ASK THE EXPERT:If you project a confident and a relaxed manner in relation to what your children eat, they too might feel relaxed about it, writes David Coleman.
Q:I AM THE mother of a little boy just turning seven. He has never liked food - even as a little baby of four or five months, getting him to eat his baby rice was a big struggle.
Most spoon feeds up to the age of two were a nightmare. He seemed to dislike most things we gave him to eat and every meal had to have several distractions. At two, I gave up the spoon feeds out of frustration and was delighted to see he would eat sausages and garlic bread by himself with great enthusiasm.
Unfortunately, he hasn't moved on much in five years and these are still his favourite dinner foods. My husband, over the years, would like to have given him the same meals as everyone else and sent him to bed hungry afterwards - but I just can't bear to watch him go to bed hungry.
He doesn't get rubbish or treats as replacements for real food and we have very limited treats in our cupboards - we all try to eat very healthily and eat lots of fruit and vegetables so he gets good example.
There are only approximately 10 items on his daily diet - not all unhealthy I have to say, but the lack of variety and his inability to "move on" or try any new foods (which usually make him gag when he does try them) is really worrying me. He genuinely finds any new foods disgust him - even obviously pleasant foods, like juicy strawberries or melon, for example.
I am sick of being told "he will grow out of it", as nothing much has changed over the last few years. My fear is that he will reach adulthood and be a non-eater - I have heard of them. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
A:WHEN I initially read your question, I was really struck by how much stress and worry seems to be attached to food and eating for both you and your son. So although other factors may also be at play, I am going to focus my response on this, the emotional aspect of your son's eating behaviour.
It is great to hear that he has such strong positive role-modelling for eating healthy and varied foodstuff. My guess is that if he had a chance to reduce the stress he associates with food that this role-modelling would eventually lead him to explore and experiment more with different types of food.
You pinpoint that the difficulties for your son and food started early - at the time of weaning. Infants have an instinctive understanding that they can't survive on solid food alone and so they are initially, and instinctively, reluctant to eat solid food, favouring their milk instead.
It is easy for us to misunderstand this reluctance, perceiving it as a lack of desire to eat, and so we begin the habit of cajoling and/or coercing our children to take the spoonfuls of solid food. I'd say we can all remember the "aeroplanes" of food flying down to park in the "hangar".
This cajoling/coercing becomes the "big struggle" that you describe. Essentially, it is the conflict between your desire to have him eat and his desire to resist eating too much solid food, in order to leave space for milk. This conflict may well have led your son to associate eating the solid food with stress and pressure.
So, I can imagine that in those early months and years, both you and he probably faced into meals with a great deal of residual anxiety, both anticipating the conflict. It wouldn't surprise me if, in such circumstances, he found it hard to enjoy his food - instead it seems he remained wary of it (a wariness that persists into the present).
The key to helping him reduce his anxiety is for you to reduce yours. You describe that his "inability to move-on is really worrying me". I bet he feels your worry and it exacerbates his own. Your worry makes sense because most parents, mothers especially, associate feeding and eating with nurturing. We can feel like bad parents and worry that we are neglecting our children if we seem to be failing in this most basic of tasks. Moreover, sometimes their reluctance to eat can feel so serious that a parent fears their child will fade away and get very sick if they don't eat "properly".
Your worrying is natural, but it remains unhelpful for you and your son in this instance. He needs to get a clear message from you that you are not bothered by what he eats. Your son would find it much easier if you projected a confidence and a relaxed manner in relation to what he eats. Then he too might feel relaxed about it.
Trust in your son's instinctive drive to survive that will encourage and motivate him to eat. Nature will motivate him, you don't need to. His instinctive drive will blossom when it isn't restricted by stress, pressure and anxiety.
• David Coleman is a clinical psychologist, author and broadcaster with RTÉ television. Further information about David is available on his website: www.davidcoleman.ie
• Readers' queries are welcome and will be answered through the column, but David regrets he cannot enter into individual correspondence. Questions should be e-mailed to healthsupplement @irish-times.ie