A Spoon For Dad, A Spoon For Mom. About Food Violence

Video: A Spoon For Dad, A Spoon For Mom. About Food Violence

Video: A Spoon For Dad, A Spoon For Mom. About Food Violence
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A Spoon For Dad, A Spoon For Mom. About Food Violence
A Spoon For Dad, A Spoon For Mom. About Food Violence
Anonim

At the reception, a family of three: dad, mom and six-year-old son. The essence of the request: in kindergarten, the child is forced to eat everything that is given. The boy has already vomited several times. And parents are at a loss, cannot decide whom to support: their child or their teacher. They are driven by concern for their son, the child does not eat everything at home, what if he lacks some necessary substances? And the educator seems to be an authoritative figure.

Another family: a mother and, again, a six-year-old son. The family is incomplete, but there are grandparents. Situation: my mother works a lot and quite often she has to turn to her grandparents for help: to be taken from the kindergarten, sometimes they let her go on weekends on personal matters. And the grandmother uses food as a punishment. If a child does not obey and does not fulfill any requirements, he is fed with what he does not want to eat and in quantities that he cannot consume. And mom … mom internally supports her son. But: "I cannot tell her anything, I cannot go into conflict with her, she will refuse to take the child, and I have no other choice, I depend on them (grandparents) in this." So, in his heart he supports his son, but outwardly he does not protect him, because "his hands are tied."

Third family: mom, dad and daughter. They came because: “My daughter doesn’t eat anything, we were tortured to feed her. Every meal is a fight."

All three situations, as you understand, are about food violence. And ranked by severity: it is difficult for a child to resist authority figures who demand that they eat. And if in the first case the figure is authoritative (educator), but, in principle, a stranger, and it is somewhat easier for a stranger to fight back, then in the second and third child it is many times more difficult - an authoritative figure within the family.

The consequences for a growing person, in my opinion, are terrifying:

- the process of forming the boundaries of the child's self becomes difficult, or the child loses the idea of where his boundaries are;

- sometimes the child manages to maintain an inner understanding of where his boundaries are, but he loses the ability to actively protect them;

- the child loses contact with himself, instead of better and better differentiating his desires and needs, his "want and do not want", the child ceases to understand what he wants, ceases to hear and distinguish his own needs.

As adults, we will see different consequences of childhood food abuse.

This can be a person with uncontrolled food intake, and, consequently, obesity and endless struggle with weight. A person does not feel when he is full. Or he feels, but cannot stop, because the mechanism of self-violence has been activated and entrenched. The man has grown up and is now forcibly feeding himself.

It may be a person whose refusal to eat has become almost total - anorexia nervosa has developed. And the person, in fact, dies, but does not eat.

This can be a person whose rights are constantly infringed upon by others, and in more severe cases, they show more serious types of violence towards him. A person does not know how to defend himself, but he “knows how” to provoke others to violence.

It may be a person who is not able to make decisions on his own, is waiting for someone else to make a decision for him, or when the situation itself will somehow be resolved.

It may be a person who is not able to understand what he wants in life. He is constantly in painful attempts to understand, grasp, grasp his own desires. And in the end he comes to a psychologist with a request: “I don’t understand what I want. I can't hear myself at all. A man has grown up who has lost touch with his needs.

It would seem that what is simpler: he described the possible consequences to the parents and gave direct and simple recommendations: "Do not force-feed the child." In the first case, support the child, not the teacher. In the second case, look for a way to negotiate with your grandmother. In the third case, it is elementary to let the child get hungry and receive after a while: "Mom, I want to eat!"

In fact, people rarely accept direct recommendations. Therefore, in my work I often “go around”, “remove” the child from the focus of attention and “place” in the focus of attention of the parents themselves. I start exploring their own eating habits with my parents. What do they like, what do they dislike? When and how much do they eat themselves? What do they eat? Why do they eat: because it is tasty or because it is healthy? How are groceries purchased in the family: at the discretion of one person or taking into account the wishes of the whole family? Everyone should eat what is cooked, or are each parental couple free to eat something of their own? How did these habits develop? How do the adults sitting in front of me now relate to this state of affairs with their own nutrition? What will they do in conflict social situations? For example, you came to visit, and there one of the dishes is disgusting? Will they eat it through force, lie about allergies or refuse outright ("I don't like stewed zucchini")? How tolerant are people with other food addictions (vegetarians, for example)?

Often in the process of such self-examination, parents find the answer to the question they came with. For example, if both parents understand that they themselves eat what they want, and at a party they are unlikely to eat unpleasant food by force, the question of whom to support, the teacher or the son, disappears by itself.

Sometimes parents start remembering their own childhood relationship with food and make discoveries about themselves. “It turns out that I demand soup from my wife every day, not because I love soup, but because in my childhood I learned that it’s right to eat like that!” Sometimes it is possible in oneself, feeding a dodging child from a spoon, to recognize one's own parent many years ago, and to think, is it worth repeating the scenario further?

How do you work with such requests?

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