I wasn't sure on where to post this.
Some background... I've been dating Ed for a little over a year, and things are GREAT! Morgan is his 13 year old daughter that he has 100% custody of. She's generally a good kid, (especially when I compare her to some of my students who are roughly the same age) And she's USUALLY around. She's a good sport about giving us "alone time" and sometimes she spends the night at friends, or her grandparents (who live close by) and gives Ed and I the opportunity to go out like adults. But for the most part if we go out, she's usually coming with us. I don't mind. Like I said she's a good kid, she reminds me of myself when I was 13. (it's kinda scary). And we get along.
But back to issue at hand. I'm heavy, I wouldn't be here if I wasn't. It's something I've struggled with all my life. Ed is heavy too, and naturally his daughter is overweight. Granted I would not say she's "fat" by any means, she needs to lose maybe 20 or 30 lbs. She's no heavier than a lot of kids nowadays. Part of this is genetics I'm sure. Part of it is the fact that she's being raised by a single father who doesn't exactly cook. (microwave is NOT cooking!) and part of this is emotional overeating.
Now I know ALL about the later. I have been trying "fill the void" my parents left with food since I was 7 years old.
So Ed puts a lock on the refridgerator and the pantry whenever Morgan is home alone. I don't agree with this. But, I understand why he does it. She can't be trusted when she's home alone. It's sad, she's not very trustworthy at all. Part of it is being 13 I think. (God she reminds me of me!!) She lies about doing homework, she lies about doing her chores, and she lies about what she eats.
Now he doesn't let her starve. He leaves a snack out on the counter for her when she gets home, and he packs her a big lunch with snacks for her to have at school as well.
Morgan has been seeing a therapist every other week for about a year now. (she went to therapy when she was little, then stopped, then started going back when Ed discovered that she was stealing food and hiding it in her room.) For the most part Ed does not know what she talks to the therapist about. I've told him that he probably needs to see the therapist on his own (for more than 5 minutes at the end of Morgan's session) to really sit down and hash out what is going on Morgan's mind.
Last night was particularly bad. They had come back from lunch with Ed's parents (something they do every other week). And Ed found 2 brand new boxes of cereal that Morgan had eaten. Now I don't think she ate 2 boxes in one sitting (it was over the course of week.) Morgan was promptly grounded, and she got salad and veggies for dinner. (cause I wasn't going to her go to bed hungry, I just think that makes things worse.)
So the question. (FINALLY!!) for those of you with teenage kids or step-kids. How do you deal with untrustworthyness? I know it's not really my place, but Morgan trusts me. I think she realizes I'm just trying to make BOTH of them happy. She does things when I ask her to do them, and she's usually pretty good about not giving me a hard time about it. Granted I don't yell at her to do things, and I try to get her Dad to not yell at her so much. (Cause I don't see the point in yelling).
I have a daughter and a stepson. Therapy helps A LOT if there are trust issues. But everyone needs to be participating. My daughter is almost 11 and stepson is 13, some of the lying is just the age. They are going to push boundaries.
IMHO, locking the fridge and such isn't going to help. It becomes a power struggle and compounds the issues at hand. Instead of locking everything up, only keep healthy foods in the house. Works for me, if the junk is not there I can't eat it.
Oh wow. She is going to have some serious issues. Bless her sweet heart. Why not keep ONLY super healthy choices in the fridge and pantry so "Ed" isn't overeating them either? If he is heavy, surely he understands the struggle. I hate to say it but what he is doing to her--yeah, it will only make the issue worse!
Oh, I guess I should somehow tie my response to your question. Trust cannot be established by forcing someone into their decision. Maybe she and Ed could decide to get healthier together! Maybe shopping trips to the market and spending time together doing some activity they really enjoy. It sounds like she needs attention and plenty of it.
Last edited by Thighs Be Gone; 01-24-2010 at 08:09 PM.
I hope i'm not overstepping any boundaries here, because I do not have any teenangers/pre-teens. But, at 19 years old I can too easily remember how I was at 13 and let me start by telling you this: I feel your pain, and Morgan's too! My advice/insight can only come from experience, and perhaps it will be worth something because if you can't hear it from Morgan, maybe hearing it from someone who was the exact same could help.
First off, I think that locking up the fridge and cabinets is a WONDERFUL idea. I only wish someone would have done the same for me. However, at 13, you can't understand the reasons and love behind such a harsh action. Instead, as Canfield suggested, simply don't bring the stuff into the house you don't want her to eat! Also, if she's bound and determined, a simple lock will not stop her. Practicing good habits while everyone is home is essential. For instance, at my house, we no longer do anything in the kitchen, on weekdays, after 7:00pm, with the exception of getting water to drink. No eating, no snacking, no nothing. Now, it's true that some people get home later than 7, and yes, there are times the rule will get broken, but if you start training yourselves, and Morgan, that the Kitchen is off limits during certain times, eventually, it won't even be a thought!
