Click here to send us a topic idea or question for Weekend Wisdom.
Question: My foster child only likes junk food and will not eat anything that doesn’t come out of a box. We aren’t fanatics, but we try to eat pretty healthily. I don’t want to feed the rest of my family the boxed junk, and I don’t want to feed him separate stuff. Help!
Resources:
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Support the Show.
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Welcome to Weekend Wisdom by Creating a Family. I'm Dawn Davenport and today, actually always on our Weekend Wisdoms, our job is to answer your questions.
To do that we need you to send your questions to us so send them to info @creatingathamily .org. Today we're going to be answering a question about a foster child who only eats junk food.
All right, here's the question. My foster child only likes junk food and will not eat anything that doesn't come out of a box. box. We aren't fanatics, but we try to eat pretty healthy. I don't want to feed the rest of my family the box junk and I don't want to feed him separate stuff.
Help. All right. First, it's wonderful that you're trying to accommodate your foster child to help him feel part of the family. There is likely, keeping in mind, to be a transition period as he learns to feel more comfortable and has the opportunity to learn about foods that you eat that he hasn't been exposed to.
to. You should assume that children, even children in bigger bodies who have been in foster care have experienced food insecurity, meaning that they didn't have reliable access to enough food.
This contributes to the pickiness, anxiety around food and makes them more likely to want to rely on familiar foods. There may also be some sensory challenges that make certain textures more difficult.
difficult or there could be emotional associations with different foods. The foods that you're calling junk foods, that's what they've been eating all their life. It's what's familiar and it's what they've learned to like. So you need to look at yourself first because your attitude about food does matter.
These are familiar foods that have nourished him so far and are linked with his family in his past. So try using more neutral descriptions such as packaged. or fast foods rather than junk or crap.
There is likely already some shame around those foods. And ironically, when we accept a young person or a child as they are and how they eat, there is likely to be far less pushback or resistance just for the sake of opposition because that is part of it.
Let's be honest. So children and teens will be more likely to learn to like the foods, the family. It's if they feel respected and involved. to explore at their own pace. If there is a lot of pressure,
nutrition, lecturing, or conflict over foods, they are likely to dig in their heels and to eat less well. Now to specifically answer your question, serve some of the pre -packaged foods that he is familiar with while he learns to eat new foods.
Try to have one thing at each meal time that he can fill up on. So you serve it family style. and allow everyone to put their own food on their own plate and everyone has access to all the food.
For example, you might be serving chicken and broccoli. You'll serve a side of the pre -packaged rice mix that he likes or maybe a bread that he likes. If he perverts, say,
boxed mashed potatoes rather than homemade, you can make a small bowl of the packaged mashed potatoes, put it in the middle of the table with all the the other food, or on the kitchen counter and when everybody is going by,
all foods are presented in the same way and everybody can have some. And here's a tip. Look for condiments, toppings, I'm talking about you, ketchup, that he can add to your family food to make them more familiar.
You know, hot sauce, ketchup, whatever is favorites at the table, have them at the table at all meals and snacks. You could think of the sauces or ketchup or whatever as training them. Thank you. wheels to help him learn to acclimate to more nutritious food.
If your family enjoys mostly cooked from scratch food, the packaged foods will be a novelty at first, and your other children may seem to eat a lot and enjoy them at the beginning, but they will likely tire of them and go back to preferring the foods that they are used to.
I know how hard that is. I truly do, but everybody reverts back to what is familiar. And chances are, they will revert back as well. Everybody will probably do just fine, honestly,
if they have some packaged foods added to the mix, if that helps alleviate some of your anxiety. All right, I hope this has helped. Before you leave, I want to remind everyone that you can send your questions to be answered here on the Weekend Wisdom to info @creatingathamily .org.
.org. Thanks for listening to this week's Week in Wisdom. If you liked it, please tell a friend to subscribe and see you next week.
