Chocolate
The boy who would only eat chocolate
Child counsellor Jill Knowles lets us into her casebook to discover how she approached
a subject close to many parents’ hearts – faddy eating
Carrie brought her five-
his age, dark-
He didn’t smile or speak when I said ‘Hello’ and ignored the chair I offered him, climbing on his mother’s knee instead. I guessed Carrie was probably in her forties and she looked tired and very fraught.
I had a special children’s chair and a table strewn with brightly coloured crayons, paper to draw on and pictures to colour in. I asked Kye if he would like to draw something for me. ‘What?’ he said, beginning to look interested. ‘Well, what is your favourite
thing, Kye?’ I asked. ‘Chocolate,’ he replied without a pause.
I picked up an outline drawing of a rabbit and handed it to him, saying ‘Okay. I wonder if you could make this into a chocolate
rabbit for me please.’ Kye slid off Carrie’s knee, sat down at the little table, selected a brown crayon and began to colour in.
Turning my attention to Carrie, I asked her what the problem was. She seemed very burdened and couldn’t wait to tell me about how Kye would only eat chocolate. Chocolate for breakfast, chocolate for lunch and chocolate for tea: she was at the end of her tether, she said. When I asked her how long this had been going on for, she said: ‘I don’t know, months….’
I explained that my approach would be to focus on what he would eat, not what he wouldn’t eat and this would be much easier for me than for her as I was not emotionally involved. He wasn’t showing any signs of hyperactivity and was obviously thriving at the moment, but this restricted menu could not be allowed to continue.
Kye was deeply absorbed in drawing his rabbit, his little pink tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he drew. When he’d finished, he took the drawing to Carrie and held it out for her to look at. ‘Lovely,’ she said distractedly.
‘Can I see it?’ I asked. Kye nodded shyly and I examined it carefully. ‘This is a very good picture of a chocolate rabbit, Kye. May I put it on the wall? Would you like to write your name on it so that everyone knows you did it?’ I asked. He nodded, painstakingly wrote ‘KYE’ under the brown bunny and I stuck it on the wall.
‘So, the rabbit is brown because it’s a chocolate bunny and you like to eat chocolate.. What else do you like to eat Kye?’ I asked.
He thought for a moment and then said: ‘Bananas’. ‘What colour are bananas?’ ‘Yellow’.
‘Do you think you could draw a yellow banana for me next?’ I crouched down at the table and Kye drew a long yellow squiggle as a banana, which I admired. Then I asked him if he could think of anything else he liked to eat as well as chocolate and bananas. Carrie was looking very agitated at this point, twisting a tissue round in her hand. ‘I don’t want to say,’ said Kye. ‘Okay. You don’t have to say, but perhaps you could draw it for me,’ I suggested. Kye gave an exaggerated sigh as if he was exasperated with
Me.
‘That’s why I don’t want to say it. I can’t draw bread and butter,’ he said. I wondered if he really wanted to add the word ‘stupid’ at the end of that sentence! I drew something that vaguely looked like a slice of bread and butter, and Kye nodded his approval.
‘So, we’ve got bananas and bread and butter as well as chocolate on your list of things to eat. How often will you eat these things, Kye? Every day for a week?’ ‘Yes,’ he said without hesitation.
‘Agreed,’ I said. ‘What about drinks? Will chocolate milk and water be okay?’ Kye nodded. Carrie gave me an ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ look.
I then took Kye back to his class and asked Carrie to have a chat with me. She told me that she had two daughters in their late teens who would eat almost anything. Carrie also said that Kye had been a surprise pregnancy and the rest of the family felt that she was too soft on him.
When I asked about Kye’s relationship with his Dad she said that her husband usually worked late, so Kye was often in bed when he got home and she felt that she had all the burden.
‘Sometimes I feel as if I hate him when he won’t eat,’ she said, wiping away a tear. ‘Then I hate myself for feeling like this.’ I explained that it was probably the power struggle between them that she hated and that this was perfectly natural.
She seemed very tired and I wondered if she was feeling up to persevering with Kye’s
eating plan for this week. But she said she would and we discussed her approach which
we agreed was to be non-
The following week Kye came in and ran up to the wall to see if his drawings were still there. They were. ‘How did you get on?’ I asked. ‘I did well. And I ate some grapes,’ he added triumphantly. Carrie still looked tired and fed up but she did manage a smile.
Top tips for faddy eaters
Always seek professional advice if a faddy child is failing
to thrive or grow properly.
Use your imagination to make food look fun. Sausage, mash
and peas can easily be made into a smiley face.
Try not to make mealtime a source of dread for either of you. Stay positive even if you’re in a turmoil inside.
Large portions are off-
Build on what your child will eat. Milk can have a little fruit juice added to it; biscuits can be spread with soft cheese.
Children lose their appetite if given sugary foods or drinks between meals. Hungry children are generally less faddy!
Eat with your child whenever possible so that a meal is a social occasion that you share and enjoy.
Remember, selective eating is often just a phase, but some
children are born picky eaters and remain so due to genetic
factors. They invariably thrive as their diet usually contains most of the nutrients required for a restricted but balanced diet.
I had brought in some colourful pictures of apples, cheese spread, roast chicken, pasta, fish fingers, sausages, jacket potatoes, baked beans and toast. Food that might tempt a fussy eater I thought, based on my own experience of being one!
The three of us sat at the little table and Carrie decided what she thought Kye might add to his menus. He agreed on everything but jacket potatoes and insisted he’d eat chicken, although Carrie doubted this.
The plan was to offer him small portions that Carrie could add to, rather than giving
him a plateful that would be off-
She was not to ask him what he wanted to eat (any more than she would ask him what
time he wanted to go to bed) but she would serve foods that he had agreed he liked.
There were to be no in-
The following week Kye had done really well and got a big sticker as a reward. We were working towards him being awarded a special certificate with a robot on that he coveted.
Later on, I asked Carrie on her own how she thought things were going. She said it was actually more of an effort to sort out his special menu than just give him chocolate but she was amazed at how pleased he was with himself.
I wondered how she could get Kye’s Dad more involved. Could she leave him with his Dad at some point? She was doubtful but I guess she could tell I was going to persist. After a pause, she said she might be able to meet her sister for shopping.
The following week Kye came in looking very important, head high and chest puffed out. ‘I eat my dinner now, can I have my serficat (sic)?’ I had the certificate ready and handed it to him .‘It’s got my name on it,’ he said proudly.
Carrie told me they now sat around the table as a family as often as they could and it seemed that Kye ate much better there; he also liked to help her to prepare the food that he was going to eat. The mealtime routine was becoming much more of a joint family affair. We agreed to meet again in a month’s time, but I felt that the issue was now well on the way to being sorted.
More info
This article was based on an extract from Whispers in My
Ear by Jill Knowles, available on Amazon Kindle. Jill Knowles
& Sue Twort are professional child counsellors specialising
in holistic child therapy. They offer counselling for children,
consultancy/ training for schools and advice, guidance and
support for parents.
Contact them at www.childlight.co.uk.
November/December 2011
All information is correct at time of publishing
Diet