At 13, you need something to do. You are restless and need to be given or have the means to find something to occupy your time. If eating is her occupier, then find her something else. A sport, an instrument to play, an art or something she's always wanted to learn how to do. Food is a filler... a time filler, a void filler, an anything-filler. For children especially, it only needs to be replaced!
On to trustworthyness... the simple answer is this: you cannot trust someone who cannot be trusted. You may love her, care about her, respect her and look out for her, but you may not be able to trust her. The good news? She's 13! Such a crazy age. You're a teenager, your body is changing, you're trying to find your place in the world. Your hormones are going crazy and you're generally annoyed with a lot of things... lying comes with that sometimes. Another good thing? At 13, there isn't much you can really hide without getting caught (for example, "did you eat the cereal? No? Then why is it gone and why are their two empty boxes in your room?"). You don't have a car, you don't have a job, and you don't own a thing (as much as it sucks for a teen, parents can search a room as much as they like, it's theirs!). Being reminded of that is humbling and can make you angry, but perhaps this is something that is neccessary. As someone she trusts, if I were you, i'd have a straight forward talk. Let her know that you care about her and want to trust her. Tell her you're making changes in your own life and invite her to become a part of that. Once she sees that you have many of the same problems that she does, she'll feel like she has less to hide. After all, the reason she is lying is because she is ashamed, because she knows she is in the wrong. If she understands that she's not alone, she will be much more willing to comply with a new lifestyle.
I think locking the fridge is a bad, bad idea. I don't feel comfortable getting into all the reasons I think it's a bad idea here except to say that teenagers in particular want exactly what they cannot have. If she can't get it from the fridge, she will get it somehow, so I don't believe it's any kind of deterrent.
Not to mention I would feel so humiliated if I were her
To be honest, my dad did this to me as a kid, and it made me sneak food even more, which seems to be what Morgan is doing. My dad locked up everything and it was horrible...I also tended to eat things that were horrible for me (ice cream, cake, etc. etc.). I think Morgan may be trying to control the only thing she has control of...what she puts in her mouth. I think therapy is best for her and perhaps you could ask the therapist what you can do. It seems that she has an emotional connection to food and it should be addressed before she becomes overweight.
I think locking up food is a really, really bad idea. I'm guessing that if she isn't talking about it in therapy now, it will be the subject when she's grown.
I agree with most of you about the lock on the fridge. It PISSES me off!
It's also a pain in the *** having to wait until Ed comes home to start making dinner (or I have to bring stuff from my house). If I were living with them this wouldn't be an issue. First off there would be healthy food in the house, and Morgan wouldn't be home alone in the afternoons.
As for the healthy food. A lot of it I THINK is money. He's a single parent of a teenager with a mortgage in Los Angeles. He makes a decent living. But he's on a very tight budget and only buys stuff that he can get on sale or with a coupon, which rarely includes fresh fruits and veggies. He also doesn't really cook... I don't think he can... (or at least not much). Which is why I try to cook them at least 2 healthy well-balanced meals a week, and I TRY to make enough that they have leftovers to last at least until lunch the next day.
Except in very rare circumstances (Prader-Willi syndrome or severe bulimia), locking up the food is a very bad idea.
I KNOW from personal experience that restricting a childs access to food makes food only that much more an obsession. I learned at 5 how to sneak food so that it wouldn't be noticed. I learned how to use my allowance on food, and eat it when my parents wouldn't see. I learned how to trade good food for crap in the cafeteria.
And being punished with food restriction, that disturbs me greatly. Only salad and veggies is not an appropriate dinner for a growing child. Gosh, this is bringing very painful memories to the surface, and I can't tell you how detrimental such experiences were to me as a child. It's very hard for me to forgive my parents for some of this stuff, even though I'm 44, and understand they were trying to do what they thought was right. It doesn't take a way the pain of being treated as a criminal for being hungry.
I can still vividly remember every one of my parents attempts at controlling my eating, and I even though I know they were doing what they thought best, it still hurts like a dagger in my heart.
The more they tried to control my eating, the hungrier I felt, the more desperate, loney, and unloved I felt. Watching my underweight brother encouraged to eat more, while every mouthful I ate was counted, I still feel the intensity of the resentment I felt to this day. If they had actually locked up the food, I would have felt like even more of a criminal (which I already felt - everytime I felt the urge to eat anything I knew I was "being bad").
