “Ian”) still has plenty of reserves of baby fat on him.

Our daughter is happy to have a foster sibling again and she alternately nurtures these boys and takes them under her wing one minute and then bosses them around the next minute.

Parent Rap

For all the parents (and foster parents!) out there:
 

"I looked on childrearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully interesting and challenging as any honourable profession in the world and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it." -- Rose Kennedy