Food Hoarding....
Food Hoarding. Ever heard of it? Ever seen it? Two words. Heart Breaking. It's a learned survivor skill. It gets messy quickly. Basically a child has learned that food will be in short supply and not consistent. To prevent hunger that child takes food and hides it in various "secret" placed to be consumed at a later "hungry" date.
Another side of the food hoarding is the obsessive eating. Because children aren't sure when their next meal will come they STUFF themselves, to the point of sickness, to make sure that they won't be as hungry later. When a child is in survival mode these are "helpful" behaviors. They allow a child to literally SURVIVE. When a child isn't in that situation it becomes more complicated.
Because food is always available in our house the eating until you are sick becomes a daily problem. Eventually the mass amounts of over eating will lead to some pretty serious weight gain and health problems. Obviously the goal would be to stop these habits before that were to happen. The immediate issue is the mass amounts of food, crumbs, and garbage we find in places. Under the bed, in the drawers, behind the play kitchen, in the closet, etc... So far we THINK we have found all of the food hiding places, if not I'm sure bugs soon will! (I really don't want to think about those possible issues.)
We've done all of the typical strategies to prevent the hoarding. Things like; have a specific easy to reach place where one can ALWAYS have access to that food. Having specific snacks that are "just hers" so that she doesn't feel in competition with anyone for food. (Not that there is any, again perception NOT reality.) Taking her grocery shopping with us so she can pick out the foods she likes and so that se can see that we don't worry about buying groceries.
Again, it's a slow learning process. If it's not one regressive behavior it's another. I've never thought of myself as "rich" but the more we are in foster care the more I realize how good we have it. We honestly don't worry about having enough money to feed our family. We don't have to worry about our water or electricity being turned off. (We lost power during a winter storm and you should have seen the fear and deer in headlights look we saw. When kids are used to living in those situations and being in the unknown for so long it's not easily relearned.) We don't have to worry about not going somewhere because our car is out of gas and we don't know when we will have the money to put more in. We may not be able to go out and buy whatever we want whenever we want it, or hop on a plane any time we want to go to whatever exotic land we please, but compared to so many in our community we are wealthy beyond measure.
Another side of the food hoarding is the obsessive eating. Because children aren't sure when their next meal will come they STUFF themselves, to the point of sickness, to make sure that they won't be as hungry later. When a child is in survival mode these are "helpful" behaviors. They allow a child to literally SURVIVE. When a child isn't in that situation it becomes more complicated.
Because food is always available in our house the eating until you are sick becomes a daily problem. Eventually the mass amounts of over eating will lead to some pretty serious weight gain and health problems. Obviously the goal would be to stop these habits before that were to happen. The immediate issue is the mass amounts of food, crumbs, and garbage we find in places. Under the bed, in the drawers, behind the play kitchen, in the closet, etc... So far we THINK we have found all of the food hiding places, if not I'm sure bugs soon will! (I really don't want to think about those possible issues.)
We've done all of the typical strategies to prevent the hoarding. Things like; have a specific easy to reach place where one can ALWAYS have access to that food. Having specific snacks that are "just hers" so that she doesn't feel in competition with anyone for food. (Not that there is any, again perception NOT reality.) Taking her grocery shopping with us so she can pick out the foods she likes and so that se can see that we don't worry about buying groceries.
Again, it's a slow learning process. If it's not one regressive behavior it's another. I've never thought of myself as "rich" but the more we are in foster care the more I realize how good we have it. We honestly don't worry about having enough money to feed our family. We don't have to worry about our water or electricity being turned off. (We lost power during a winter storm and you should have seen the fear and deer in headlights look we saw. When kids are used to living in those situations and being in the unknown for so long it's not easily relearned.) We don't have to worry about not going somewhere because our car is out of gas and we don't know when we will have the money to put more in. We may not be able to go out and buy whatever we want whenever we want it, or hop on a plane any time we want to go to whatever exotic land we please, but compared to so many in our community we are wealthy beyond measure.
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