Sending the child to the therapist for solo sessions, without regular group session as well with the adult family members, tells the child that they are broken, and the adults in their life want them fixed (especially if they've never seen or heard of the adults in their lives going to a therapist themselves). It's generally a terrible message to send. Family counseling is better at addressing the problems in the family without assigning all of the blame and all of the responsibility onto the child's shoulders.
Yes, I know my opinions are rather passionate on the subject. I believe in the value of counseling (or I wouldn't have gotten a graduate degree in developmental psychology), and not just to "fix" broken people. The intense pain of my own experiences does prevent me from being objective on the matter, but at the very least, I think it's important for the adults to seek some professional assistance on this. I'd recommend not just a family counselor, but a dietitian with experience in children's developmental nutrition.
My baby is only a year old, so Im not dealing with trust issues with her yet. But I tend to agree that locking the cabinets and fridge isnt the solution. 20-30 pds overweight, while not the healthiest, does not exactly put her at morbid obese either. I dont think her weight is enough of a concern to resort to locking hte food.
Yelling at her when she does eat extra is probably also not helping the problem.. she feels a need to sneak and hide food. I also dont agree with punishing her by providing inadequate meals. She's still growing and needs some protiens and fats.. a dinner of salad and veggies only was abit harsh.
I think it may be better to just keep plenty of "free" foods around that she CAN snack on, like fruits and veggies.. and maybe keep a small selection of other foods when she is there. For example get one small box of healthy cereal.. let her know its there to snack on, but she has to make that one box last her the week.. she may learn to limit and control how much she eats better if she's given the chance to do so.
Locking the food away is causing a control issue, I think. She's becoming a young adult and needs to be given some chance to be independant, but still needs guidance. You can help guide her by providing lots of healthy things to eat, and limiting how much junk food is in the house.
Kids also learn much by example, maybe take her grocery shopping and have her help pick out some healthy snacks to munch on during the week. Point out some of your favorite healthy snacks.
Last edited by fighting hungry; 01-26-2010 at 10:52 PM.
I talked to Ed about this tonight, a little bit. And got more of the situation. Aside from the fact that she will make really BAD choices, she'll also binge on just about anything. She'll eat hamburger helper straight from the box, or lipton soup mix with just water (which is like liquid salt).
The therapist says that she has triggers that set off these binges, but if she's anything like me at 13, than breathing is a trigger.
the fact that she will binge on anything.. including uncooked pasta from a box does indicate abit of a problem. Perhaps talk to the therapist on some better reccomendations of how to deal with this at home.
I wouldnt completely restrict snacks/meals tho.. she is still growing, and needs more calories and fats than an adult, expecially now as she's hitting puberty and having growth spurts. I ate quite a bit more as a teen than I do as an adult and did not gain weight.. even tho I was not an active teen. A growing body just needs more to grow.
Do your best to keep healthy snacks available that she can snack on in the meantime. I do still think a trip to the grocery store to help her select healthy snacks is good too.
It wouldnt be a bad idea to try to get her involved in some activity, if she's not already invovled in something. If she's busy it may help take her mind off food and binging. Show an interest in things she likes to do and encourage her. I remember my teenage cousin who would eat the oddest things (bacon bit and butter sandwhiches anyone?), she often ate simply because she was just bored. Her mom showed little interest in getting her invovled in activities. When she had things to do, she tended to binge a little less at home. Maybe if someone shows some focus on something other than her eating habits, that may help.
Last edited by fighting hungry; 01-27-2010 at 07:15 PM.
an "activity" doesnt necessarily have to be a sport or something that invovleds physical activity either.. it could be something as simple as art, books, singing, etc. whatever she has an interest in doing.
Sounds like a difficult situation. I defiantly think locking the fridge isnt going to help. My stepdad likes cookies and he didnt have a weight issue because he didnt eat the whole box..however once i found out we had cookies they were gone! so my parents started hiding food from me which made me m ore upset so id eat what we had and then id go searching all over till i found them and eat them too out of spite. I agree with switching to healthy snacks. If her only options are carrot sticks and celery shes not gonna wanna eat tons and tons of that (unless she really enjoys them!) How active is she? maybe yous could take family walks at night time. Could help with bonding but also with exercise. She is coming up on her teen years and she is eventually gonna wanna lose that weight. I think if she had someone willing to do it along with her that may help. I wish my mom would have gone walking with me or anything like that when I was younger.
Kids and Overeating...
