S/O ARFID support and help

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do others do at birthday parties and family functions? Having an Arfid eater goes against everything you want your child to be like — ie serving them only what they can eat.

Trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here that you didn’t mean for this to be as incredibly rude as it is. I behave exactly li would if my child had a different medical condition that affected their food intake. I pack them alternative food and have taught them how to politely decline any food they do not wish to eat.
When my child was at the height of their struggles and throwing up at the sight of certain foods we did have to decline some invitations or occasionally have our child leave the room for periods of time.

FWIW my child with ARFID is amazing and has worked harder to overcome their challenges than most people will ever understand. I no longer GAF if people judge me for “allowing” them to be a picky eater but I do try and shut down people who give them a hard time because it 1) wrong and 2) 100 percent counterproductive in encouraging their eating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do others do at birthday parties and family functions? Having an Arfid eater goes against everything you want your child to be like — ie serving them only what they can eat.

Trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here that you didn’t mean for this to be as incredibly rude as it is. I behave exactly li would if my child had a different medical condition that affected their food intake. I pack them alternative food and have taught them how to politely decline any food they do not wish to eat.
When my child was at the height of their struggles and throwing up at the sight of certain foods we did have to decline some invitations or occasionally have our child leave the room for periods of time.

FWIW my child with ARFID is amazing and has worked harder to overcome their challenges than most people will ever understand. I no longer GAF if people judge me for “allowing” them to be a picky eater but I do try and shut down people who give them a hard time because it 1) wrong and 2) 100 percent counterproductive in encouraging their eating.

Amen, sister!

[Anonymous]

If it’s a family event I usually just check to see if there’s something they will eat or offer to bring something. (Mine likes pasta salad so that’s an easy one to bring. She also eats a lot of cheese and rolls so if there’s a cheese tray out and there will be white bread/rolls served with dinner, we can get by on that.).

Asian restaurants are the hardest for her which is challenging because that’s always a popular pick among teens. There are some “borderline” foods she’ll eat (or at least pick at) with friends but probably wouldn’t eat with us — lo mein, vegetable tempura, and (weirdly) crab Rangoon.

[Anonymous]

We worked with https://www.drdaisy.com/pickyeating-selectiveeating-arfid for similar eating issues (though not quite meeting a diagnosis of ARFID yet) and they were absolutely wonderful and supportive. The specific dietician we worked with is no longer there but she recommended all her colleagues wholeheartedly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do others do at birthday parties and family functions? Having an Arfid eater goes against everything you want your child to be like — ie serving them only what they can eat.

So I struggle with this in theory (that I am only feeding my child what they want to eat) but the reality is that my child is severely underweight and I will feed them (and beg them to eat) anything they are willing to eat. I have no problems feeding my child pasta, chocolate bars, ice cream, or cake for any meal at all.

Of course, because my child has ARFID, they only eat one brand or flavor of these treats so they rarely eat cake or ice cream or anything at a birthday party, so eating socially is a challenge.

My child is fine to skip meals though (unfortunately), and they have learned to get something on their plate and push it around. Birthday parties are fine, but DC will get hangry if they miss dinner, so I usually pack something I know they will eat.

I’m the PP whose child added white rice and hamburger these past two years. Food goals recently are actually oriented to being able to eat high calorie foods outside our home. Hamburgers are huge because usually bread + meat (nothing on the burger) is fairly consistent no matter where you get it. DC has also been working for 2 years on eating plain pasta outside the home, and only willing to eat it about 30% of the time. Grilled cheese and chicken nuggets almost never outside our home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We worked with https://www.drdaisy.com/pickyeating-selectiveeating-arfid for similar eating issues (though not quite meeting a diagnosis of ARFID yet) and they were absolutely wonderful and supportive. The specific dietician we worked with is no longer there but she recommended all her colleagues wholeheartedly.

Had been eyeing that office! Anything with their approach that is unique? So many others say progress is hard for this issue.

[Anonymous]

I'm wondering if anyone has tried OCD meds with their ARFID kid. Is that a thing? My kid's food aversions are deeply rooted in anxiety about throwing up or choking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We worked with https://www.drdaisy.com/pickyeating-selectiveeating-arfid for similar eating issues (though not quite meeting a diagnosis of ARFID yet) and they were absolutely wonderful and supportive. The specific dietician we worked with is no longer there but she recommended all her colleagues wholeheartedly.

Had been eyeing that office! Anything with their approach that is unique? So many others say progress is hard for this issue.

I haven't worked with any other dieticians to compare, and I only consulted with them 3 times and my kid never worked with them directly - but I was *so* worried going in that they would be judgy/condescending about his existing diet/lifestyle and/or make recommendations that weren't realistic (like another person mentioned, a body image approach or ABA tactics would likely have made things worse), but that was not the case at all. Our immediate concern was that he had started to *lose* weight (only a little, but concerning at 12yo) due to his somewhat selective eating which in turn came from other severe stress/mental health issues he was dealing with. The dietician was able to point us in the right direction to increase caloric intake and balance fats/proteins/carbs without worsening everything else, got us on a multivitamin to cover any missing micronutrients, and reassured me that he would be okay even if he only ate 3 bowls of Lucky Charms and a protein shake every day for a while. At that point, any food was better than no food - but it is *really* hard to internalize that with all of the other cultural messaging around food and healthism and what constitutes "good" parenting these days. We have not been in a position to tackle the selective eating directly yet, as the other issues are still stabilizing, but I will absolutely go back to them for more help if/when we are ready for it.

[Anonymous]

Just a parent with a kid who has other struggles but not ARFID and just wanted to say that you all sound like fantastic parents and this sounds REALLY hard. Your kids are so lucky to have you!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do others do at birthday parties and family functions? Having an Arfid eater goes against everything you want your child to be like — ie serving them only what they can eat.

My kid is now a young adult. But when he was little I always packed food for him if we were going to be at an event for any long period of time. For things like birthday parties that are only a few hours, I didn’t bother. Getting him to eat anything was such a struggle, just being around him when we tried to get him to eat sucked the life right out of the room. I never wanted to ruin anyone else’s time by trying to give my kid food.

One of the long term effects has been that I lost my own enjoyment for food. Now that my kids are mostly grown, I’m trying to reignite my joy for cooking and making different foods.