5 YEAR OLD MALNOURISHED, PARENTS TRIED EVEYTHING

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Barry Neale on February 10, 2012 at 12:43am

Hi Elaine,

You are right to think that the home dynamic is probably the main contributor to this issue however I would include the whole family(father, siblings and maybe even grandparents) not just the mother. If this is not an area that you are skilled in I would refer out because this is a serious issue. And personally hypnosis would be my first choice in this case.

 

If you are intestested in understanding more about this sort of work I highly recommend reading Strategic Family Therapy by Cloe Madanes. However I am not saying just reading the book will give you the skills you need however it really helps you understand what can often happen in family and "problem children" are just responding to something else going on in the family.

 

best wishes

 

barry

 

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Elaine Martin on February 10, 2012 at 1:04am

Yes Barry you have voiced what I have had in my mind, am I taking on more then I can chew (excuse the pun)  Thanks for the book recommendation I will seek it out. For now I will see them tomorrow and collect  as much information as I can and then make a judgement call on this.  Finding someone in this area that has the appropriate skills to deal with something like this may be difficult.

Thanks

Elaine

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Hypno-Jay on February 10, 2012 at 1:35am

This sounds interesting, keep us all updated. I would like to work with children further down the line b ut i think i need to build up some experience for now.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Lorrie Hale-Ozbey on February 10, 2012 at 4:26am

Elaine,

1. I have found my anthropology background comes in handy as a hypnotist. For example, when working with kids I use the Senoi Dreaming culture's dreaming rules when working with kids. I teach them how to dream, properly, with all sorts of embedded commands and suggestions. If you are interested I can elaborate.

2, I always require a minimum 3 session commitment from at least one parent when I agree to work with their child. But, having said that it isn't crucial, not really. You can raise 2 or more children in the same home and get 2 or more personalities/children as a result. Yes, their behavior is learned, but it isn't the only response possible, it is the one they chose.

3. Anchors work wonders with children. I anchor motivation and associate to smells and tastes of motivation, happiness, joy, and calm physiology. Then, I associate the correct response to the old triggers to this new anchor and collapse the old responses to the same triggers.

4. I finish with wonderful and strong belief systems building suggestions of loving, wanting, and caring for self, protecting oneself (safe and secure perspectives), and confidence attitude. 

Hope this is helpful.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Hypno-Jay on February 10, 2012 at 4:45am

Hi Lorrie,

 

Please do elaborate,either in this discussion or on a message. It sounds interesting and I have never come across this.

Lorrie Hale-Ozbey said:

Elaine,

1. I have found my anthropology background comes in handy as a hypnotist. For example, when working with kids I use the Senoi Dreaming culture's dreaming rules when working with kids. I teach them how to dream, properly, with all sorts of embedded commands and suggestions. If you are interested I can elaborate.

2, I always require a minimum 3 session commitment from at least one parent when I agree to work with their child. But, having said that it isn't crucial, not really. You can raise 2 or more children in the same home and get 2 or more personalities/children as a result. Yes, their behavior is learned, but it isn't the only response possible, it is the one they chose.

3. Anchors work wonders with children. I anchor motivation and associate to smells and tastes of motivation, happiness, joy, and calm physiology. Then, I associate the correct response to the old triggers to this new anchor and collapse the old responses to the same triggers.

4. I finish with wonderful and strong belief systems building suggestions of loving, wanting, and caring for self, protecting oneself (safe and secure perspectives), and confidence attitude. 

Hope this is helpful.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Lorrie Hale-Ozbey on February 10, 2012 at 5:34am

Hypno-Jay,

I've got a seminar with the kids in school today and I will elaborate later today. Getting excited....

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michael Ellner on February 10, 2012 at 6:37am

Hi Elaine,

Trying to control what they eat is common for some children between the ages of 2 and 6 and is usually an attempt for some control in their lives. My advice to the parents would be STOP trying to force the child to eat and make it a point that everyone else at the table enjoys the meal -- with the suggestion their child will grow out of it --

FYI - I am confident that even if one of the many doctors who examined her son thought he was seriously malnourised they would have taken action-

These previous discussion may be helpful informationally

kids and eating issues - HypnoThoughts.com

http://www.hypnothoughts.com/forum/topics/kids-and-eating-issues?co...

Picky Eaters - HypnoThoughts.com

http://www.hypnothoughts.com/group/kidsworks/forum/topics/picky-eat...

HEADS UP -- New insights to helping Picky eaters

http://www.hypnothoughts.com/group/kidsworks/forum/topics/heads-up-...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Melissa J. Roth on February 10, 2012 at 7:09am

I have seen several children who are "picky" eaters who will only eat a handful of foods or won't eat hardly at all. In every case I have worked with it is a control issue. The child is trying to control their environment AND the family.  Work with the child to motivate their desires for new/more foods and work with the family on giving this child appropriate levels of control in their lives--letting them pick what to wear, when to do their chores, etc. Let them have control over things in their environment that won't hurt them or be controlling of the rest of the family. What should matter to the parents is that those things get done--the child is dressed and ready to go, gets their chores done, etc.  It doesn't matter what the child wears or when the chores get done. Then, ignore their eating habits.  In other words, swap what they can control.  Right now their families are hostages to their eating habits.  Have the family set themselves free.  The child will try even harder at first to control  their environment.  Make sure the family knows this and persists with their new behaviors and attitudes longer than the child persists in hooking them back into the old behaviors.  And, as Michael says, the child will eventually grow out of it.  

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Donna Carter on February 10, 2012 at 7:47am

I love Michael's and Melissa's advice. I don't think I could expand on the behavior side of this question.

However...as a side note on the nutrition side of it...

They have tried....'everything'?

What about juicing? or smoothies? 

I'm going to hazard a guess that the child likes apple juice - most kids do.  If this is true for this child...then maybe a juicer and a blender would be beneficial? The juicer...because you can easily juice 2 apples and 3 stalks of Kale....and it still tastes just like Apple juice. When my kids were little...I called it..."green apple juice" WHOMP WHOMP! haha. 

And then...later...I started to add a bit of collards. Both Kale and Collards are LOADED with nutrition. Also.... green apples hide the "green" taste of green juiced veggies.

My kids also loved the apple and carrot combo.

The blender...because you can at first make...a strawberry, banana, & orange juice smoothie. Kids usually like these...and then start adding a bit of swiss chard.... or a bit of kale or collards. Kale requires extra blending... but...these smoothies don't taste like veggies. In smoothies...you can also put a scoop or two of 'Green Vibrance' freeze dried Organic green powder. FULL of good REAL nutrients a child would not get otherwise.

When having trouble.... a good method of getting nutrition in kids, while they experiment in real food - is to go to the smoothies/juices!

Good luck.

D.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Elaine Martin on February 12, 2012 at 4:05pm

Thank you all so much for the information, really apprecaite all the advice.

So I met with the client and her son, the first thing I noticed was the child was happy, smiling, active and the mum looked sad, had difficulty smiling and body language was that of one defeated.  Asked lots of questions, took lots of notes and these are the key things that I discovered:

The problem started after she introduced bottle milk

2/3 years of visits to specialists of all types to try and get him to eat including forcing him with gartric tubes - she talked about the screams and the trauma of that time (child is probably still replaying over in head)

The family have no routine, they eat at different places and times , sometime together, sometimes not (child has no routine boundaries)

Child does not like eating at the table with the family (probably due to the pressure) and prefers to eat in front of the TV (where there is no pressure)

Although she says he won't try anythign new he eat things such as spring rolls, McDonald chips, apples and yougurt. (where and when did he first try these things, Mum says at family gatherings, worth exploring further)

Seems to like things that are crunchy and milky creamy things (can work with this).

His mum givs him a bottle of milk at 5am evey morning!!  (she is scared to stop it in case he doesn't eat anything else - maybe he is just not hungry if he drinks a bottle of milk)

Has never tried any kind of meat/eggs/cheese/limited vegetables, diet very restricted

Family are Indian so they eat a lot of curries and he has tried and likes dahl.

I said to the Mum that I needed to have a session with her to help her relax  and have a calmer appeach to food  As Melissa and Michael said, get her to move the focus on to something else and stop making food such a big deal.

I would like to know more about how you operate Lorrie but my thoughts on this would be to enagage the child through imagination, stories and game playing to connect food with growing strong (like superman) and able to play his sport (football),  something that he enjoys and has fun with rather than being something that make his mum and his family grumpy all the time. Everyone on edge all the time.

He said he likes oranges and I asked him if he likes the colour and he said excitedly that he loves the colour so its about working with what works I think.

My aim would be to try and broaden the foods that the child will eat indtroducing healthy colourful alternatives where possible.  The smoothie idea is a great one Donna and may work as he does like milky things.

When they left the mum said she felt more optimistic than she had done on a long time and the kid was still smiling and

happy so lets see where this goes.

Any other comments that and of you may have on this are greatly appreciated - its great to have your input as it allows out of the box thinking, thanks so much.

Elaine

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Fay Kelly on February 12, 2012 at 9:14pm

Hi Elaine,

I agree with those who wrote and wanted to pass on that I worked with a 4 year old who was picky and had trouble with

 textures of food.  He didn't like things that had certain feels this is not uncommon) 

We worked from the concept of his favorite superheroes and also his desire to be strong at kung fu.  With tying in the idea that spiderman, batman etc all had to eat certain things to be strong enough to do their jobs and he wanted to kick high and have strong arm movements in kung fu, he gradually opened up to more foods.

Good luck,

Fay

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Barry Neale on February 13, 2012 at 3:42am

HI Elaine,

 

As I mentioned in the previous post and now with your follow up this is a family problem NOT a problem child. The more focus there is on the food the bigger the problem will become. My first thought is where is the father? Why was he not there. how is the relationship between the parents? It sounds to be that the mother is the one that needs to make changes and if she does the food issue will probably cease to exist.

 

The reality is children at this age often are fussy/picky eaters. If you ignore it, it most likely will go away, focusing it on it will make it stronger.

 

Again I highly recommend that you read Strategic Family Therapy. It will give you a lot of food for thought!

 

barry

 

• ▶ Reply

▶ Reply to Discussion

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page